We watched "The Pink Panther" the other night, which came out when I was eight years old.  I believe that was the last time I had seen it.  My husband objects to the gratuitous insertion of musical numbers into movies from this era, but the jazzy/samba lounge-singer scene in the ski lodge is the only bit I remembered from childhood, apart from the theme song and the tiny pink flaw in the great diamond.

The dancing looks like fun, even for poor hapless Peter Sellars, the comic cuckold.  The people in these conventional American thrillers and comedies from the early 60s were so sophisticated and at ease in their society.  There was nothing sullen or dreary about their rebellion.

The fellow presenting the movie remarked that David Niven expected his jewel-thief-Don-Juan character to become a successful franchise.  No one guessed that Inspector Clouseau would steal the show.

5 comments:

Lars Walker said...

In addition, Peter Sellers was not the first choice for Clouseau. Peter Ustinov was supposed to play the role. History would have been very different.

Grim said...

Another Peter Sellers movie worth seeing from the period is After the Fox. In that one, he has the role of the master thief.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

An exotic dance number was considered central to the show in early American Musical Theater. Sometimes it didn't fit well with the plot, and Cole Porter satirized this a fair bit in his shows - see "Anything Goes" for example. Movie producers just couldn't get that idea out of their heads for years.

Texan99 said...

In my view any party can be improved by a conga line.

douglas said...

No musical numbers, but you might also like "How to Steal a Million"- Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. Fun movie.