--- title: "Curse of the Pink Panther" year: 1983 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/curse-of-the-pink-panther" fi1m_id: "curse-of-the-pink-panther" imdb_id: "tt0085384" tmdb_id: 36576 wikidata_id: "Q1193469" fi1m_score: 34 critics_score: 40 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-10-01T00:19:04.614949+00:00" updated: "2026-10-01T00:19:15.789022+00:00" region: "PE" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) Directed by Blake Edwards · 1h 49m · Comedy, Crime, Mystery ## Identity Curse of the Pink Panther - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/curse-of-the-pink-panther - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** curse-of-the-pink-panther - **IMDb ID:** tt0085384 - **TMDB ID:** 36576 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1193469 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085384/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/36576, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1193469 **Fi1m score: 34** · Critics 40 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* Clouseau goes missing and the search party comes back with Ted Wass; the studio decided that would do > Blake Edwards tries to keep the Pink Panther going without Peter Sellers by making the search for him the plot, and the search turns up a pleasant young man and a lot of empty rooms. Herbert Lom gets two laughs. Nobody else gets one. ## Synopsis Chief Insp. Jacques Clouseau has vanished, and his old superior, Chief Insp. Charles LaRousse Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), is ordered to find the world’s greatest detective to take over the hunt for him. The man he ends up with is Sergeant Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass), who cannot cross a room without breaking something and who is, before the first act is out, bombed, blasted and plugged in the parachute. Sleigh follows Clouseau’s trail: to Cato Fong (Burt Kwouk) in Clouseau’s flat, to the disguise shop of Prof. Auguste Balls (Harvey Korman), to the villa of Sir Charles Litton (David Niven) and Lady Simone Litton (Capucine), where George Lytton (Robert Wagner) and the Countess Chandra (Joanna Lumley) are also in residence, and towards Bruno Langois (Robert Loggia), who would rather nobody found anything at all. ## Review Peter Sellers died in 1980 and *Curse of the Pink Panther* is Blake Edwards’s second go at carrying on without him. The first, *Trail of the Pink Panther*, stitched a film out of unused footage. This one is at least honest about the hole: Clouseau is missing, somebody wants him found, and the man sent to find him is a new character played by a new actor. Edwards and his son Geoffrey Edwards wrote it, Edwards produced and directed it, and it runs 109 minutes, which is about seventy minutes longer than its idea. The idea is Sergeant Clifton Sleigh, and Ted Wass does what he is asked. He falls off a boat, he inflates a life-jacket inside a moving car, he gets a hand stuck in things, and he lands every one of these cleanly. The trouble is that Sleigh is a nice man. Clouseau was funny because he was vain; he destroyed a room and then straightened his tie and blamed the furniture. Sleigh breaks the same furniture and apologises. The falls are the same and the character underneath them is not there, so we watched a competent stuntman have a bad week and waited for the joke to turn into something, and it never did. We laughed twice, and both times it was Herbert Lom. Dreyfus spends most of the film in hospital, each visit from Sleigh costing him another limb, and Lom plays the dread of the next visit with a twitch in one eye that starts before Wass has reached the door. That twitch is the only piece of acting in the film that knows exactly how long to hold. Harvey Korman, as the disguise maker Prof. Auguste Balls, gets one scene of mounting hysteria in a shop full of false noses and is then put away. Burt Kwouk’s Cato Fong has been given something new to do with Clouseau’s flat and does it gamely, with no material. The old guard are in a villa and the film does not know why it has brought them. David Niven’s Sir Charles Litton sits on a terrace and is asked questions; Capucine’s Lady Simone Litton sits beside him. Niven seems a long way off, handed lines a butler could have delivered. Robert Wagner, as George Lytton, is around. Joanna Lumley, as the Countess Chandra, is dressed by Patricia Edwards in a run of silk gowns that are the best-looking thing on screen and is then stood in doorways to wear them. These are not performances so much as attendance. Dick Bush shoots the exteriors in bright, flat midday light, every white villa and blue harbour as clean as a brochure, and it suits the money being shown better than the comedy, which needs shadows to hide a punchline in. Peter Mullins’s production design gives Dreyfus a hospital ward and Balls a cluttered shop and the Littons a villa, all of them plausible and none of them a place a gag could live in. Henry Mancini’s theme is still Mancini’s theme, and every time it slinks in under a scene we were reminded of a better film and then returned to this one. The standard here is Edwards’s own. *A Shot in the Dark*, from 1964, built a whole picture out of one man refusing to notice he was wrong, and the staging in it is as exact as anything in American comedy. Here the staging is loose, the cutting arrives late to its own gags, and Graham Stark’s bored waiter, a running bit in a café, is the only sequence with the old timing. Roger Moore is in the film; we will not say how or where. Most critics have landed low, between hostile and tired, and we are with them. If you want the series, start anywhere earlier. If you have seen the earlier ones and are a completist, this is a watchable afternoon with Lom’s eye and Lumley’s wardrobe to look at. Everyone involved has made better films, and several of them had made better films with each other, which is the part that stings. *Fi1m score 34, published 1 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Curse of the Pink Panther worth watching?** *Curse of the Pink Panther* is not worth watching unless you are a Pink Panther completist, and we scored it 34. Ted Wass lands every fall cleanly but plays a nice man where Clouseau was a vain one, so the slapstick never turns into a joke. Herbert Lom's twitching Dreyfus and Joanna Lumley's gowns are what there is to look at. **How long is Curse of the Pink Panther, and what is it rated?** *Curse of the Pink Panther* runs 1h 49m. It is a comedy and crime film. **Where can I watch Curse of the Pink Panther in Peru?** *Curse of the Pink Panther* is not on any streaming or rental service in Peru at the moment. It is available in 48 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Curse of the Pink Panther, and is it suitable for children?** *Curse of the Pink Panther* is a slapstick comedy with a US PG rating and no UK certificate, and its violence is of the pratfall kind: a man falls off a boat, is bombed and blasted, and a hospitalised Dreyfus loses another limb with each visit, all played for laughs. Nothing in it is frightening, and children who enjoy people breaking furniture will cope, though the villa scenes will bore them. **How does Curse of the Pink Panther compare to PlayTime?** *Curse of the Pink Panther* and [*PlayTime*](https://film.one/film/playtime) are both comedies about a man adrift among rooms and buildings, and Tati's film is far the better of the two. *PlayTime* builds a whole city so its hero can get lost in it politely, with every frame planned; Edwards's film is loosely staged, its cutting late to its own gags. Choose *PlayTime* if you will look hard at a crowded image. **What should I watch after Curse of the Pink Panther?** After *Curse of the Pink Panther*, try [*Playtime*](https://film.one/film/playtime) (1967, Fi1m 88): Tati builds a whole city so a man can get lost in it politely. Then [*The Naked Gun*](https://film.one/film/the-naked-gun-from-the-files-of-police-squad) (1988, Fi1m 88): The idiot detective done with a gag every eight seconds and no apologies. ### Reviews we read (4) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (64/100, inferred): The page content is inaccessible, so the critic’s verdict cannot be established. No specific praise or complaint can be verified from the available text. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/13/movies/the-curse-of-the-pink-panther.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (45/100, inferred): The review finds the film’s story tired and its comedy wasted, despite some genuinely funny moments. It singles out Ted Wass’s physical comedy and the sight gags for praise. [Read](https://variety.com/1982/film/reviews/curse-of-the-pink-panther-1200425560/) - **Radio Times**, Tom Hutchinson (2/5): Hutchinson finds the sequel produces negligible humour without Peter Sellers’ input. He singles out the recycled outtakes and the film’s weak premise as disappointments. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-79o2kt/the-curse-of-the-pink-panther/) - **Time Out**, TJ (10/100, inferred): The review dismisses the film as an abysmal cash-in. It faults the people behind it for having known better. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/curse-of-the-pink-panther) ## Details - **Director:** Blake Edwards - **Director:** Blake Edwards - **Screenplay:** Blake Edwards, Geoffrey Edwards - **Cinematography:** Dick Bush - **Music:** Henry Mancini - **Production design:** Peter Mullins - **Costume design:** Patricia Edwards - **Producer:** Blake Edwards - **Cast:** David Niven as Sir Charles Litton; Robert Wagner as George Lytton; Herbert Lom as Chief Insp. Charles LaRousse Dreyfus; Joanna Lumley as Countess Chandra; Capucine as Lady Simone Litton; Robert Loggia as Bruno Langois; Harvey Korman as Prof. Auguste Balls; Burt Kwouk as Cato Fong - **Runtime:** 1h 49m - **First release (the US):** 12 August 1983 - **Genres:** Comedy, Crime, Mystery - **Budget:** $11 million - **Box office:** $4 million ## Where to watch in Peru Not streaming, renting or buying in Peru at the last check. Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *A Shot in the Dark* (1964): The Clouseau film this one is trying to remember; Sellers at his most exact. - *The Party* (1968): Edwards and Sellers with one house, one night and nothing wasted. - *Playtime* (1967), Fi1m 88: Tati builds a whole city so a man can get lost in it politely. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/playtime.md) - *The Wrong Arm of the Law* (1963): Sellers as a London gang boss; small, fast and properly British. - *The Naked Gun* (1988), Fi1m 88: The idiot detective done with a gag every eight seconds and no apologies. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-naked-gun-from-the-files-of-police-squad.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/curse-of-the-pink-panther