The Pink Panther

While grownups and older kids might enjoy the verbose farce and the charisma of the stars, younger kids may get more entertainment value out of any given Pink Panther cartoon. Viewers who seek out this first-ever Pink Panther on video might be disappointed to find Peter Sellers isn't the star of this caper flick. He's funny, but the traits of epic-scale slapstick lunacy that made Clouseau famous were to evolve later, in spinoff/sequels. The costume ball is the only part of the picture that really comes to life with the slapstick that Sellers fans came to expect. Most of The Pink Panther is stagier, drawing-room comedy, heavy on pillow-talk dialogue and lovers ducking in and out of adjacent hotel rooms.

While the sex-oriented banter is old-school Hollywood -- very coy and civilized and likely to go over kids' heads -- even young viewers might notice that Clouseau is played with more realism and less clowning. He is actually a rather sad character. He fails to notice his Simone's indifference to him, and she puts off his passionate advances with complaints that she can't "relax" (in fact, she's seeing Sir Charles at every opportunity).