Rating: 
Summary: Mearde!
Review: "I kneau that!"
Can't get enough Clouseau! My brother and I have been working his dialogue (and accent) into everyday conversations for years and it NEVER gets old.
Glad to have these out on DVD, wish the extras were better. Of note is TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER, which is the both the best and the worst of them all. The best parts of TRAIL OF are the Sellers bits that were edited out of the other releases. Everything non-Sellers in the movie is the worst. Also, there are a few notable scenes where a painfully obvious double is used for Sellers, both physically and speaking-wise. The actor portraying Clouseau in the walking the dog scene where he trips over the leash isn't even remotely built like Sellers, and his weak karate chop reaction is just embarassing. There's also the bad and totally obviously poor mimicking of Clouseau-ese in such lines as "To the airport my good man, and ride like the wind!" followed by "I knew that, I knew that." Pathetic.
Classic Sellers moments from TRAIL OF include the "Andre Bordeau, Mustard Salesman from Dijon" disguise ploy and the extended/alternate version of Clouseau's spilled groceries gag from STRIKES AGAIN where he gets his nuts whacked by the elevator's folding metal door ("AAAAAHH!") and sings while shufflin' around in the spilled rice "I'm daaaaahnn-cing in the raaiennnn, vhat a vonderful feeeee-leing, I'm haaaaapy in the raaiennnn..." Also notable is the driving to the airport "peaup out lighter" scene and, perhaps best of all, the closing credits which is a full montage of many of his best moments from all the Pink Panther films.
Steve Martin's updated version of Clouseau is reportedly pretty terrible, but Geoffrey Rush is getting rave reviews in his take on Clouseau (the pics of him in makeup are brilliant) in LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS. Guess which one I can't wait to see?
"Fortunately for me there was sufficient air left in my heaump to keep me afleaut until the rescque."
Rating:
Summary: AT LONG LAST! THINK PINK! REALLY PINK!!!
Review: "The Pink Panther" is arguably the greatest comedy/detective series in the history of cinema. Buttressed by the uncanny comedic performance of the irreplaceable Peter Sellers, the series follows a misguided, thoroughly confused bubble-head of a detective, Inspector Clueseau, on his many globe trotting adventures to solve a series of crimes; beginning in the first film with a hot diamond, a wealthy princess and a femme fatale - who just happens to be Clueseau's wife! Each of the subsequent films rely more heavily on Seller's ability to carry the whole show and for the first four installments he does just that - brilliantly!
TRANSFER: This five disc is what Seller's fans have been waiting for. Each film has been remastered for 16:9 widescreen televisions. The first two films: "The Pink Panther" and "A Shot In The Dark" look glorious. Colors are rich, vibrant and bold. Contrast and black levels are right on. There is a hint of pixelization and some minor shimmering but nothing compared to the previously issued discs. The audio for these films has been cleaned up and remastered to 5.1 surround. Mancini's music is the benefactor. The remaining three films in the series are a mixed bag of quality. While "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" is relatively free of age related artifacts (but rather heavy on the side of digital imperfections), "Revenge..." and "Trail of..." are the opposite. In both cases the picture elements have retained a considerable amount of their vintage luster with a rich color scheme and well balanced blacks and contrast levels. The audio on these films too is 5.1.
EXTRAS: A really intense "Behind the scenes" on the first film and a gallery of vintage cartoon shorts featuring the fuzzy feline in all his slapstick glory. Aside: The awkward packaging is really NOT user friendly. Discs may pop out unexpectedly or refuse to pop back into place afterward. Also, there is NO listing of chapters to follow without accessing the menu option on each disc! Small concerns, but concerns nevertheless.
BOTTOM LINE: The comedy is vintage. The transfer are stunning. Sellers is anything if not a consumate talent! Meow...I mean, yes!
Rating: 
Summary: 5 stars for the movies, 3 for the set....
