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La Panthère rose (série de films)

Après La Malédiction de la Panthère rose (1978), Peter Sellers mène sans Blake Edwards le projet d'un septième film, Romance of the Pink Panther, littéralement « L'Idylle de la Panthère rose ». Il écrit le scénario avec Jim Moloney, son co-auteur du Complot diabolique du docteur Fu Manchu (1980).

Romance of the Pink Panther est mentionné dans le biopic Moi, Peter Sellers (2004), mais le film en fait un projet lancé par Blake Edwards tandis que Sellers refuse d'y reprendre son rôle.

Synopsis

Groupir !/Romance of the Pink Panther

Description de l'image Sellers pinkpanther7.jpg.

Données clés

Pour plus de détails, voir Fiche technique et Distribution.

Romance of the Pink Panther was to be the seventh film in the Pink Panther series and would have starred Peter Sellers in the role of Chief Inspector Clouseau in his sixth Panther appearance. Herbert Lom would have reprised his role as Charles Dreyfus, with the character now working as a private detective. Unfortunately, the unexpected death of Peter Sellers in July 1980 led to the project's eventual abandonment. Only two script drafts were completed.

The film, written by Peter Sellers and Jim Moloney, from Moloney's original story treatment, was originally scheduled to have begun filming in September or October 1980, for a summer release in 1981. But shooting was delayed until early 1981, since Sellers was expected to first undergo open heart surgery.

Production history

Sidney Poitier had originally been attached to direct. The first draft of the Sellers-Moloney screenplay was submitted in December 1979; however, the project stalled until Sellers' wife Lynne Frederick came aboard as executive producer, and Clive Donner signed to direct in April 1980. Sellers and Moloney began work on a rewrite at that time which was completed just days before Sellers' sudden death of heart failure in July 1980. Donner's wife, costume designer Jocelyn Rickards, was preparing designs for the film, as was veteran series production designer Peter Mullins for the anticipated shoot at Studio de Boulogne in Paris. Pamela Stephenson would have joined Sellers, Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk, Graham Stark, André Maranne, and longtime Sellers friend Max Geldray on the film.

After Sellers' death, the studio attempted to keep the project alive by discussing replacing Sellers with Dudley Moore as Clouseau. Moore, who had been Blake Edwards' choice to play a new character in the series to replace Clouseau, ultimately decided to pass on the part. The studio approached Edwards to come aboard to direct the Sellers-Moloney script. Edwards rejected the idea of using Sellers' script and instead stuck to replacing Clouseau rather than Sellers. The result was 1982's transitional film Trail of the Pink Panther, utilizing Sellers' outtakes from 1976's The Pink Panther Strikes Again and 1983's failed relaunch, Curse of the Pink Panther, with Ted Wass as incompetent New York police detective Sergeant Clifton Sleigh.

The two drafts

Two drafts were written: one was finished in December 1979, and the other one was finished in July 1980, eight days before Sellers' death. Both drafts have the same basic storyline but are very different, most notably in their endings.

The plot of the film involved Clouseau falling in love with a daring cat burglar called "The Frog" (to be played by Pamela Stephenson), because of the scattered natures and locations of her crimes. The name was a pun on a British slur for the French. Clouseau would have pronounced the name like the 1960s dance "the froog," with detective and thief smitten with each another in spite of themselves.

The first draft saw Clouseau promoted to police commissioner at the conclusion and reinstating Dreyfus as Chief Inspector. In the revised draft, however, Clouseau retires from the force, marries Pamela Stephenson's character...and joins her in a life of crime (similar to the fate given to Clouseau at the end of 1983's Curse of the Pink Panther).

Distribution envisagée

• Peter Sellers : l'inspecteur Jacques Clouseau
• Pamela Stephenson : la comtesse française Anastasia de Puissance, surnommée « the Frog » (littéralement« la grenouille »)
• Herbert Lom : Charles Dreyfus, Private Investigator
• Burt Kwouk – Cato Fong
• André Maranne – Sgt. François Chevalier
• Douglas Wilmer – Police Commissioner
• Max Geldray - The Mahuma of Alfatoon
• Graham Stark : le professeur Auguste Balls
• Danny Schiller : Cunny

Plot

Chief-Inspector Clouseau falls in love with a French Countess while searching for a Phantom-type cat burglar called the Frog. Of course they are one and the same. The film would have ended with Clouseau retiring from the police force and marrying the unrepentant Countess. Series regulars Dreyfus, Professor August Balls and Cato were slated to return, with the latter having an increased role, akin to his appearence in Revenge of the Pink Panther.

