The Pink Panther Strikes Again Clouseau prompts a relapse which cancels Dreyfus's planned discharge, but he soon escapes anyway and organizes an elaborate plot to threaten the countries of the world with annihilation by a large laser if they do not assassinate Clouseau for him. Unused footage from the film was later included in "Trail of the Pink Panther" (1982), after Sellers' death. At a psychiatric hospital, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) is largely recovered from his obsession to kill the new Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) and is about to be released when Clouseau, arriving to speak on Dreyfus' behalf, within
The Pink Panther derives its name from the eponymous pink diamond that has an enormous size and value. The diamond is called the "Pink Panther" because the flaw at its center, when viewed closely, is said to resemble a leaping pink panther. The phrase reappears in the title of the fourth film "The Return of the Pink Panther", in which the theft of the diamond is again the centre of the plot. The phrase was used for all the subsequent films in the series, even when the jewel did not figure in the plot. It ultimately appeared in six of the eleven films.