Trail of the Pink Panther

Recommended only to moviegoers so indiscriminately fond of the Panther series and starved for belly laughs that they consider it a privilege to watch director Blake Edwards sort through his old footage and sweep up after himself. If your indulgence is less than open-ended, this lame attempt to scrape a "new" feature out of a filmmaking backlog is likely to seem more deplorable than diverting. [18 Dec 1982, p.C4]

A patchwork of out-takes, reprised clips and new connective footage, Trail of the Pink Panther is a thin, peculiar picture unsupported by the number of laughs one is accustomed to in this series. Stitched together after Peter Sellers' death, this is by a long way the slightest of the six Inspector Clouseau efforts. Read full review

While the master is at work, there are laughs galore, but the film nonetheless constitutes cheap exploitation of the memory of a man who convulsed audiences for years. Read full review

A sad spectacle: it feels like an advertisement, but what is left to sell? [27 Dec 1982, p.62]