Development

Two drafts were known to have been written by Peter Sellers and Jim Moloney (his co-writer on The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu). Sellers and Edwards had vowed not to work together again and the only way United Artists could lure him back was to let him write the script himself. It was Sellers' way of asserting his creative contributions to the series. Sidney Poitier signed to direct the project when it was announced in 1978. Poitier pulled out a year later because Sellers had still not delivered a script. Sellers had expressed interest in helming the film, but UA vetoed the idea, and instead had Clive Donner signed on to direct in December 1979. The script itself (which was only a rough draft at the time) was reportedly a very mixed bag which would have needed a considerable polish before going before the cameras. The film's producer, Danton Rissner, disliked the script which engendered Sellers' rage. UA was hoping shooting could start in early 1981. Sellers had wanted his wife to play the Frog, but UA balked and Sellers had agreed on Pamela Stephenson to play his love interest (the master criminal, the Frog).

Interestingly, in 1978, United Artists executives formed Orion Pictures and asked Blake Edwards to create a comedy series to replace The Pink Panther films for them. The result was The Ferret, which was to have Dudley Moore play a classical violinist and amateur inventor who discovers his father is a special agent for the UN called the Ferret. When his father is murdered, Moore adopts his father's identity to avenge his death and stop an international crime wave. Of course, Moore would fall down a lot and break things along the way. It was also at that time that United Artists paid Edwards $3 million to allow them to make a Pink Panther sequel without his participation. In 1979, Orion Pictures put The Ferret in turnaround. The excuses vary so there's no concrete reasoning behind its cancellation. United Artists, however, picked The Ferret up but nothing was publicized at the time. Danton Rissner shared around that time his thoughts on Romance to Edwards, who recalled he was highly critical of the script Sellers and Moloney wrote.

In 1980, Sellers and Moloney finally revised the script for Romance shortly before the former's death. Production was to begin in August 1980 but was pushed back to early 1981 as Clive Donner was given the thankless task of trying to convince Sellers to bring in ghost-writers to help save the project. Donner's meeting with Sellers was to have taken place the week after he died. Sellers was not on speaking terms with the producer and had his wife, Lynne Frederick appointed Executive Producer. Donner's wife, Jocelyn Rickards was designing the sets. The film would have been shot at Studio de Bouglonne in Paris. Pamela Stephenson as his leading lady. Meanwhile, The Ferret (which was being developed by Edwards and his Panther collaborators, Frank Waldman and Tom Waldman) was still set to star Dudley Moore and was to follow Romance in production, and was to be re-written to incorporate Sellers and Stephenson as Clouseau and The Frog in supporting roles, to symbolize a passing-of-the-torch to Moore's new comedic hero, thus marking The Ferret as a legitimate spin-off the Panther series, and retiring the Clouseau character for good. It is said that Sellers had agreed to it days before he died, but its unsubstantiated.

Cancelled

After Sellers' death in 24th July of 1980, the project was offered to Dudley Moore. Moore would only take the role if Blake Edwards was involved, as a tribute to Sellers and to end the series on his terms, but Edwards refused to cast another actor as Clouseau, remembering Alan Arkin's turn in Inspector Clouseau. This led Edwards to devise Trail and Curse of the Pink Panther, the former being a send-off of sorts to Clouseau, and the latter introducing a new character to headline the series, called Clifton Sleigh (thus including elements of his own aborted Ferret). And interestingly, Curse alludes to Clouseau (played by Roger Moore in a cameo appearance) leaving the force and living in with a criminal Countess (Chandra in Curse), albeit having also changed his face to resemble Roger Moore, meaning that Edwards, in the end, realized Peter Sellers' intended ending for the character, at least as envisioned in the second draft of Romance.