Trail & Curse of the PP

[jammicheljar]

Just spent a couple of evenings watching Trail and Curse of the Pink Panther.

I know these two movies are quite contraversial, so I thought I'd express my views.

Trail. I think this to be a fairly hastily put-together mix of outtakes, and it doesn't really work that well. I watch it thinking "Ok, that outtake is from just before this or that happened in Strikes Again".

In hindsight, as most (if not all) of the outtakes are from Strikes Again, I think a "directors cut" of Strikes Again would have been a better release. The second half with Joanna Lumley as the reporter sets up the plot for Curse, but isn't particularly funny. So the best bit is the end credits with the compilation of clips from the other movies.

Question about Trail though - were the office scenes where he reads about the PP being stolen from "Return" as I can't seem to place where they would fit into the story of Strikes Again. Following on from this, I have the script book and publicity brochure for Revenge, and I do wonder whether there are outtakes featuring Dreyfus from Revenge that were never used. Anyway back to...

Curse. Now this is a better movie than Trail in my opinion. There are a couple of weak bits - the HAL 2001 type computer at the start isn't funny, the elevator scene with the dog is like a poor attempt at the Revenge scene and the Valencia carnival goes on for far too long (for me it's like watching the Rio Carnival scene from Moonraker in slow motion!). Talking of Bond, the car chase scene I found to be reminscent of the famous 2CV car chase from For Your Eyes Only... and Roger Moore's cameo is brilliant! And Herbert Lom is on top form as Dreyfus, and Ted Wass generally impressed me. Shame it was critically slammed as I think it's a lot better movie than generally it's given credit for.

So a PPSA directors cut and a re-edited Curse (maybe using a couple of setting scenes from Trail) would have been a better release back in '82/'83 in my opinion.

Trail - interesting but a bit of mish mash... Curse - under-rated and really quite good considering! I like it - but not as much as the Peter Sellers ones, of course!)

My first post on this board - strange subject, but I will post more in the coming days/weeks :-)

[Clouseau]

welcome to the forum, jammicheljar! hope you'll enjoy your time here...

i'd never thought of comparing anything from Trail/Curse to Moonraker/FYEO, but i guess the Roger Moore connection kinda demands it...

be sure to check out the section for film reviews - you might find some of that interesting:
therapeuticpink.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=reviews

[pinkadilly]

i think a directors cut of PPSA would be a great idea!

welcome to eh forum, jammi!

[jammicheljar]

Thank you for your kind welcomes Clouseau and Pinkadilly :-) I will check out the other topics but have enjoyed reading what I have done so far :-)

[matthew]

I love the Peter Sellers pink panthers even watching them 30 or 40 years later they are still very funny peter sellers had that voice.The scene with the dog in TPPSA is hilarous.

[thecolonel93]

A director's cut wasn't a possibility in 1982 and isn't likely to happen, regrettably. All of the outtakes in TRAIL are from STRIKES AGAIN. The scene with the newspaper noting the theft of the Pink Panther is a new insert. The original insert and the original dialogue Marne Maitland delivers discussed the Credit Bank Robbery from STRIKES AGAIN. I cut TRAIL a lot of slack because I enjoy the outtakes and because the Joanna Lumley section has some genuinely heartfelt moments - particularly Burt Kwouk's dialogue (which is Edwards on Sellers: "if you do something long enough you miss it, even if it was painful") and the very bittersweet sequence with Graham Stark. David Niven's segment is bittersweet more because of his own condition and like the last scene in CURSE is a sentimental favorite for me.

[tournier]

Since Trail and Curse were filmed at the same time, I think it's a crying shame they didn't just make one good film. There's plenty of fat in both pictures that could easily go without being missed (I'd personally cut eliminate all of Lumley footage from 'Trail' - I guess you'd have to in combining them - didn't she play a totally different character in Curse?).

I'm sure greed was the reason for making two separate pictures, but I think they could have made more money with one more solid Pink Panther picture. I don't think Trail was treated as a serious major release - it was around for a couple weeks in the theaters and then gone. Themanner in which it laid an egg set the stage for Curse bombing, so I hope that lesson wasn't lost on Hollywood.

I'm torn on whether I'd like the pilfered Sellers scenes to be officially part of Strikes Again - I have a soft spot for the bastard child 'Trail'

[ben]

following recent viewings, I have come to appreciate "Trail of the Pink Panther" the most of the films after Mr Sellers' death, simply because it plays out as a tribute.

i used to enjoy watching "Curse..." and "Son...", but the more I discover other films of Mr Sellers, the more I feel bitter about those films poorly and selfishly trying to recreate something that can't be replaced. of course it's great that Mr Kwouk and Mr Lom are in those films, but, understandably, their performances feel uninspired, so no reason to bother with them.

[georgelytton]

In a sense, Curse is what Trail was supposed to be if it were filmed not as a tribute but as a film. In a sense, Trail bet on the sentimentality of Selllers' loss whereas Curse presented the story as a standard film.

[crimsonking]

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ok, here's the lowdown on the deleted-Strike Again-scenes from Trail:

1) the Balls sequence w/Harvey Korman was originally filmed for "Strikes again", but was deleted.....i actually prefer Korman to Graham Stark, because he seems to have more of a dignified, calm, arrogant, outgoing, even more "French" presence that Stark doesn't deliver in Revenge.....also, the short scene from Revenge at Balls' seemed rushed, obviously the writers trimmed the dialogue down considerably.

2) the scene in the office w/the fire was also from Strikes, and the interesting thing here is that it was originally shot as a reflection on Tournier the bank robber, and Edwards inserted a quick new shot of a newspaper headlining the theft of the diamond, INSTEAD of a headline showing that Tournier had escaped....also, when the Commissioner come in and starts talking, his lines were changed and dubbed in to say "theft of the pink panther" instead of something about the bank robber, which was original dialogue.

3) the scene with the rice and the elevator is also lifted directly from Strikes...only a longer version.....i wish that they had kept that long version, because it is funnier, esp. when he starts singing "Dancing in the Rice"!

4) the scene with the "pup-out" lighter was also from Strikes, and Edwards dubbed in some dialogue with Francois saying "Does Sir Charles KNOW you are coming?", which was taped on audio in 1982 and inserted into the old footage (note that we cannot SEE Francois' face when he says this!).

5) the airplane scene is lifted entirely from the "original" Strikes, since at the end we see Drummond and his assistant (who resembles Micky Dolenz from the Monkees, BTW)....also, in the original trailer for that movie they show Clouseau with the turban-bandage on at the runway-tarmac.

6) the scene with the phone operator-hotel manager is ALSO from Strikes, since this occurs right before Clouseau meets the detectives at Scotland Yard.

7) now, the LAST scene with Sellars, when he gets into the wrong taxicab, should also be from Strikes, as he is leaving for the Fassbender estate.

hope this clears things up!

Sincerely,
Crimson_King