The Burglars (1971)

          Enjoyably vapid French/Italian heist thriller The Burglars features a typically random assortment of international actors, though unlike many similar pictures that flowed from the continent throughout the ’60s and ’70s with off-putting dubbed soundtracks, this one can be enjoyed by American viewers with original English-language dialogue because the producers simultaneously shot scenes in English and French. Combined with lavish production values, plentiful comic elements, and zippy chase scenes, the English-language soundtrack ensures The Burglars is a smooth ride. Given the genre to which it belongs, perhaps it goes without saying that The Burglars isn’t about anything, so the experience is colorful, distracting, and forgettable—exactly as it was meant to be.
          Set in Greece, the picture begins with a home invasion during which a crew of professional thieves subdues a victim, cracks his safe, and steals a cache of emeralds. The main hook of this scene is an elaborate electronic system used by protagonist Azad (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to open the safe; director Henri Verneuil films the scene so clinically that it feels like a tutorial. During the robbery, wily cop Zacharia (Omar Sharif) briefly encounters Azad, so once Zacharia learns what happened, he tracks down Azad with the intention of grabbing the emeralds for himself. Notwithstanding Azad’s romantic entanglements with two different women, a French criminal (Nicole Calfan) and an American model (Dyan Cannon), most of the movie comprises Zacharia chasing and/or confronting Azad, so The Burglars is largely a Mediterranean mano-a-mano movie.
          Since the narrative is slight, what makes The Burglars watchable is style. There are two intricate chases, both staged by the team that did similar work for The Italian Job (1969), and the chases give equal focus to jokes and stunts. Typical gag: a car passes a group of nuns and the wind created by the car’s motion blows out the candles the nuns are holding. It’s worth noting that star Belmondo does a few outrageous stunts, such as hanging onto the sides of moving vehicles and tumbling down an enormous hill. Adding to the picture’s candy-coated veneer are lots of gloriously tacky sets and periodic intervals of jaunty music by Ennio Morricone.
          Though one generally doesn’t gravitate to this sort of movie for the acting, Belmondo’s casual cool suits the material well—notwithstanding that his character’s treatment of women is atrocious. Revealing another flaw common to the genre, Calfan and Cannon serve largely decorative functions. Yet heist thrillers are only as good as their villains, and Sharif’s haughtiness is employed to good effect—whether he’s rhapsodizing about Greek food or warning victims that drunkenness impairs his aim, Sharif presents a delightfully self-satisfied type of odiousness.

The Burglars: GROOVY

1980 Week: Coast to Coast

Throughout Coast to Coast, trucker Charlie Callahan (Robert Blake) drives a big-big cattlecar loaded with cows and steers, so remarks about this movie being a load of bullshit are wholly appropriate. Among the least charming romantic comedies ever made, the film tracks the adventures of Madie Levrington (Dyan Cannon), a high-strung woman who stumbles into a relationship with Charlie. Every note of their interaction is false, from the way he initially berates a woman who’s plainly experiencing an emotional crisis to the way they form an opposites-attract bond. And while the picture mindlessly follows the rom-com playbook, writer Stanley Weiser forgets to create the important third prong of a romantic triangle. Instead, Charlie and Madie face a number of one-dimensional villains, notably Madie’s vile husband, Benjamin (Quinn K. Redeker). In a prologue, he commits her to a mental institution as a means of circumventing expensive divorce proceedings, though much of what happens afterwards suggests she might actually be unhinged. Madie escapes the hospital and hitches rides with folks including Charlie, whom she offers to pay for cross-country transport. Since he’s badly in debt, with a repo man hot on his tail, Charlie accepts the offer and, later, considers turning Madie over to goons in Benjamin’s employ so he can collect a cash reward. Notwithstanding dumb car chases and physical-comedy scenes, most of this picture’s first hour comprises ugly vignettes of Blake and Cannon screaming at each other. The final half-hour, during which they connect, break up, and reconcile, is only marginally less irritating. Blake’s characterization is witless (his character’s catchphrase: “Oh, shit!”), and Cannon runs the gamut from hyper to shrill to vapid. Even with lively country-rock tunes by folks including Rita Coolidge, Johnny Lee, Bonnie Raitt powering the soundtrack, Coast to Coast is a road movie driving on stripped gears.

