Sellers requested his The Pink Panther director Edwards take the helm, and the latter boldly rewrote (with William Peter Blatty, pre-The Exorcist) the hit play for their Panther character creation, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Giving his finest performance as Clouseau, Sellers hits hysterical highs both verbal and visual when the zealous but inept French sleuth wades into a morass of murders refusing to concede that prime suspect Elke Sommer could be the culprit.