Review: Any fan of comedy, classic or otherwise, owes it to himself to check out this celebration of the unique collaboration between Blake Edwards & Peter Sellers. You can't go wrong with any of these five terrific and still side-splittingly funny films, all set to Henry Mancini's jazzy scoring. But what's up, MGM Home Entertainment? The Region 2 British edition of this box set features a great deal more bonus material: the sublime UNKNOWN PETER SELLERS documentary; commercials filmed by Sellers near the end of his illustrious career and a featurette about them; a vintage network special THAT'S PANTHERTAINMENT!; and an 8-page booklet. The US edition carries none of these, only the solid if short PINK PANTHER STORY documentary; and the Cartoon Library featuring a BEHIND THE FELINE featurette (very informative) with six cartoons (one of which, ridiculously, involves neither the Panther nor the Inspector). The cartoon selection is different and all Pink-related on the British release, which does include the 'toon featurette and full docu. The latter does feature great interviews with Blake Edwards, but glosses over the 1970s films and leaves out all mention of Pink's "comeback", RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER, to which MGM does not own the rights. Where's Herbert Lom? Burt Kwouk? How wonderful it would have been to see them share their memories of Sellers. But what *IS* here looks and sounds beautiful, and the packaging is top-notch. Now if only MGM would release CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER, the direct sequel to TRAIL, so the viewers of this set aren't left with TRAIL's cliffhanger; and SON OF THE PINK PANTHER, notable only for Roberto Benigni's valiant efforts (however in vain) to fill Sellers' shoes. Are you listening, MGM? Happy 40th, Pink Panther!
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for the movies, 3 for the set....
Review: Any fan of comedy, classic or otherwise, owes it to himself to check out this celebration of the unique collaboration between Blake Edwards & Peter Sellers. You can't go wrong with any of these five terrific and still side-splittingly funny films, all set to Henry Mancini's jazzy scoring. But what's up, MGM Home Entertainment? The Region 2 British edition of this box set features a great deal more bonus material: the sublime UNKNOWN PETER SELLERS documentary; commercials filmed by Sellers near the end of his illustrious career and a featurette about them; a vintage network special THAT'S PANTHERTAINMENT!; and an 8-page booklet. The US edition carries none of these, only the solid if short PINK PANTHER STORY documentary; and the Cartoon Library featuring a BEHIND THE FELINE featurette (very informative) with six cartoons (one of which, ridiculously, involves neither the Panther nor the Inspector). The cartoon selection is different and all Pink-related on the British release, which does include the 'toon featurette and full docu. The latter does feature great interviews with Blake Edwards, but glosses over the 1970s films and leaves out all mention of Pink's "comeback", RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER, to which MGM does not own the rights. Where's Herbert Lom? Burt Kwouk? How wonderful it would have been to see them share their memories of Sellers. But what *IS* here looks and sounds beautiful, and the packaging is top-notch. Now if only MGM would release CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER, the direct sequel to TRAIL, so the viewers of this set aren't left with TRAIL's cliffhanger; and SON OF THE PINK PANTHER, notable only for Roberto Benigni's valiant efforts (however in vain) to fill Sellers' shoes. Are you listening, MGM? Happy 40th, Pink Panther!
Rating:
Summary: Great Films, But Lacks True "Special Edition" Treatment.
Review: Being that this is a special edition and it is the 40th anniversary of the Pink Panther I really expected more in special features. What they have is a good start and the films look fantastic. There is alot they could have done to make this set truly great. Interviews with Herbert Lom, Robert Wagner, Claudia Cardinale, Burt Kwouk, and Elke Sommer would have been a definite plus; why no cast interviews is a great mystery. The Pink Panther cartoons are a plus, but why not more of them, there is alot out there that could have been included. The artwork and packaging is fun and has that style of the original film. Maybe for the 45th Anniversary MGM will produce another special edition set with all of the movies and better extras.
Personally I like all of the movies including Curse Of The Pink Panther. Aside from everyones annoyance with Ted Wass in Curse, it definitely had an interesting story and made sense in the direction it went with Cluseau missing and being kidnapped, brainwashed, and surgically altered to look like Roger Moore! The appearances by David Niven, Capucine, and Robert Wagner are another reason to enjoy Curse, and I really liked the ending with the trio finally getting the diamond back. A little less of Ted Wass would have helped Curse. It would have been interesting to actually see Capucine stealing the diamond. I think people should have given Curse a chance, it was obvious there was plans to continue with another film that probably would have been very good and tied up the mysteries left in Curse, since Curse ended with Cluseau still missing and the diamond stolen. Son of the Pink Panther made no mention of the events in Curse or what exactly happened to Cluseau. It would be wonderful if Blake Edwards put together one final Panther film that would bring everything together. They could easily come up with a good story and get all the surviving cast members together except Ted Wass. Robert Wagner could have taken over for Niven and Capucine and still be in possession of the panther. Roger Moore could turn up as Cluseau. Claudia Cardinale could return to her part of the Princess and Elke Sommer as Gambrelli. Roberto Benigni could play Cluseau Jr. and Herbert Lom could keep going mad at the thought of Cluseau being alive. Edwards could definitely redeem the Pink Panther by going back and coming up with a good final film to tie them all together.
