Warm, amusing, glossy, sometimes violently funny comedy that introduced the bungling French detective Inspector Clouseau, personified by Peter Sellers. Everything Clouseau touches turns to dust. He can't even get his wife sleeping pills without spilling them all over the floor. The screen is filled with his wife's disgusted expression, and the sound of crunching as Clouseau treads a bedward path. Naturally, when such a man comes to grips with a master criminal known as The Phantom (David Niven at his most suave), he's sure to come to grief, and we're certain to double up with mirth watching him. Sellers even finds time for a Goon-style joke or two: 'They have stolen my Surêté-type overcoat' or (in a suit of armour) 'Gad, it's hell in here.' Not that the visual gags are lost as, when Sellers accidentally brings the thieves to book, he tells them in their cell: 'You'll get 20 years for this,' firmly planting his hands in their bowls of porridge.

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