WoW, Wishes do come true.............Now, who didn't just love The Real Pink Panther films when you were younger! WoW, I am showing my age.

The Real Pink Panther by Robert Sellers was a brilliant book and I loved reading this, so many memories of me and my grandad sitting watching these films and laughing out loud. These were one of the best films you could sit and watch on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon when its cold and raining outside! They don't make films like this any more.

The Pink Panther films were one of the most enduring and financially successful franchises in movie history, beginning with 1963’s The Pink Panther, which introduced audiences to the iconic Inspector Clouseau, unforgettably played by Peter Sellers. Drawing on previously unseen material and ‘exclusive’ interviews with stars of the films and crew members, along with friends and colleagues of Peter Sellers, Robert Sellers presents, for the very first time, the untold story and some of the secrets behind the Pink Panther films. The original Pink Panther movie proved popular enough to spawn eight sequels. The films also inspired a popular animated TV series based on the pink panther cartoon character that appeared in the film’s credit sequences.

There were also spin-off toys, games, clothes, even breakfast cereal. In the 2000s, comedy legend Steve Martin twice stepped into the role of Inspector Clouseau. - He did not have the charm of Peter Sellers!

Peter Sellers was a comedic genius No one can take his place in these films! He was the Best!

I highly recommend this book if you are a fam of The New Pink Panther or new fans of it.

Big Thank you to NetGalley and especially Pen and Sword for my ARC.

The Pink Panther. inspector Clouseau. Cato.. Hysterically funny movies that still make us laugh.
Peter Sellers achieved great fame and recognition as the bumbling Inspector Closeau. He also starred in many succesful movies. What was he really like? He was funny and mercurial too. He was a flawed human with a comic genius and he made us laugh. Even today, we giggle just thinking about him.
The Real Pink Panther, written by Sellers’ son, is a very enjoyable read that shows Peter Sellers’ serious side. The tales about the making of the Pink Panther films are precious and memorable. Genius comes with its own reactions and personality quirks. Who amongst us can be funny 24/ 7?
All in all, Peter Sellers pleased generations. This book reminds us what a great actor he was. There are lots of laughs in it, including many quotes from Clouseau himself, such as my personal favorite referencing “ Sir Charles Phantom, the notorious Lytton.“ I laughed through the whole book, and understand the changes in disposition , moods and personality.

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with an ARC copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

Exceptional book on the genius/madness of Peter Sellers and the difficultiesin producing a legacy of successful slapstick

Fast and "surface level" but that's the trade off to doing all instead of each individual movie/relationship

Very Well Done

I am a huge fan of Peter Sellers and the Pink Panther movies and this book gave me so much background information. I enjoyed all the quotes from actors, movie people, and others that knew Peter Sellers. A very well researched book that I honestly couldn’t put down. Peter Sellers was such a comedic genius and I truly hope he is resting in peace.

For Pink Panther fans everywhere. This excellent sneak peek into the world famous and beloved character is a great and insightful read.

I recently bought a boxed set of Pink Panther films; I saw a couple years ago and wondered how they’ve fared years later. Surprisingly well is the answer. They’re timeless and the insight into the films and stories behind all the titles in The Real Pink Panther is a really timely bonus. I’ve enjoyed every page of Robert Sellers book ( he’s no relation to Peter, as far as I’m aware,, but he has written film industry related books and biographies). Meticulous research, with resources noted and a short bibliography are helpful for further reading. At the end of the book there’s a stunning montage of photo clips, all of which were new to me. I suspect on paper in colour they’d be even more amazing; I read the book on kindle.

I’m not a big Sellers fan. I think he had moments of genius but he was clearly a troubled individual and had a darker side. The book details how the association between Blake Edward’s and Sellers came about along with quite a detailed history of his other studio works. I found it interesting that Sellers was not first choice for the role; days before the first shoot, Ustinov walked away from the production and Edward’s had to find a replacement at short notice. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else playing the Clouseau role which was almost written for Sellars offbeat interpretation and delivery. He inhabited the role of the hapless detective and the working relationship between Edward’s and Sellars got off to a good start. Both loved slapstick and initially, there was a lot of improvisation during filming. These insights prove invaluable when looking at early and later films, where the Clouseau character subtly develops and changes.

Each film is detailed in full along with on and off set stories about actors, incidents and how filming was conducted. This is a book that will appeal to any film fan as there’s a mountain of film and production related trivia. Really well written, I’d say this is the definitive Pink Panther guide. The author is even handed in his observations and comments about Sellars and doesn’t flinch from showing a more difficult side. Really enjoyed this.

