Emasculating Inspector Clouseau For Fun And Profit
Sony's Amy Pascal, even while mired in last year's Stealth-fueled disaster, never abandoned her instincts. She knew that with some judicious cuts (read: $5 mil in reshoots and edits) designed to render the troublingly priapic Inspector Clouseau a PG-rated eunuch, The Pink Panther could probably capitalize on Steve Martin's post-sellout Cheaper by the Dozen fan base. Reports the LAT on some of the family-friendly changes made en route to the movie's (long delayed) number one opening:
In one scene, Inspector Clouseau — determined to bed an international pop star played by Beyonce Knowles — broke into a New York pharmacy and stole Viagra, which then visibly took effect under his clothes. In another, a woman knelt in front of Clouseau to measure him for new clothes. "You have quite a long in-seam," she said, sliding a tape measure up his thigh. [...]
Out went the Viagra-stealing scene. Instead, a new riff was assembled from existing footage and added shots: Martin visits Beyonce at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ducks into the bathroom and realizes his flaming cocktail has lighted his hair on fire. In the commotion, he loses an unidentified blue pill down the drain, the room becomes a blazing inferno and Martin ends up falling through the floor and landing behind the hotel's reservation desk. [...]
In another scene, Clouseau's partner (played by Jean Reno) walks in on what appears to be the Inspector humping [Emily] Mortimer from behind. In fact, Clouseau is administering the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge an egg caught in her throat (when he succeeds, the egg pops out of her mouth and flies out the window, hitting a cyclist in the street below).
In the end, however, the $21.7 million Panther took in is a reward that pales in comparison to the invaluable service the studio performed for adults. The next time a five-year-old stumbles upon her parents engaged in a vigorous act of doggystyling congress, they can easily dismiss the potentially scarring tableaux as Daddy helping Mommy extricate a foreign body jammed in her esophagus.
