Movie · 1976 · Comedy, Crime · 1h 43m · PG · English
Curator score: 5.0/10 (54.8K ratings)
Why are the world's chief assassins after Inspector Clouseau? Why not? Everybody else is.
Overview
Charles Dreyfus, who has finally cracked over inspector Clouseau's antics, escapes from a mental institution and launches an elaborate plan to get rid of Clouseau once and for all.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.0/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Letterboxd: 3.54/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 73%
Metacritic: 60
TMDB: 6.9/10
Director
Blake Edwards
Production
Amjo Productions, United Artists
Cast
Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Leonard Rossiter, Colin Blakely, Graham Stark, Byron Kane, Dick Crockett, Richard Vernon, Briony McRoberts, Burt Kwouk, André Maranne, Vanda Godsell, Geoffrey Bayldon, Patsy Smart, Tony Sympson, Norman Mitchell, Michael Robbins, Lesley-Anne Down, Dudley Sutton, Murray Kash
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A very funny, highly physical slapstick crime comedy that pushes Clouseau into near-cartoon territory. It’s less elegant than the best entries in the series, but the escalation, Herbert Lom’s exasperated villainy, and the sheer density of gags make it a strong watch for comedy fans.
Best for
fans of slapstick and physical comedy
viewers who like absurdist crime capers
people open to broad, old-school studio comedy
fans of Peter Sellers-era comedy
Skip if
you prefer tightly plotted mysteries
you dislike broad farce or repeated humiliation gags
you want subtle character comedy
you need modern pacing or contemporary humor
Overview
The Pink Panther Strikes Again is the franchise at its most manic and least restrained. Blake Edwards leans hard into escalation: a revenge plot that starts as institutional breakdown and mutates into a gleefully ridiculous supervillain scheme, all so Clouseau can stumble through it like a force of nature. The result is less polished than A Shot in the Dark, but often funnier in sheer volume and audacity.
Worth noting
Peter Sellers plays Clouseau with immaculate control, which is exactly why the chaos lands. The film understands that the joke is not just incompetence, but the stubborn dignity with which he marches into disaster. Herbert Lom is also a huge part of the appeal, turning Dreyfus into one of comedy’s great straight men, then letting the role spiral into operatic madness.
Bottom line
This is a movie for viewers who enjoy slapstick that keeps compounding on itself, with set pieces that feel engineered to collapse in increasingly absurd ways. If you want a sleek detective story, look elsewhere; if you want a live-action cartoon with real comic timing, it’s one of the series’ most rewarding entries.
Top Letterboxd reviews
theriverjordan (4★) · 181 likes
“The Pink Panther Strikes Again” is the case of a kitty that has been: spayed, neutered, and utterly declawed.
But - nobody told that kitty that. So - she’s going to OD on catnip and try to scratch the surface off the sofa anyway.
Originally envisioned by director Blake Edwards to be a Closeau-centric “Great Race”-style globetrotting epic, “Again” was instead put on a diet of lean tuna; trimmed down to a petite hour and forty minutes.
What remains feels… more
Matthew Noble (4★) · 166 likes
"There is a beautiful woman in my bed and a dead man in my bath."
At this point in my re-watch of the Pink Panther movies, I can safely state that A Shot in the Dark is the finest, smoothest, most consistent entry in the franchise. Having said that, The Pink Panther Strikes Again comes an extremely close second. It's absolutely hilarious from start to finish, and contains some of my favourite gags of the entire series: namely the asylum… more
C B (3★) · 139 likes
So, we have a main villain who, 'using his knowledge of the underworld, enlists the help of an army of vicious criminals', kidnaps a nuclear physicist, forces him to build a 'doomsday weapon' and interrupts a football game to broadcast his masterplan to the world.
Now, I was happy enough knowing that The Dark Knight Rises shared some similar themes with Rocky III, but realising that it has same plot as a Pink Panther film has really taken the shine off it.
Will Sloan · 115 likes
A movie that tells the truth about the French.
Mister Cap (4★) · 77 likes
ENGLISH VERSION below
"The Pink Panther Strikes Again" aus dem Jahr 1976 ist ohne Zweifel einer der besten Teile der gesamten Reihe und mein absoluter Favorit. In den letzten Wochen habe ich mir alle Filme erneut angesehen und werde in Kürze auch Reviews zu den anderen Teilen schreiben, um meine Erinnerungen frisch zu halten. So weiß ich auch noch morgen, welchen Teil ich nun mag und welchen nicht.
Fangen wir gleich mit dem Highlight dieses Films und der gesamten Pink-Panther-Reihe… more