Coast to Coast: LAME

1980 Week: Honeysuckle Rose

          After displaying a naturalistic screen presence in his movie debut, Sydney Pollack’s romantic drama The Electric Horseman (1978), country singer Willie Nelson was given a custom-made leading role in another romantic drama, Honeysuckle Rose, which Pollack produced but did not direct. Once again, Nelson proved he was comfortable on camera, though the role of an easygoing, pot-smoking troubadour did not require him to stretch. The film surrounding Nelson is so frustrating that the best thing to come out of this project was a classic song. “On the Road Again” became a huge crossover hit, earning a Grammy award and an Oscar nomination. Some scenes in Honeysuckle Rose capture the joy of that tune, but those bits are almost always tangential to the main plot, which is trite and unseemly. The movie also suffers for the questionable casting of its two major female roles.

          Nelson plays Buck Bonham, a longhaired Texas singer-songwriter on the verge of achieving national stardom after years of being a regional favorite. (Sound familiar?) Buck is married to sexy blonde Viv (Dyan Cannon), a former singer who gave up life on the road to raise Jamie (Joey Floyd), her son with Buck. Now firmly entrenched in middle age, she’s lost her patience with Buck’s endless declarations that “one of these days” he’ll slow down his touring to spend more time on the Bonham’s sprawling Texas ranch. When Buck’s longtime guitarist, Garland Ramsey (Slim Pickens), announces his retirement, Buck scrambles for a replacement, and Viv unwisely suggests that Buck hire Garland’s seductive 22-year-old daughter, Lily (Amy Irving). To absolutely no one’s surprise, Buck and Lily become lovers on the road, causing friction in the Bonham marriage and damaging Buck’s friendship with Garland.

          There are maybe 80 minutes of real story in Honeysuckle Rose, but the movie drags on for a full two hours. The bloat stems partially from extended performance scenes, but also from such discursions as an endless family-reunion scene and snippets of life on a tour bus. Director Jerry Schtazberg shoots all this stuff beautifully, applying a photographer’s keen eye to scenes that feel casual and spontaneous, but he can’t muster similar creativity for romantic scenes. Nelson’s low-key vibe creates an inherent energy deficiency, and the fact that neither Cannon nor Irving seem remotely believable as Texans introduces falseness into a movie that otherwise boasts plentiful authenticity. Nonetheless, Honeysuckle Rose has its pleasures. Emmylou Harris shows up to sing a number with Nelson, and it’s a treat to see Pickens playing a straight dramatic character. The scenes in which he and Nelson simulate drunken revels are particularly enjoyable.

Honeysuckle Rose: FUNKY

Virginia Hill (1974)

          Here’s an odd cinematic footnote: Seventeen years before he played a supporting role in Bugsy (1991), the whip-smart drama about real-life gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Harvey Keitel starred as Siegel himself in a 1974 TV movie called Virginia Hill. In real life, Hill was Siegel’s girlfriend for several years. As the title suggests, Virginia Hill tells the Siegel story from his companion’s perspective, exploring how a small-town girl ended up with the violent criminal who invented Las Vegas but then doomed himself by spending too much of the Mob’s money. Cowritten and directed by costume designer-turned-filmmaker Joel Schumacher, Virginia Hill crams too much material into its scant 74-minute running time, and Dyan Cannon disappoints in the title role. Among other problems, Cannon seems so self-assured from her earliest scenes that it’s hard to accept the way Siegel dazzles Virginia. Keitel isn’t much help, since he’s robotic except during one scene in which an enraged Siegel physically assaults his lover. (Violent rage, always a Keitel specialty.)

