Production
The Pink Panther Strikes Again was rushed into production owing to the success of The Return of the Pink Panther. Blake Edwards had used one of two scripts that he and Frank Waldman had written for a proposed "Pink Panther" TV series as the basis for that film, and he used the other as the starting point for Strikes Again. As a result, it is the only Pink Panther movie which has a storyline that explicitly follows on from the previous film.
The film was in production from December 1975 to September 1976, with filming taking place from February to June 1976. The relationship between Sellers and Blake Edwards, never very good, had seriously deteriorated by the time Strikes Again was filmed. Sellers was physically in bad shape, and Edwards says of the actor's mental state: "If you went to an asylum and you described the first inmate you saw, that's what Peter had become. He was certifiable."
The original cut of the film ran for 124 minutes, but it was trimmed down to 103 minutes for theatrical release. Some of the footage was later used in Trail of the Pink Panther. Strikes Again was marketed with the tagline Why are the world's chief assassins after Inspector Clouseau? Why not? Everybody else is. Like its predecessor and subsequent sequel, the film was considered a box office success.
During the film's title sequence, there are references to television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the films Batman, King Kong, The Sound of Music (which starred Blake Edwards's wife, Julie Andrews), Dracula AD 1972, Singin' in the Rain, Steamboat Bill Jr., and Sweet Charity, putting the Pink Panther character and the animated persona of Inspector Clouseau into recognizable events from said movies. There is also a reference to Jaws in the end-credits sequence.
Richard Williams (later of Roger Rabbit fame) did the animated opening and closing sequences for the film instead of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.
Sellers was never happy with the final version of the film and publicly criticized Blake Edwards for mis-using his talents. The strain in their relationships is noted in the next Pink Panther movies opening credits ("Revenge Of The Pink Panther") listing it as a "Sellers-Edwards" production.
Read more about this topic: The Pink Panther Strikes Again
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