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No one so far writing about the new Pink Panther movie seems to have a clue as to the true genius of the original. Or, to be more specific, the genius of the first two Blake Edwards’ films. After that things went largely off the rails.
Clouseau wants to be Cary Grant, and is utterly incapable of it. Bumbling is his essence, his soul. All of the small acts of aplomb, of polish, of savoir faire, of suave sophistication, that were second nature to a Cary Grant, Clouseau will attempt, and he will fail - every time. It isn’t that he will run afoul of some vast, complicated piece of machinery – a mistake made so often in the later films - he can’t bring off opening a door (or a drawer), reaching for a cigarette, or, memorably, spinning a globe. He longs to do the simplest of things with the assured grace of a Cary Grant, and fails at every turn, often with glorious comic results. Quintessential Clouseau: in A Shot in the Dark he is wrestled to the ground by a rack of pool cues.
The longing to look good in the many minor, but constant, endeavors of our lives is something we all live with and hope to survive with at least some measure of accomplishment. They say comedy is someone else’s pain. Clouseau does not need to suffer the spectacular thump of a great prat fall; he suffers instead the thousand humiliations of small acts gone amuck, and so helps exorcise our own anxieties about these passages of daily life. Again and again, he sails out with eager confidence, only to have his face rubbed in it once more. The Don Quixote of trivial quests.
