= THE PINK PANTHER =

Composer Henry Mancini is often portrayed in photographs as quite the sophisticated guy, early sixties style. In a formal picture, he might be dressed in a tuxedo, wielding ding a baton; in a more candid shut, he may be captured on the job in Hollywood, outfitted in a Banlon shirt and slacks, conducting a studio orchestra. His work has graced some of the more elegant and enduring movies of the last forty years, like Breakfast At Tiffany's and The Days Of Wine And Roses. But Mancini knew something about slapstick, too - the first movie he helped to score while employed as an in-house composer at Universal Pictures was Abbott and Costello's Lost In Alaska - so he was well qualified to orchestrate the merry mayhem of The Pink Panther.

Not that he left the sophistication behind: the score for The Pink Panther, written and directed by Mancini's longtime friend and collaborator Blake Edwards, is as swellegant as anything Mancini has created. But he approaches the music for this 1964 flick with more of a twinkle in the eye, a subtle sense of mischief, and a playfulness meant to elicit smiles, not guffaws. Peter Sellers would take care of the belly laughs on screen. Mancini wrote the opening title sequence music with British actor David Niven in mind; Niven played the suave Sir Charles Litton, who turns out to be a notorious jewel thief known as the Phantom, nemesis of the bumbling French detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau, portray by Sellers. "The Pink Panther Theme" - like Mancini's breakthrough hit, "Peter Gunn," the theme for the high-concept TV detective series of the same name - suited its subject as sleekly as an outfit from the studio wardrobe department. The bopping sax lines played by Plas Johnson are like the careful footsteps of that debonair criminal as he treads lightly past the well-appointed scene of the crime.

But Edwards ultimately had another idea for the opening credits: he got the veteran animation team of Fritz Freleng and David DePatie to create a cartoon character called the Pink Panther, a name that, in the film, refers to the priceless jewel the Phantom steals. (If you looked into the gem in a certain way, it was said, you could see the image of a pink panther.) The animated sequence helps to set up the plot of the picture in simple but stylish comic strokes. The Pink Panther is pursued on screen by a disembodied hand in a white glove, the visual signature of the Phantom, who always left behind a white glove after his thefts. And he - the Panther is definitely a guy, despite his pinkness - is ,joined by an equally charming cartoon version of the hapless inspector, who carries a magnifying glass but still can't see a thing.

Mancini's music helped give life to this wonderfully expressive cartoon cat, the sort of sophisticated and sly puss who probably would have enchanted Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly had he been drawn into the urbane doings of Breakfast At Tiffany's. Come to think of it, the Pink Panther sort of resembles Hepburn as Holly, and maybe that was part of the ,joke: they're both slim, long-limbed, and can wield a mean cigarette holder. 

Not only did Sellers and Edwards parlay the foibles of Inspector Clouseau into a series of hit films, but reaction to the title sequence was so positive that the Pink Panther became a cartoon star on his own. In fact, a subsequent Pink Panther animated short, made for movie theaters, won an Oscar. Since then, the Pink Panther has graced movie and television screens for decades, always introduced by the instantly recognizable Mancini theme. (Other composers have scored the body of the cartoons.).

Though the Pink Panther is undeniably adorable even without any musical accompaniment - he has inspired plush toys, greeting cards, calendars, tee-shirts, you name it - there's something about this combination of music and image that is especially inspired. It's like trying to imagine Breakfast At Tiffany's without "Moon River," a song that studio execs were skittish about until Hepburn herself defended the theme. The Pink Panther would be just a common kitty without those strategically tinted "Doot...Doot... Doot's."

But the fun doesn't stop with the title tune. The one "love song" in the score, "It Had Better Be Tonight," vocalized by a studio chorale, differs from other, more straightforwardly romantic collaborations between Mancini and fabled lyricist Johnny Mercer like "Moon River" and "Charade." It's seriously silly stuff - made for a serious shuffle around the dance floor, too - continental in a calculatedly corny way: "Show me how in old Milano/Lovers hold each other tight/But I warn you, sweet paisano/It had better be tonight." Forgive them any groan- including lines because Mancini really does know his Italiano. He was raised in a blue-collar Italian-American household in Pennsylvania; his immigrant father, who played the piccolo and the flute, instilled in Mancini a life-long love of music and pushed him as a child to excel at playing the piano and the flute.

"Something For Sellers" has a particularly contemporary feel: just add a drum machine and it could pass as retro-futuristic cha-cha music from some fashionable lounge deejay. (You can impress your trendier friends with this one.) Sellers, as his own liner notes here amply indicate, had great affection for Mancini and his work; their relationship was apparently far more cordial than the one between Sellers and Edwards. The battles between actor and director resulted in a decade-long chill that brought the Pink Panther series to a standstill. When they finally reconciled in 1974 and made The Return Of The Pink Panther, both fans and critics were delighted. For many, this remains the highlight of the series.

The updated Pink Panther music shows what a difference a decade makes. There's hints of John Barry's James Bond theme in it, as well as what may be a knowing allusion to Isaac Hayes' "Theme From Shaft." (At the very least, there's something sort of funky going on.) It puts a more overtly jazzy spin on that classic Mancini sound. Mancini and Edwards would continue to work together on such popular films as 10, the controversial Hollywood satire S.O.B., and Victor/Victoria, which they adapted into a successful Broadway musical starring Edwards' wife, Julie Andrews.

It was a chance encounter on the Universal lot that had brought Mancini and Edwards together in 1960. Edwards was a old friend of Mancini's wife, a singer named Ginny O'Connor, who Mancini had wooed while they were both touring with Glenn Miller's namesake big band after World War II. Edwards needed someone to compose the music for a television series he was developing called Peter Gunn; Mancini had just left his Universal studio job and could use the work. The result was a big band jazz-meets-rock&roll score that was both innovative in approach and wildly successful. The soundtrack album sold more than a million copies and claimed the top spot in the Billboard chart for ten weeks. The Pink Panther album would also reach the Top Ten and a single of the title track would enter the Top 40. More than his commercial achievement, though, Mancini was perennially proud of "my use of jazz - incorporating various popular idioms into the mainstream of scoring. If that's a contribution, then that's mine"

When Audrey Hepburn first saw Breakfast At Tiffany's with Mancini's score laid in, she sent him a note calling him "the hippest of cats." With The Pink Panther, the hippest of cats had created music for - well, the hippest of cats. Takes one to know one.

- Michael Hill

Transcribed and scanned by Stefan Huber. Thanks !