          After the introduction of a Congressional hearing that provides the movie’s wraparound structure, Virginia Hill gets underway with flashbacks depicting Virginia’s adolescence, when her acceptance of favors from male suitors made her a social pariah. Fleeing to the big city alongside childhood friend Leroy (Robby Benson), for whom Virginia assumes responsibility, Virginia becomes involved with gangsters Leo Ritchie (Allen Garfield) and Nick Rubanos (John Vernon). After earning the criminals’ trust, Virginia is tasked with spying on Siegel. Eventually, Siegel and Virginia develop real feelings for each other, so she’s with him when he envisions Vegas—and when he seals his fate. In terms of plot and themes, this stuff should be dynamite (as it was in Bugsy), but Virginia Hill is unrelentingly pedestrian. Cannon plays the role too abrasively for viewers to develop empathy, and there’s zero chemistry between her and Keitel. As for Schumacher, he was still a ways from the stylish pulp of The Lost Boys (1987) and the crowd-pleasing histrionics of his blockbuster John Grisham adaptations. 

Virginia Hill: FUNKY

Doctors’ Wives (1971)

          Pure trash that’s bearable only because of the lurid storyline and the presence of many skilled actors, Doctors’ Wives is a melodrama about the problems of wealthy surgeons and their long-suffering spouses. Somewhat improbably, the movie revolves around a murderer’s elaborate scheme to escape police custody and flee to Europe. And if that makes you think that perhaps a thoughtful examination of the medical community is not the real goal of this movie, then congratulations, you’ve cracked the code. Even with two lengthy surgery scenes that integrate bloody documentary footage, this movie’s about the healing arts in the same way that the 1980s TV show Dynasty was about big business. The nominal milieu is nothing but an excuse for depicting people with too little compassion and too much money.

          The main characters are Dr. Brennan (Richard Crenna) and his estranged wife, Amy (Janice Rule); Dr. Gray (Carroll O’Connor) and his self-loathing wife, Maggie (Cara Williams); Dr. Randolph (Gene Hackman) and his embittered wife, Delia (Rachel Roberts); and Dr. Dellman (John Colicos). In the opening scene, Dr. Dellman’s horny wife, Lorrie (Dyan Cannon), announces her plan to sleep with all of the doctors in order to report back to the women on each man’s sexual failing. When Dr. Dellman catches Lorrie in bed with a surgeon, he shoots her dead, wounding the surgeon in the process. Dr. Dellman confesses and surrenders to the police, but then he contrives a plan. He uses dirty secrets to blackmail his fellow doctors for getaway money, and when he’s asked to perform emergency surgery on a boy who requires Dr. Dellman’s specialized services, Dr. Dellman makes arrangements to slip out of the hospital, avoiding the cops who are watching him. Also thrown into the mix is a tawdry subplot about Dr. Brennan’s extramarital affair with an African-American nurse, Helen (Diana Sands), as well as a separate subplot about a doctor’s wife stealing his meds in order to feed her appetite for morphine.

          Suffering from one-dimensional characterizations and trite dialogue, Doctors’ Wives is so generic that even the best actors in the cast operate, no pun intended, while handicapped by the material. O’Connor and Sands wring some pathos out of key scenes, but otherwise everyone is stuck delivering obvious lines amid predictable scenarios. At least the flmmakers keep things moving along quickly, so viewers never have to linger on any particular scene very long. It says a lot that Cannon, the liveliest actor in the cast seeing as how Hackman is hamstrung by the limitations of a small secondary role, disappears from the movie after the first 10 minutes. When a movie that’s largely about sex loses its principal sexpot early, that’s a sure sign of trouble.

