The Pink Panther is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise began with the release of the film The Pink Panther in 1963. The role of Clouseau was originated by and is most closely associated with Peter Sellers. Most of the films were written and directed by Blake Edwards, with theme music composed by Henry Mancini. Elements and characters inspired by the films were adapted into other media, including books, comic books, video games and animated series.
Richard Ewing Powell was an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man, starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.
Sidney Gilliat was an English film director, producer and writer.
John Longden was a British film actor. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1926 and 1964, including six films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
DeWitt Clarke Jennings was an American film and stage actor. He appeared in 17 Broadway plays between 1906 and 1920, and in more than 150 films between 1915 and 1937.
Jewel Robbery is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy heist film, directed by William Dieterle and starring William Powell and Kay Francis. It is based on the 1931 Hungarian play Ékszerrablás a Váci-utcában by Ladislas Fodor and its subsequent English adaptation, Jewel Robbery by Bertram Bloch.
Atlantic Ferry is a 1941 British film directed by Walter Forde and starring Michael Redgrave and Valerie Hobson. It was made at Teddington Studios.
The Ringer is a 1952 British mystery film directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Herbert Lom, Donald Wolfit, Mai Zetterling, Greta Gynt, William Hartnell, and Denholm Elliott. The screenplay was by Lesley Storm and Val Valentine. It was Hamilton's directorial debut and the third English-language sound version of Edgar Wallace's 1929 play based on his 1925 novel The Gaunt Stranger. The previous adaptations were in 1928 (silent), 1931, 1932 (Germany-Austria), and 1938.
Walter Forde was a British actor, screenwriter and director. Born in Lambeth, South London in 1898, he directed over fifty films between 1919 from the silent era through to 1949 in the sound era. He died in Los Angeles, California in 1984.
Appointment with Crime is a 1946 British crime film directed and written by John Harlow and starring William Hartnell, Raymond Lovell, Joyce Howard and Robert Beatty.
Jack's the Boy is a 1932 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Francis Lister and Peter Gawthorne. It became well known for its song "The Flies Crawled Up the Window", sung by Hulbert, which was released as a record and proved a major hit. The film was released in the U.S. as Night and Day.
The Gaunt Stranger is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Walter Forde. It stars Sonnie Hale, Wilfrid Lawson and Alexander Knox.
The Ringer is a 1931 British crime film directed by Walter Forde and starring Patric Curwen, Esmond Knight, John Longden and Carol Goodner. Scotland Yard detectives hunt for a dangerous criminal who has recently returned to England. The film was based on the 1925 Edgar Wallace story The Gaunt Stranger, which is the basis for his play The Ringer. Forde remade the same story in 1938 as The Gaunt Stranger. There was also a silent film of The Ringer in 1928, and a 1952 version starring Donald Wolfit.
Gordon Wong Wellesley was an Australian-born screenwriter and writer of Chinese descent. Born in Sydney in 1894 He wrote over thirty screenplays in the United States and Britain, often collaborating with the director Carol Reed. He began his career in Hollywood in the early 1930s and worked in Britain beginning about 1935. He was married to the scriptwriter Katherine Strueby. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story at the 1942 Oscars for Night Train to Munich, which was based on his novel, Report on a Fugitive.
Oliver Wakefield was a popular British actor and comedian, born in South Africa, who was active from the 1930s until his death in 1956. Often billed as "The Voice of Inexperience", Wakefield is best known for his idiosyncratic satirical monologues.
The End of the Line is a 1957 British second feature crime film directed by Charles Saunders and starring Alan Baxter, Barbara Shelley, Ferdy Mayne and Jennifer Jayne. The screenplay was by Paul Erickson. It was released in the USA in 1959.
Donald Stewart was an American actor and singer, who settled and worked in the United Kingdom. After training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and several appearances in Broadway musicals, Stewart moved to Britain. He performed in revue, and became a leading man in several British films of the 1940s including The Peterville Diamond (1942) and One Exciting Night (1944). During the 1950s he appeared in character roles in films and increasingly on television. He was married to the actress Renée Houston, whom he met filming Fine Feathers (1937).
Charles Cahill Wilson was an American screen and stage actor. He appeared in numerous films during the Golden Age of Hollywood from the late 1920s to the late 1940s.
Ladislas Fodor (1898–1978) was a Hungarian novelist, playwright and screenwriter.
Inspector Joseph French is a fictional British police detective created by Irish author Freeman Wills Crofts. French was a prominent detective from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, appearing in twenty-nine novels and a number of short stories between 1924 and 1957. The character was introduced in the 1924 novel Inspector French's Greatest Case, where he investigates a fatal diamond robbery in Hatton Garden. The series relied largely on puzzle mysteries.
