Maybe it's just that the last movie I watched was a 3 hour mob epic, but it was surprising to see 2 hours go by so quickly. This really speaks to The Pink Panther's quality that it maintains engagement and humor for longer than many other successful timeless comedies. In the case of this particular film its not just brilliant pacing that manages to sustain the film's length, but also its shear variety. It's a crime film parody, a raunchy (for the time) sex comedy, a romantic comedy, and slapstick comedy all wrapped up in a brilliant fast paced farce. The movie never really sits still, fluidly shifting between a wide verity of humor that coheres into complex bits that integrate everything from Jacques Clouseau's clumsy, effortless slapstick, to mistaken identities, to poorly hidden affairs, to harebrained schemes that manage to just barely work, and fail spectacularly. The whole thing gels together so well integrating such a variety of laughs that it manages to please just about any comedic sensibility. Emblematic of this approach is a scene where Clouseau's wife, Simone, who is having an affair with Sir Charles, and is being chased after by Charles's nephew, George, has all three guys, Clouseau, George, and Charles, in her hotel room at once and must hide them all from each other. There's opportunity for all The Pink Panther's various humorous sensibilities to be on display at once in one of the best set piece moments of the film.
Though if I'm being honest my personal favorite scene is near the end of the film after a fancy dress party where the titular jewel has just been stolen. Clouseau and his fellow policemen are dressed up in their silly costumes are engaged in a car chase after George, and Charles, who are both dressed as Gorillas, and in separate vehicles. Most films would show us the chase from the perspective of the individuals involved. Naturally, this makes sense, generally in a film you want to present information clearly so the audience can understand the sequence of events. However, this film recognizes that the audience has probably seen a billion comedic car chase sequences in film before and would be better served by a more unique approach. Instead of depicting the chase we see an old man walking across an intersection to be interrupted by a gorilla driving a silver convertible. Before he can take another step that car is followed by a police vehicle. The old man manages to get a bit further before another gorilla this time driving a pink convertible nearly runs him down. Before he manages to take even another step a jeep drives by carrying a knight in shining armor and a dragon. This basically happens a few more times with slight variations. The pink convertible manages to find a place to hide and meets up with the silver convertible (still in the same intersection) and the two driver gorillas stop and talk to each other with the old man (who they seem completely oblivious to) standing between them, right in the middle of their conversation. After the two gorillas have finished arguing about the best way to get out of town, two people dressed as a zebra run by. The old man gives up, walks back across the street gets out a chair and sits down. The cars all collide in a massive accident as he watches. The man gets up and crosses the intersection. By providing us a perspective on events that encourages us to separate the imagery from context The Pink Panther manages to make the, by this point, cliche car chase tropes feel fresh and new and twice as funny as they were in the first place. The unflappability of this poor old man who just wants to cross the street is at once great juxtaposition against the madcap chase and hugely relatable. Surely everyone has experienced the frustration of trying to get one simple thing done, like just crossing the damn street, and a bunch of random little things that have nothing to do with you keep getting in the way.
And I would be pretty remiss not to mention the iconic music. Henry Mancini's score is well ingrained in popular culture. In fact I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people reading this, upon reading the title of the film, already had the theme run through their mind. It's not just the theme that is outstanding however, the entire score is brilliant, and I personally think the other main theme used throughout the film: "It Had Better be Tonight" is a far more fun and listenable song. Regardless, the entire score supports the light easy tone the film maintains throughout. It's all easy listening jazz with occasional stings to support the slapstick set pieces. It's amazingly listenable apart from the film. In fact I'm listening to it right now as I write this cause it's just that damn good.
The Pink Panther also manages to place it's female characters front and center to the action. While not exactly ground breaking, the women are still primarily motivated by clothes and jewels (though admittedly Princess Dala has sentimental, and not materialistic reasons for wanting the Pink Panther) after all, they are given agency. Simone Clouseau is instrumental in the plot to steal the diamond and even comes up with the final plan to get the inspector convicted as the thief, and Princess Dala is the actual thief as she wants to ensure her ownership of the Pink Panther given that her ownership of it is contested and she may be required to surrender it to the people of her country. They are both given power and agency throughout the story. Something that is fairly rare, though not unheard of, in movies of the 1960's.
Also rather unusual for a comedy is the ending. The criminals all get away with their crimes and the bumbling, ineffective, Inspecter Clouseau is wrongly convicted of the theft and the movie ends with him being taken to jail. What makes this significant is that this movie was released when the Hays Code was still technically in effect. For those not well versed in film history the Hays Code was a restrictive form of self enforced decency guidelines that every film had to follow to get wide exhibition. There are many parts to the code and depending on your interpretation The Pink Panther really tows the line. Here are some of the parts of the code it breaks:
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