Doctors’ Wives: FUNKY

The Love Machine (1971)

Lamenting the stupidity and trashiness of any movie derived from a book by Jacqueline Susann is redundant, since she and Harold Robbins were the titans of literary schlock during the ’60s and ’70s. Nonetheless, The Love Machine is hard to beat for sheer tackiness. Excepting such technical aspects as cinematography and editing, everything about the movie is embarrassingly bad. The acting is wooden, the dialogue is ridiculous, the plot twists are absurd, and the themes are sensationalistic. Even worse, because the storyline concerns a fast-rising TV executive whose proclivity for broadcasting junk is supposed to symbolize the triumph of the lowest common denominator, The Love Machine feels like an idiotic precursor to Network (1976). Clearly, the time was right for someone to make a sweeping statement about television, and Susann was not that person. John Phillip Law, the handsome but robotic actor who caught attention in Barbarella (1968), stars as Robin Stone, a beat reporter at the New York affiliate station of a fictional network. Judith Austin (Dyan Cannon), the trophy wife of the network’s aging owner, Gregory Austin (Robert Ryan), sees Robin on TV one night and falls in lust, so she convinces her husband to hire Robin. Inexplicably, Gregory grants Robin control over the whole news division. And when Gregory suffers a near-fatal heart attack, Judith uses her proxy powers to put Robin in charge of the entire network while Gregory recuperates. Meanwhile, Judith begins an affair with Robin, even though Robin’s also sleeping with a model named Amanda (Jodi Wexler), as well countless other women who succumb to his charms. This is pure jet-set fantasy, with the entire story predicated on Robin’s superhuman gifts for career advancement and sexual conquest. The movie is also a relic from an ugly time, because the subplot about fashion photographer Nelson (David Hemmings) is filled with clutch-the-pearls horror at the notion Nelson’s homosexual scheming might lure Robin into a gay tryst. Not one frame of The Love Machine feels authentic, and the entertainment value is painfully low. Only those craving a few so-bad-it’s-good snickers need investigate further.

The Love Machine: LAME

The Last of Sheila (1973)

          An oddity with a highbrow pedigree, this mystery/thriller boasts an eclectic cast of prominent actors and a labyrinthine plot that’s designed to be catnip for fans of games, puzzles, and riddles. Yet the most unique aspect of the film resides behind the camera: The Last of Sheila was written by actor Anthony Perkins and composer Stephen Sondheim, representing the only feature-film writing credit for either man. Apparently the two were longtime friends who entertained their showbiz pals by arranging flamboyant scavenger hunts, so The Last of Sheila plays out like a hybrid of an Agatha Christie whodunit and a treasure hunt. Describing all the intricacies of the storyline would spoil the fun, but the broad strokes are as follows.

          Movie producer Clinton (James Coburn) invites several Hollywood friends to his yacht, which is named after his late wife, Sheila, who died under mysterious circumstances. Each of the friends wants something from Clinton, so he manipulates their greed for sporting purposes. The friends include Alice (Raquel Welch), a movie star whose relationship with her manager/husband, Anthony (Ian McShane), is rocky; Christine (Dyan Cannon), an ambitious talent agent; Philip (James Mason), a director whose career has lost momentum; and Tom (Richard Benjamin), a desperate screenwriter whose wife, Lee (Joan Hackett), hides a terrible secret. Employing his immense wealth, Clinton stages elaborate treasure hunts in each port of call, and he issues provocative clues related to his guests’ peccadillos.

         Superficially, this is a jet-set caper movie, so director Herbert Ross provides plenty of eye candy thanks to exotic European locations (as well as copious shots of Cannon and Welch in bikinis). On a deeper level—well, as deep as this deliberately vapid movie goes, anyway—The Last of Sheila explores that trusty old theme of the avarice that drives Hollywood. Everyone in the movie is out to screw everyone else, whether professionally, psychologically, or sexually. Some of the actors capture the bitchy spirit of the piece better than others. The standout is Cannon, playing a role inspired by legendary talent agent Sue Mengers (also the inspiration for 2013 Broadway show I’ll Eat You Last, starring Bette Midler). Whether she’s fretting about her weight, maneuvering for an optimal negotiating position, or sizing up potential sex partners, Cannon perfectly captures the omnivorous nature of Tinseltown players. Benjamin, Coburn, and Mason lend interesting colors, Hackett and McShane provide solid support, and Welch does a better job of keeping up with her costars than might be expected.

          Filled with betrayals and lies and schemes—as well as the occasional murder—The Last of Sheila is a bit windy at 120 minutes, and some viewers might find the final revelations too Byzantine. Nonetheless, if there’s such a thing as thinking-person’s trash, then The Last of Sheila is a prime example.

