A series that will be in the pink

By Susan King

Dec. 14, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

PETER SELLERS was one of the clown princes of cinematic comedy. A true chameleon, he was a deft master of accents and pratfalls.

Movie magic was created when the British actor teamed with director Blake Edwards for “The Pink Panther” comedy series, in which Sellers played the inept Inspector Clouseau. (Interestingly, Peter Ustinov was slated to play Clouseau, but when he pulled out of the film shortly before production began, Edwards hired Sellers to play the clueless lawman.)

The American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica is paying tribute to the irrepressible Sellers (and Clouseau) with a five-film series that kicks off Friday with the 1964 “The Pink Panther.”

In this entry, David Niven plays a famous jewel thief, Sir Charles Lytton, who is on a ski holiday with his randy nephew (Robert Wagner). Niven has set his sights on the rare diamond called the Pink Panther that a beautiful princess (Claudia Cardinale) has brought to the ski resort. With the clever title sequence and Henry Mancini’s catchy score, “The Pink Panther” is an utter delight.

The second Clouseau film on Friday’s bill, 1964’s “A Shot in the Dark,” is even funnier because Clouseau is the central focus of the farce. This insanity, based on a forgotten Broadway play, features Elke Sommer as the love interest; Herbert Lom as Clouseau’s nemesis, Chief Inspector Dreyfus; and George Sanders as a millionaire. “Shot” also marks the debut of Burt Kwouk as Cato. Clouseau’s visit to a nudist colony with Sommer in tow is a highlight.

After a decade-long respite, Sellers and Edwards resurrected Clouseau in the hilarious 1975 “The Return of the Pink Panther.” This time around, the Pink Panther diamond is again missing and Clouseau is hot on the trail of supposedly retired Lytton (Christopher Plummer). Catherine Schell, Lom and Kwouk are also around for the slapstick shenanigans.

Following “Return” is 1976”s “The Pink Panther Strikes Back,” which finds poor Inspector Dreyfus (Lom) losing his mind over Clouseau’s ineptness and Clouseau being named chief inspector, and 1978’s “Revenge of the Pink Panther,” the last completed film -- and the weakest -- in the Sellers and Edwards comedy canon.

That holiday spirit

The Aero is also showcasing two classic holiday films -- 1946’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” and 1954’s “White Christmas.”

“It’s a Wonderful Life,” screening Dec. 21, was not a commercial success upon release, but over the last 60 years has developed a cult following second to none among Christmas movies. The film marked the return of director Frank Capra and actor James Stewart to feature films after having served in World War II.

Stewart gives one of his warmest performances as George Bailey, a distraught husband and father who is going to commit suicide on Christmas Eve until an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) decides to show him what the world would have been like had Bailey not been born.

“White Christmas,” Dec. 22, may not be art, but it is a wonderfully entertaining Technicolor musical that was Paramount’s first film shot in the studio’s widescreen VistaVision.

Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye play a song-and-dance team that attempts to help out a former World War II commander (Dean Jagger) from debt by putting on a show at the retired general’s inn in Vermont. Of course, the boys still have plenty of time to romance a musical sister act (Rosemary Clooney and VeraEllen) while singing the title tune and several other Berlin songs such as “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep.”

Romanticism

The Getty Center continues its “Cinema of Grace: German Romanticism on Film” series Friday with Carl Theodor Dreyer’s landmark 1928 silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” starring the haunting Maria Falconetti. Critic Pauline Kael once stated that Falconetti gave the greatest movie performance of all time.

Screening Saturday are Robert Bresson’s 1951 French drama “Diary of a Country Priest” and Werner Herzog’s 1976 German production “Heart of Glass,” the latter a drama about what happens to a town when the foreman of the city’s glass company dies without revealing the secret of how the ruby glass is made.

From the silent era

Scheduled for tonight at the Silent Movie Theatre is the juicy 1915 Cecil B. DeMille melodrama “The Cheat.” Fannie Ward plays the extravagant wife of a stockbroker who enters into a damaging bargain with a wealthy Japanese curio dealer (Sessue Hayakawa) to settle her enormous debts.

On Sunday is the melancholy 1929 swashbuckler “The Iron Mask,” which marked the final silent film of the era’s greatest action hero, Douglas Fairbanks. Directed by Allan Dwan, the fast-paced adventure finds Fairbanks playing the aging Musketeer D’Artagnan, who must avenge the murder of his lady love and thwart a plan to replace King Louis with his separated-at-birth twin. Definitely bring a hankie for the finale.

Note: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art film department offers a free matinee screening of the 1959 Oscar-winning epic “Ben-Hur,” starring Charlton Heston, at 1 p.m. Tuesday. Director William Wyler managed to simultaneously make the four-hour blockbuster grand and intimate. LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. (323) 857-6010.

susan.king@latimes.com

Screenings

Pink Panther films

* “The Pink Panther” and “A Shot in the Dark”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “The Return of the Pink Panther”: 5 p.m. Saturday

* “The Pink Panther Strikes Back” and “Revenge of the Pink Panther”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

Info: (323) 466-3456, americancinematheque.com

Christmas films

* “It’s a Wonderful Life”: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 21

* “White Christmas”: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 22

Where: Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica