The Pink Panther (1963, Blake Edwards)
The comedy movie that gave us the world’s clumsiest police detective, French inspector Jacques Clouseau, played by British comedian Peter Sellers . Two other things that have become part of the cultural legacy of mankind, are the theme music by Henry Mancini and the animated credit sequence featuring a pink panther. The pink panther from the title is not an animal, but a diamond; it’s called ‘the pink panther’ because a leaping panther can be spotted in its flaw when looking deeply into the stone (*1). The diamond belongs to princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale) from the (fictitious) country of Lugash, but when on holiday n Cortina d’Ampezzo, it is stolen from her by a mysterious jewel thief knick-named the Phantom. The French police inspector Jacques Clouseau is on the Phantom’s trail, not knowing that his wife (Capucine) leads a double life and is actually the Phantom’s mistress and his partner in crime ... Oddly enough Peter Sellers did not receive top-billing as Clouseau. The movie