The Last of Sheila: GROOVY

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

          One of the most endearing love stories of the ’70s, Heaven Can Wait boasts an incredible amount of talent in front of and behind the camera. The flawless cast includes Warren Beatty, Dyan Cannon, Julie Christie, Vincent Gardenia, Charles Grodin, Buck Henry, James Mason, and Jack Warden; the script was written by Beatty, Henry, Elaine May, and Oscar-winner Robert Towne; and the picture was co-directed by Beatty and Henry. With notorious perfectionist Beatty orchestrating the contributions of these remarkable people, Heaven Can Wait unfolds seamlessly, mixing jokes and sentiment in an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser that’s executed so masterfully one can enjoy the film’s easy pleasures without feeling guilty afterward.

          Furthermore, the fact that the underlying material is recycled rather than original works in the picture’s favor—Beatty found a story that had already been proven in various different incarnations, cleverly modernized the narrative, and built on success. No wonder the film became a massive hit, landing at No. 5 on the list of the year’s top grossers at the U.S. box office and earning a slew of Oscar nominations.

          The story is fanciful in the extreme. After Joe Pendleton (Beatty), a second-string quarterback for the L.A. Rams, gets into a traffic accident, his soul is summoned to heaven by The Escort (Henry), an overeager guardian angel. Only it turns out Pendleton wasn’t fated to die in the accident, so in trying to save Pendleton pain, The Escort acted too hastily. Enter celestial middle manager Mr. Jordan (Mason), who offers to return Pendleton’s soul to earth. Little problem: His body has already been cremated. Pendleton adds another wrinkle by stating that he still intends to play in the upcoming Super Bowl. Eventually, Mr. Jordan finds a replacement body in the form of Leo Farnsworth, a ruthless, super-rich industrialist.

          Joe becomes Farnsworth—although we see Beatty, other characters see the industrialist—and Joe uses his new body’s resources to buy the Rams so he can play for the team. The delightful storyline also involves Joe’s beloved coach (Warden), Farnsworth’s conniving wife and assistant (Cannon and Grodin), and the beautiful activist (Christie) campaigning against Farnsworth’s ecologically damaging business practices.

          Heaven Can Wait is a soufflé in the mode of great ’30s screen comedy, featuring a procession of sly jokes, inspirational moments, and adroit musical punctuation. Every actor contributes something special—including Gardenia, who plays a detective investigating misdeeds on the Farnsworth estate—and the memorable moments are plentiful. Beatty’s legendary charm dominates, but in such a soft-spoken way that he never upstages his supporting players; Heaven Can Wait features some of the most finely realized ensemble acting in ’70s screen comedy. And, as with the previous screen version of this story—1941’s wonderful Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which was adapted, like the Beatty film, from Harry Seagall’s play Heaven Can Wait—the ending is unexpectedly moving. Whatever Heaven Can Wait lacks in substance, it makes up for in pure cotton-candy pleasure.

Heaven Can Wait: RIGHT ON

Such Good Friends (1971)

          Another of director Otto Preminger’s cringe-inducing attempts to explore themes related to the youth culture of the late ’60s and early ’70s, this awkward movie features a few cutting one-liners, but is so scattershot and tone-deaf that it’s nearly a disaster. Worse, this is very much a case of the director being a film’s biggest impediment, because had a filmmaker with more restraint and a deeper connection to then-current themes stood behind the lens, the very same script could have inspired a memorable movie.

