The Pink Panther Strikes Again is a 1976 comedy film. The fifth film in The Pink Panther series, its plot begins three years after the conclusion of The Return of the Pink Panther. Unused footage from the film was later included in Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), released after Peter Sellers's death.

After three years in a psychiatric hospital, former Chief Inspector of the Sûreté Charles Dreyfus has recovered his sanity and no longer is obsessed with killing Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Dreyfus is informed by his psychiatrist that he is to appear before the sanity board that afternoon pending release. Clouseau, who has since replaced Dreyfus as Chief Inspector, arrives unannounced to speak on behalf of his former boss and within five minutes manages to drive Dreyfus insane again. Dreyfus later escapes from the hospital and again tries to kill Clouseau by planting a bomb while the chief inspector (by periodic arrangement) duels with his manservant Cato. The bomb destroys Clouseau's apartment and injures Cato. However, Clouseau is unharmed, as he is lifted from the room by an inflatable hunchback disguise. Deciding that a more elaborate plan is needed to eliminate Clouseau, Dreyfus enlists career criminals and abducts professor Hugo Fassbender, a renowned nuclear physicist and the professor's daughter Margo. Dreyfus forces the professor to build a "doomsday weapon" in exchange for their freedom.

Clouseau travels to England to investigate the kidnapping and wreaks havoc in the Fassbender home while ineptly interrogating the domestic staff, including Jarvis, Fassbender's cross-dressing butler. Although Jarvis is later killed by the kidnappers, to whom he had become a dangerous witness, Clouseau discovers a clue that leads him to the Oktoberfest in Munich, West Germany. Meanwhile, Dreyfus, using Fassbender's invention, disintegrates the United Nations Building in New York City and blackmails the leaders of the world, including the president of the United States and his secretary of state (based on Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger respectively), into assassinating Clouseau. However, many nations instruct their operatives to kill Clouseau to gain Dreyfus's favor and possibly the doomsday machine. As a result of their orders and Clouseau's obliviousness, all of the assassins kill each another until only the agents of the Soviet Union and Egypt remain.

One of Dreyfus's henchmen disguised as Clouseau, is killed by the Egyptian assassin after mistaking him for Clouseau. The Egyptian is seduced by Russian operative Olga Bariosova, who makes the same mistake and falls in love with him. After the Egyptian departs, the real Clouseau arrives in his hotel room. He is surprised to find Olga in his bed and is perplexed by her affections. From her information, Clouseau ascertains Dreyfus's location at a castle in Bavaria. Dreyfus is elated at the erroneous report of Clouseau's demise but suffers from a toothache and sends for a dentist. Arriving in Bavaria, Clouseau learns that a dentist is needed at the castle. He disguises himself as a German dentist and finally gains entry to the castle (his earlier attempts at sneaking into the castle had been foiled by his general ineptitude and the castle's drawbridge). Unrecognized by Dreyfus, Clouseau intoxicates both of them with nitrous oxide. While both are laughing uncontrollably, Clouseau mistakenly pulls the wrong tooth, and Dreyfus realizes that the dentist is actually Clouseau in disguise. Clouseau escapes, and a vengeful Dreyfus prepares to use the machine to destroy England. Clouseau, eluding Dreyfus's henchmen, unwittingly foils Dreyfus's plans when a medieval catapult outside the castle launches him on top of the doomsday machine, causing it to malfunction and fire on Dreyfus and the castle. As the remaining henchmen, Fassbender, his daughter and Clouseau escape the dissolving castle, Dreyfus plays "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" on the castle's pipe organ while he disintegrates, until he and the castle vanish into thin air.

Returning to Paris, Clouseau finds Olga waiting for him in his bed. However, their tryst is interrupted first by Clouseau's apparent inability to remove his clothes, and then by Cato's latest surprise attack, which causes all three to be hurled into the river Seine when the reclining bed snaps back upright and crashes through the wall.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again was rushed into production by United Artists following the success of The Return of the Pink Panther.^[3] Blake Edwards had adapted one of two scripts that he and Frank Waldman had written for a proposed Pink Panther television series as the basis for that film, and he adapted the other as the starting point for The Pink Panther Strikes Again. As a result, it is the only Pink Panther sequel that has a storyline (Dreyfus in the insane asylum) that directly follows that of its previous film. The plot does not concern the famous Pink Panther diamond of previous films, but is played more as a parody of James Bond films.

