PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

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AndyDursin
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Re: PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

#46 Post by AndyDursin »

Yeah I'm with you. As technically sound and competent as these new movies are, I kind of like the fact that Burton really did make the PLANET of the Apes. Not Apes running around in the forest picking off the last remnants of humanity. Guess we'll never get to "the good stuff" with these new films, will we?

Eric Paddon
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Re: PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

#47 Post by Eric Paddon »

I found it was far easier to just watch the last three films once with the commentary rather than go through them twice. Simos is better on Strikes Again because he seems to love that film the most. Maynard is a lot more informative when he talks but "Revenge" is loaded with long stretches of silence which again reveals why you shouldn't watch the film twice just to hear the commentary.

"Trail" is informative and he not only helpfully provides details on where the outtakes were supposed to go but he also in connection with something else I read reveals that the original intention in "Trail" was to use more outtakes from "Return Of The Pink Panther" to give us I am certain the deleted scenes of Sellers investigating the Pink Panther diamond crime scene. And Edwards had initially cast the two actors who had played Lugash officials in "Return", Peter Arne and Gregoire Aslan for "Trail" to give us new linking scenes (in the same way that Colin Blakely from "Strikes Again" also filmed one new linking scene) to justify the footage but then two things happened. (1) Aslan died before production on the linking scenes and (2) ITC wouldn't release the outtake footage. So we lost the chance for more outtake footage that would have improved the final results a bit more.

I had literally not sat through all of "Trail" in 35 years before today. The film is beyond awful once they run out of outtakes.

It's *really* a pity that all this happened prior to the era of film restoration and the interest in "director cuts" or extended cuts of old films and when UA was more interested in finding a way to restart a series franchise. Because what should have happened was the release of longer cuts of the films with the outtakes judiciously put back in. Not all of them deserved to be restored but at least two of the Trail outtakes deserved to be back in and the descriptions of other cut sequences from the other films is still tantalizingly intriguing.\

mkaroly
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Re: PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

#48 Post by mkaroly »

I watched A SHOT IN THE DARK and THE PINK PANTHER. For the life of me I have no idea why Sellers hated ASITD, unless Edwards didn't put takes in there that Sellers thought were good. The film is still as charming and funny as the first time I saw it; Sellers' ability to infuse Clouseau with innocence, aloofness, intelligence, and stupidity was what set this particular character apart from all the other characters Sellers portrayed...and it is why all other attempts at reboots and such have failed. No one can do Sellers, and no one should try (Steve Martin!).

At any rate, ASITD gets a 10/10 from me - it is the best PP film of them all IMO. Funny, great dialogue, and great acting from Sellers. It also flows from one situation to the next seamlessly. TPP is a good film for what it is; I still enjoy watching it, but I am always anxious to get to the final 30 minutes or so of the movie in Rome for the Princess' house party. The long ending sequence (from the time Clouseau and Tucker visit the Princess at her house all the way through to the car accident in the middle of the square) is what makes the movie for me - adept comic timing, great choreography, and I always found it hilarious that at a stake out to catch The Phantom Clouseau would pick the heaviest and most immobile, inept costume one could. I would give TPP a 6/10; the rest of the Sellers Clouseau films (excepting TRAIL) fit in between ASITD and TPP.

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AndyDursin
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Re: PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

#49 Post by AndyDursin »

Yeah I'm kind of partial to the other PP films. The original is very much a "60s movie," and its pacing is a LOT slower than the other entries. As I wrote in my review, and I agree Michael, A SHOT IN THE DARK was the standard bearer for the series and kind of put the formula down, sort of how GOLDFINGER did for the Bond pictures. It may not have been first, but it feels like it!

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AndyDursin
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Re: PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

#50 Post by AndyDursin »

Still baffling these films haven't been reissued by another label and 4K remastered...I ended up buying the Sellers movies digitally this morning (just $10!) and will probably move the Shout box on the secondary market.

The Shout box has some good commentaries (and some not so good ones), but really, you'd think it will get supplanted by a better release at some point. Between that and some of the weird audio issues, it wasn't entirely what it was cracked up to be.

BobaMike
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Re: PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

#51 Post by BobaMike »

Pink Panther related story:

Me and a few buddies are on a trivia team here at a local brewery. We do pretty well, usually top 3 out of 20 each week. We brought our wives this time. One question was "in the movie The Pink Panther, what is the object the movie is about?" I wrote down "a diamond", and my friend's wife (who is useless and knows nothing) was practically yelling that she knew the answer and that I was wrong. Since I'm a nice guy, and thought "maybe it was a ruby? or emerald?", I awaited her answer:

"Insulation"

I thought she was kidding, but no, she was sure of the answer. Needless to say I didn't change my answer and we came in 2nd that night.

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AndyDursin
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Re: PINK PANTHER "Peter Sellers Collection" Coming From Shout

#52 Post by AndyDursin »

:lol:

It's funny, it's one of (or WAS) one of the hot properties in the UA (MGM) catalog but most folks today truly wouldn't know the movies or possibly even the cartoon at this point. Granted the Steve Martin Panther -- the first one -- was a hit after they reshot it and took out the "PG-13 comedy", but even those movies aren't easy to find...the first one is, believe it or not, out of print!

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