Clouseau and so

(Posted by Max Buffer)

In the late 70s I was trying to break into Hollywood again. Well Hollywood is a bit of an over statement seeing as my ‘foot in the door’ Blake Edwards was working (on and off) out of England on the Pink Panther films.

I’d had lunch with Blake, I can’t remember where exactly but they did a great Cod fillet in a parsley sauce, and we discussed my ideas for a Hollywood comedy about the burgeoning music scene called Punk. I felt there was a lot of fun to be had with surly idiotic teenagers who sported funny coloured hair and safety pins through body parts you wouldn’t normally insert anything into.

Imagine if you will it’s 1978 and “Star Wars” was starting to impress toy store owners with it’s range of merchandise. On the Radio and TV Space was the thing to be involved with. Some curly hair floozy was in love with a starship trooper and rubbish bins we’re being looked at as potential butlers (i.e. they looked a bit like that R2 D4 robot). But in the back rooms of pubs, including my local The King’s Blanket in Newendyke, a right old load of noise was being created but so called music bands. This was the launch of Punk Rocker Music.

I sat there, sipping my pint, thinking what we need is a big space ship to come down and blast these teenagers away with it’s big laser rockets – and with that epiphany I started writing a script.

The first draft didn’t really go anywhere. Punk Rockers were shot at or kidnapped by space robots, until the people of Earth realised that it was only a fad and they’d soon start listening to The Carpenters again (who also jumped on the space wagon with a great song about phone calls to E.T. types) and so they needed to rescue these teenagers, otherwise the worlds population would die out.

I knew there was a better script that would tie in with these two great story devices – Space and Punk – but as yet didn’t know how to execute it.

Later in the year I caught up with Blake Edwards when he was in the UK; this time with his dear lady wife, the jolly holiday herself, Julie Andrews. I think they were working together to secure funding for the cracking sex film “10″ which went on to feature my one time colleague Dudley Moore (star of the only five minutes we shot for the unfinished “What A Racket” about a tennis playing orchestra).

I used (and abused – ho ho ho, not really, well I hope they didn’t see it like that) a few contacts and managed to get Blake to agree to have lunch with me, while Julie appeared on Blue Peter or some such show for middle class kids. We discussed my Punk Space Epic and realised it ‘didn’t have legs’ (i.e. was going nowhere). But he mentioned he was gearing up for a new Pink Panther movie. I joked ‘what about a Punk Panther movie’ which made him choke on his Potato Gratin.

We bounced some ideas around and realised there were many comic opportunities to having Clouseau go under cover amongst the Punk Rocker scene with his penchant for disguises. He could have brightly coloured stupid looking hair, typical of the youth of the day at the time. He could have safety pins in his clothes and accidentally keep pricking himself, and others, on them. And he could end up singing on stage with one of the bands and becoming a celebrity as they public couldn’t understand a word he said, much like the Punk Rocker bands themselves.

The space elements would come from a sub plot where Chief Inspector Dreyfus tries to eradicate Clouseau by making him think Robots from another world are after him, in truth it would be a troupe of assassins hired by Dreyfus wrapped in tin foil.

Alas the script never was developed as I lost touch with Blake soon after the meal. Unlike now when you put someone’s number straight into your mobile phone, back then we used to write numbers on bits of paper and put them in our wallets. I would guess Blake lost mine as he never called me as promised, and I never got to note his number down as he was between houses and staying at a hotel whose number he couldn’t recall.

I may still revisit the Punk Rocker Space movie idea as it still would appeal to the children of today, but I may have to change the music to a much more up to date one, such as Heavy Metal or Happy Hardcore (the dance music scene where Ketamine is rife).

So until next time, keep watching…