          Adapted from a provocative novel by Lois Gould, the movie tells the story of Julie Messigner (Dyan Cannon), a New York City housewife who discovers that her husband (Laurence Luckinbill) is a philanderer—at the very same time her husband is stuck in a coma following complications from surgery. (Any resemblances to the 2011 movie The Descendants, which features a similar plot, are presumably coincidental.) As Julie discovers more and more about her husband’s wandering ways, she moves through stages of grief, first denying the evidence with which she’s confronted, and then acting out in anger by having affairs of her own. Mixed into the main storyline are semi-satirical flourishes about the medical industry, because one of Julie’s close friends is Timmy (James Coco), the leader of the incompetent medical team treating Julie’s husband. As if that’s not enough, Preminger also includes trippy bits in which Julie flashes back and/or hallucinates because she’s looking at the world in a new way. In one such scene, Julie dreams that a publishing executive played by Burgess Meredith is naked while he’s talking to her at a party, leading to the odd sight of Meredith doing a few bare-assed dance moves.

          Preminger’s atonal discursions clash with the poignant nature of the story, thereby undercutting strong qualities found in the movie’s script—the great Elaine May (credited under the pseudonym Esther Dale) and other writers contributed pithy dialogue exchanges that occasionally rise above the film’s overall mediocrity. Preminger’s sledgehammer filmmaking hurts performances, too. Cannon tries to infuse her character with a sense of awakening, but Preminger seems more preoccupied with ogling her body and pushing her toward jokey line deliveries. Costars Coco and Ken Howard, both of whom appeared in Preminger’s awful Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), have funny moments playing unforgivably sexist characters, and model-turned-actress Jennifer O’Neill is lovely but vapid as a friend with a secret. As for poor Luckinbill, his role is so colorless that he’s a non-presence.

Such Good Friends: FUNKY

Shamus (1973)

A routine detective thriller enlivened by chipper leading performances, Shamus should have initiated another crowd-pleasing Burt Reynolds franchise. Alas, the movie wasn’t interesting or successful enough to warrant a reprise, so we’ll never know how Reynolds might have built on his enjoyable turn as smartass private dick Shamus McCoy. Featuring the requisite array of comical quirks—his bed is a pool table, he looks after a stray cat, he operates his business from a dive bar—the Shamus character comes straight off the crime-fiction assembly line. Additionally, the plot of this movie is so bland it could have been the basis for an episode of Kojak. The story begins with a horrific murder, when a killer wearing a protective suit uses a flamethrower to murder victims before robbing their safe. After being hired to recover the stolen loot, Shamus uncovers a scheme to sell surplus Army weaponry on the black market. Leading lady Dyan Cannon plays the sister of someone involved in the scheme, so it takes a while for her and Reynolds to get together. Despite the blah narrative, Reynolds is charming and loose, while Cannon elevates a nothing role. When these two display their warm interplay in casual shared scenes, which isn’t often enough, Shamus nearly coalesces into something memorable. Additionally, Reynolds runs wild through the movie’s many action scenes, performing a number of his own stunts, so it’s easy to buy Shamus as a badass capable of taking on cops, criminals, and even the U.S. military. Director Buzz Kulik keeps the pace brisk, delivering the shoot-’em-up goods between vignettes of Reynolds pressuring informants and/or wooing ladies, but Shamus is merely a forgettable diversion, wasting any potential inherent to the main character. His big-screen career over, the Shamus McCoy character returned in 1976 for a TV movie called A Matter of Wife . . . and Death, with Rod Taylor taking over Reynolds’ role.

Shamus: FUNKY

The Anderson Tapes (1971)

          Enough goes right in The Anderson Tapes that it’s almost possible to overlook the huge problem at the movie’s center: The main storyline of an apartment-building heist is exciting, but the gimmick of observing certain events through illicit wiretaps and surveillance cameras is pointless. In other words, the “Anderson” part is pretty good, but the “Tapes” part, not so much. Based on a novel by Lawrence Sanders and written and directed, respectively, by future Dog Day Afternoon collaborators Frank Pierson and Sidney Lumet, The Anderson Tapes begins when thief Duke Anderson (Sean Connery) gets released from jail after a 10-year incarceration. He heads straight to the bed of his sexy girlfriend, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon), who lives in a posh apartment building as a wealthy man’s kept mistress. Duke decides Ingrid’s building is a treasure trove waiting to be robbed, so he contacts a well-heeled gangster (Alan King) for backing, and then puts together a motley crew to pull off the job. Anderson’s colorful accomplices include a swishy art expert (Martin Balsam) and a cocksure electronics whiz/safecracker (Christopher Walken).