The film was in production from December 1975 to September 1976, with principal photography taking place between February and June 1976.^[4] The strained relationship between Sellers and Edwards had further deteriorated by the time that production of The Pink Panther Strikes Again was under way. Sellers was ailing both mentally and physically, and Edwards later commented on the actor's mental state during production of the film: "If you went to an asylum and you described the first inmate you saw, that's what Peter had become. He was certifiable."^[3]

The original cut of the film ran for about 120 minutes but was trimmed to 103 minutes for theatrical release. Edwards originally conceived The Pink Panther Strikes Again as an even longer 180 minute epic, zany chase film, in a similar vein to his earlier comedy The Great Race, but UA vetoed the long version and the film was kept to a more conventional length. The excised footage was later used in Trail of the Pink Panther. There have been rumors that a 180 minute cut did exist as well, but given that only around 17 minutes of unused material was used in Trail, this does make it unlikely since it would mean an entire extra hour's worth of footage has gone unused and unreleased. No photograph, cast or crew comments or script evidence of any additional scenes not included in either Trail or Strikes Again has ever emerged either, leading to the conclusion that there likely never actually was a 3 hour cut and rumors of its existence may have simply come from Edwards's conception instead of from the actual filming. 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."

During the film's title sequence, there are references to television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Batman as well as the films King Kong, The Sound of Music (starring Edwards's wife Julie Andrews), Dracula, Singin' in the Rain, Steamboat Bill, Jr. and Sweet Charity, placing the Pink Panther character and the animated persona of Inspector Clouseau into recognizable events from the films. There is also a reference to Jaws in the ending credits sequence. The scene in which Clouseau impersonates a dentist who uses laughing gas and extracts the wrong tooth is inspired by Bob Hope's role in The Paleface (1948).^[5]

Richard Williams (later of Who Framed Roger Rabbit fame) supervised the animation of the opening and closing sequences for the second and final time; original animators DePatie-Freleng Enterprises would return on the next film with animation influenced by Williams's style.

Sellers was unhappy with the final cut of the film and publicly criticized Edwards for misusing his talents. Their tense relationship is noted in Revenge of the Pink Panther's opening credits that list it as a "Sellers-Edwards" production.

French comic-book writer René Goscinny, the original writer of the Asterix series, was reportedly trying to sue Edwards for plagiarism in 1977 after noticing strong similarities to Goscinny's script titled Le maître du monde (The Master of the World), which he had sent to Sellers in 1975.^[6]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 75% based on 24 reviews, with an average score of 7.30/10.^[7]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film two and a half stars out of four and wrote, "If I'm less than totally enthusiastic about The Pink Panther Strikes Again, maybe it was because I've been over this ground with Clouseau many times before," stating that a time would have to come "when inspiration gives way to habit, and I think the Pink Panther series is just about at that point. That's not to say this film isn't funny—it has moments as good as anything Sellers and Edwards have ever done—but that it's time for them to move on. They worked together once on the funniest movie either one has ever done, The Party. Now it's time to try something new again."^[8]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the characters of Clouseau and Dreyfus "were made for each other," and further stated, "I'm not sure why Mr. Sellers and Mr. Lom are such a hilarious team, though it may be because each is a fine comic actor with a special talent for portraying the sort of all-consuming, epic self-absorption that makes slapstick farce initially acceptable—instead of alarming—and finally so funny." Canby also enjoyed Clouseau's French accent, and wrote, "Both Mr. Sellers and Mr. Edwards delight in old gags, and part of the joy of The Pink Panther Strikes Again is watching the way they spin out what is essentially a single routine".^[9]

The film earned theatrical rentals of $19.5 million in the United States and Canada^[10] from a gross of $33.8 million.^[11] Internationally, it earned rentals of $10.5 million for a worldwide total of $30 million.^[10] By March 1978, the film had grossed $75 million worldwide and was hoping to earn another $8 million by the end of the year.^[1]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – Nominated^[16]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "Does your dog bite?" – Nominated^[17]

Around 1981, the film was adapted into a play by William Gleason, mostly for high-school or community-theatre productions. The storyline bears similarities to that of the film, although some locations are changed, and women dressed as pink panthers also perform scene changes.^[18]