Robert Sellers, whose book the Secret Life of Ealing Studios book I really liked, is a prolific author of film books, and they are packed with first-hand interviews and a lots of secondary-research. With such a long career behind him he's been able to enjoy the privilege of interviewing series regulars like Herbert Lom, Bert Kwouk and Graham Stark before they passed away, and also spent time with other crew and cast members - Robert Wagner, Dyan Cannon, Catherine Schell, Mike Grady, etc - to get a really vivid and personal sense of what it was like to work with two such mercurial personalities as Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers.

Having bonded well during the shooting of the first film in 1963, their relationship became a rocky, ultimately toxic, one, each feeling that the success of the films was due to their individual genius. Exhausting, exhilarating and frustrating by turns, we really get an idea of what it's like to work on a film where you never know whether the star or the director are going to turn up, or stay around if they do, but that the magic which they can spin when in sync is worth the pain.

The Pink Panther franchise ran for so long, weathering (or not) the loss of its star, with attempted reboots in the 80s and 90s, and full-blown remakes in the early 2000s that it is really stands as a microcosm of Hollywood movie making over a forty year period. The passion, the greed, the madness, the joy, it's all here.

The narrative does lose some energy towards the end simply because when it comes to the Steve Martin remakes everyone was lovely, and there were no troubles; tea and biscuits all round, thank you vicar.

The Peter Sellers years, and the immediate aftermath of his death are where the real story lies.

As an homage/background to the Pink Panther series, the book was informative and entertaining. While there were elements I knew already, there was quite a bit of extensive behind-the-scenes material that was new to me and eye opening. These aspects of the book I really enjoyed. However, I did have a few issues with the book. First off, for a seasoned writer, the author was surprisingly poor at some basic grammatical elements, such as sentence structure, proper use of commas and marking people's quotes with quotation marks. Secondly, so much of the book was annotated and obviously just pulled from other sources with a seemingly never-ending series of end notes, at time it felt more like a thesis or term paper than published book. And there was an inconsistency throughout the narrative - the first two films, arguably the most important since they began the whole series, felt rushed through and glossed over; in the middle of talking about a movie and its important players, mildly interesting, but otherwise irrelevant tangents frequently cropped up; and while Peter Sellers was the very heart of the movies, the book didn't balance itself well, seeming to waver between being a Sellers biography and history of the Pink Panther film legacy.
While I have many criticisms, I did like the book, and anyone interested in the Pink Panther history likely will too, but it really could have used some editing to tighten things up. 3.5/5*

I loved this book; a fitting tribute to a franchise I very much enjoyed. The writing was great and well-paced. I thought that the content was very even-handed and fair, showing the high points and the low, including personalities and business issues. Thank you to Netgalley and White Owl for the advance reader copy.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I enjoyed the book almost as much as I enjoyed watching the movies. Anyone who liked the Pink Panther movies will love this book

Well over sixty years ago, the collective talents of director, Blake Edwards and comedy genius, Peter Sellers came together and created the Pink Panther films. The original 1963 film stared David Niven as the debonair thief of the titular diamond, but, in fact, it was Sellers who (as Niven ruefully acknowledged) committed the greatest crime of all: stealing the whole film with his winning comic performance as the bumbling French sleuth, Inspector Clouseau..
Thereafter, the films were all about Clouseau and his ingenious disguises, increasingly bizarre mispronunciations and occasional battles with his assistant, Cato (Burt Kwouk). One other pleasant, unexpected by-product was the creation of the successful Pink Panther cartoon series which arose from the popular animated sequences which accompanied Henry Mancini's memorable theme during the films' opening titles.
In time, the initial magic between Edwards and Sellers would fade, as the actor gradually revealed himself to have been one of the most difficult and temperamental leading men to have ever stepped in front of a camera. This thorough book also covers the later versions of the films starring Roberto Benigni and Steve Martin.

Pen and Sword provided an early galley for review.

As a kid in the 70's, I discovered this series with the fourth film, 1975's The Return of the Pink Panther and have been a fan since. Something about this style of comedy combined with the flair for international espionage is just such a joy.

Books like this one pull back the curtain behind the film industry, providing a detailed glimpse into the making of the movies and the people involved in the process. I remembered this franchise being popular, but the details provided here point out how important it was to the United Artists studio and how rich it made both Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards (despite how contested their working relationship continued to become as each film was made).

Even after Sellers' death in July of 1980, the film franchise continued on. The first (1982's Trail of the Pink Panther was a framework of a story built to utilize former footage of Sellers as Clouseau and to bring back former side characters to fill out the narrative. The storyline of this one led into the next (1983's The Curse of the Pink Panther) with Ted Wass (known then for his role of "Danny" on the sitcom Soap) taking the lead as a new detective named Clifton Sleigh. I remember these two movies and the derailing effect, as the author rightly points out, they had on things. Unlike a James Bond or a Doctor Who, sometimes moving on with a change in the lead just isn't possible.

The included photo-gallery with the book is also a very nice touch.