Rating:
Summary: What happened to "Return of"?
Review: Confused as to why this package would exclude "Return of the Pink Panther" which is SO much better than Trail of the Pink Panther.
Rating:
Summary: The Pink Panter Film Collection
Review: Finally us Pink Panther fans are getting what we have wanted. Its just a shame that 'The Return of the Pink Panther' was not included. All in all it is great to have it in a collectors box set with special features. For the first time 'The Trail of the Pink Panther' has been released on DVD which I am looking forward to since I saw it on TV. What would really be great and us fans should ask for it is a box set with all eight films:
"The Pink Panther" (1963)
"A Shot in the Dark" (1963)
"The Return of the Pink Panther" (1974)
"The Pink Panther Strikes Again" (1976)
"Revenge of the Pink Panther" (1978)
"The Trail of the Pink Panther" (1982)
"The Curse of the Pink Panther" (1983)
"Son of the Pink Panther" (1993)
Then we all would truly be 100% happy. But this will do. This is a must have DVD set!
Rating:
Summary: Like Old Friends, They're Always Great To See!
Review: Having been a fan of "The Pink Panther" series from childhood, I was ecstatic that this set was being released, as the films are otherwise out of print on DVD (although luckily I still have my trusty VHS copies in reserve). I am tempted to give the set five stars simply because it is a wonderful day to see these films back in print, but realistically I had to take it down a notch as there a couple of negative considerations, the most obvious of which, of course, is the absence of "Return of the Pink Panther" from the collection, ostensibly because of legal hang-ups. Whatever the cause, the absence of the first of the 1970s-era "Panthers" is sorely missed. The other minor negative is the relative absence of special features on the movie DVDs, although the original "Pink Panther" has a wonderful trivia track. I would have really loved commentary tracks with Blake Edwards and some of the actors. I am somewhat ambivalent on the extremely unusual packaging the set comes in. It is hard to adequately describe the case, but suffice it to say that removing half of the DVDs is annoyingly difficult, although it looks very stylish.On the positive end, you get four great "Panther" movies and the bodged-together "Trail of the Pink Panther", plus a disk of extras. Some people have dismissed the extras disk as inconsequential, but I rather enjoyed it. I particularly liked the documentary "The Pink Panther Story" which was heavy on interviews and insight. I had no idea that Sellers hated "A Shot in the Dark", whereas I (and many others) think it is a perfect movie in every way. I knew that Sellers could be somewhat Mercurial to work with, but I had no idea, for instance, that he had certain colors that he would not tolerate around him, and in fact made the producers of one of the movies once repaint a train because he couldn't stand the color! Also on the disk is a documentary about the animated Panther, which is quite interesting, as well as several of the short subject cartoons, which seem selected at random. They did include the Oscar winning "Pink Phink", the first cartoon short of the Pink Panther, which was an excellent choice. "Psychedelic Pink" included an annoying laugh track, and "Pinkfinger" was one of the weaker of the cartoons, which I have great recollection of from childhood. Interestingly enough, there are two related subject cartoons, one each of the Ant and the Aardvark, and The Inspector (in a fairly weak episode) to round out the extra disk. This is a great set overall, with just a couple of things bringing it down to a four rating. I recommend it to all "Panther" fans everywhere, and to anyone who loves to laugh.
Rating: 
Summary: A must to avoid
Review: How can they possibly release this collection and not include the 1974 release, "Return of the Pink Panther"? This was one of the best of the series and the one that relaunched Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers (It also made possible the later Revenge and dreadful "Trail of ..." Whatever the reason, it's hard to support something like this. A Shot in the Dark is a very enjoyable film. The mid-60s Pink Panther is a bit overrated. "Return..." was a gem. But someone has stolen it from this six-disc collection.
Rating:
Summary: Sellers -- Edwards -- Shag, baby!
Review: I agree with many of the complaints others have had regarding the set. 'Return' should have been included ($$$ always wins over distributors) and though 'Curse' and 'Son' are terrible beyond words, they are part of the Blake Edwards Panther oeuvre and should have been found in the set. Let's not even mention 'Inspector Clouseau'.
No Sellers = No Clouseau.
Sorry Mr. Arkin. Beyond that, the set is beautiful. The supplemental stuff is sparse but it's a nice package altogether, mostly due to the artwork of SHAG. His work on this edition (and other Panther 40th Anniversary Merchandise) is perfectly in tune with the phenomenon. His art alone is worth the price of the set. I'm happy to see his talent getting some of the widespread attention it deserves.
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