          As in all of Lumet’s New York-based crime pictures, the pleasure of The Anderson Tapes comes from watching cops and hoodlums methodically plan their respective efforts, because Lumet has a peerless touch for grounding high-stakes action in believable character dynamics. In his universe, crooks and police officers wrestle with mundane problems like budget shortfalls, looming deadlines, and workplace tension. Thanks to these nuances, the robbery scenes and the police-standoff climax are terrific. However, nearly everything else about The Anderson Tapes is wobbly.

          Duke’s relationship with Ingrid is unbelievable, since her loyalty wavers in a manner that’s narratively convenient. Balsam’s characterization is borderline offensive. And the whole business with the surveillance tapes is a miscalculation: We see various parties recording Anderson’s activities, and we get the idea he’s stepped into a web of illegal wiretaps installed to catch bigger fish, but this angle never affects the story. Still, the performances are generally strong. Connery is macho and believably frustrated by his dubious cohorts; King is cheerfully vicious; Cannon is cynical and sultry; and Walken, in his first major screen role, brings his signature twitchy energy. Even Balsam, despite the insensitive characterization, is quite enjoyable. And watch out for future Saturday Night Live star Garrett Morris as a world-weary beat cop.

The Anderson Tapes: FUNKY

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) & The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) & Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)

          British comedian Peter Sellers first played nincompoop policeman Jacques Clouseau in The Pink Panther (1963), but really hit his groove with the sequel, A Shot in the Dark (1964), for which he and director Blake Edwards elevated Clouseau’s ineptitude to a giddy level of farcical perfection. So it’s disappointing to view The Return of the Pink Panther in close succession with its predecessors, because the 1975 reunion of Edwards and Sellers is a minor effort for both men. All the usual tropes are here (animated title sequence, smooth scoring by Henry Mancini, glamorous European locations), but the filmmaking is enervated. The jokes are moronic, repetitive, and telegraphed; the camerawork is flat except for an exciting heist at the beginning; and the storyline is a pointless rehash of the original 1963 movie, with Christopher Plummer blandly essaying a role originated by the debonair David Niven. As for Sellers, he seems bored, and there’s not nearly enough of Herbert Lom as Clouseau’s insane boss/nemesis, Dreyfus.
          The 1976 follow-up The Pink Panther Strikes Again is much better, though by this point Sellers’ characterization is becoming overly reliant on elaborate makeup and goofy costumes. The James Bond-ish plot is silly fun, with Dreyfus escaping from a mental institution and threatening global destruction with a super-powerful laser beam unless Clouseau is surrendered to him, and the movie benefits from its supporting players: Lom’s cheerful-maniac routine is delightful, and Lesley-Anne Down smolders as a Russian agent. Strikes Again is too long, but that’s true of all of Edwards’ Panther movies, and while comic inspiration is in short supply, some of the gags are terrific, like Clouseau’s attempt at dentistry.
          The series ran out of gas with Revenge of the Pink Panther, which relies on insipid disguises (Sellers dressed as a gargantuan mobster), stupid puns (a shopkeeper whose surname is Balls), and tedious plotting about a crime boss conspiring to kill Clouseau. Lom’s comic mojo is defused when his character is “cured,” Dyan Cannon is wasted in a decorative role, and series supporting player Burt Kwouk (Clouseau’s manservant Cato) gets stuck in a series of foolish slapstick gags. Even the usually reliable Mancini contributes lackluster work, from the disco-ish version of the main theme that plays over the opening credits to the corny vaudeville-style number that accompanies the Hong Kong-set climax.
          After Sellers died in 1980, Edwards pillaged outtakes from various Panther movies for a pair of awful ’80s sequels, and more recently Steve Martin took over the Clouseau role in a pair of critically drubbed comedies.

The Return of the Pink Panther: LAME

The Pink Panther Strikes Again: FUNKY

Revenge of the Pink Panther: LAME