The farcical writing would surely be better suited to the stage, as it mostly relies on people entering and exiting rooms quickly and/or jumping under the bed to avoid being discovered. Set mostly in a hotel, the movie revolves around David Niven as a notorious gentleman-thief, who is after the legendary "Pink Panther" diamond, and his efforts to snag it are alternately thwarted and assisted by Peter Sellers as the ever-bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Complications arise when Niven's con-artist nephew George (a young and startlingly handsome Robert Wagner) shows up, and he falls for Clouseau's wife (Capucine), who is also having an affair with Niven, who finds himself falling for the princess (Claudia Cardinale) who is his criminal target. Except that she may have a trick or two up her sleeve, too! Unnecessary complications, I should have said. The film could easily lose an hour of its running time with no real loss to the overall enjoyment. Blake Edwards drags each scene out to its maximum possible length, including one increasingly painful seduction scene between Niven and Cardinale that stretches to something like 20 minutes, though the charm of it ends after about three. There's also one of those stock "drunk passerby witnessing the crazy complications" scenes, with all sorts of double-takes and stuff, which offers about eight more repetitions of the basic joke than it needs. Sellers gained much fame for this role, though it's not hard to see why he came to loathe it, since it basically entails him knocking various props off nightstands and/or falling down. Legendary comedy this isn't, unless you think comedy peaked with John Ritter. Logic is dispensed with almost immediately, most egregiously by having Madame Clousteau involved with Niven, right under her husband's nose … at one point, she and Jacques are at the same party, but she spends the entire time on the arm of Niven. (?) By the time the big climax happens, Edwards is resorting to sight gags involving people in animal costumes, including one where two men in gorilla suits do one of those old "mirror" gags that went out of style around the time of the Marx Brothers. The ending, too, is a complete kick in the face after enduring all the long, long longness. Henry Mancini's music is terrific, as is the gorgeous Technicolor® photography—these help to reduce the boredom a bit by layering a champagne haze over the proceedings. The overall effect is rather like a lounge-music LP … not very cool, not very good, and not very notable, but easy enough on the eyes and ears.
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