Aldanoli

As several other reviews have noted, this is a film version of an autobiography published in the early 1950s. The story begins in 1925 when the protagonist, a woman of about 30 (played by the lovely Helen Morse), has just been told by her husband that he intends to have an ongoing affair with his mistress, and expects that she'll just accept it. Instead, she packs up their children and, as the film opens, strikes out on her own.

Unfortunately, the Australia of 1925 was not particularly friendly to a newly-divorced woman with two children and few prospects for work. She first lives as a single mother in terrible housing with her children, putting up with vermin and a terrifying illness that nearly takes her young daughter's life. Her situation becomes increasingly desperate until she finds a lifeline in the form of a job as a barmaid. While it's hard work, and she has to fend off the attentions of often coarse men, it at least provides enough money to get her and her children out of their bedbug-ridden rooming house.

Early on she meets a charming suitor played by the delightful Jack Thompson (who had previously had a small part in 1971's quasi-horror film, Wake in Fright, and would go on a memorable role as the defense attorney in the landmark Australian New Wave film, 'Breaker' Morant). Here he's a well-to-do bookmaker who drives a new Cadillac that he's very proud of, and (somewhat against her wishes) he christens our heroine as "Caddie" in honor of . . . Well, his car, because he thinks she's as fine as the car, apparently.

The screen lights up whenever she and Thompson are together, but unfortunately he turns out to be only the latest in a string of disreputable men whose attention she seems to draw again and again. Caddie will go on to a relationship with a Greek suitor who, of course, she learns is already married. Although the film moves along deliberately during Caddie's early years as a single woman, it later skips ahead prodigiously into the Depression years, where Caddie discovers that, however hard her life may be, it's still not nearly as difficult as those of many other people who have even less than she does.

Caddie is a sadly-neglected film from the Australian New Wave, but it's enhanced by Ms. Morse's presence. Indeed, she graced one of the most notable of those early Australian films from the 1970s, 1975's elegant, mysterious Picnic at Hanging Rock, in which she had a major role. Morse also got perhaps her most notable role alongside Bryan Brown in the 1981 mini-series A Town Like Alice that ran several times on PBS in the early 1980s. But Caddie is virtually unknown in the U. S. today, even though several of the New Wave films have become at the very least cult classics.

Part of Caddie's obscurity may be because not only was it little-noticed when it first premiered in the U. S. (about the only major review was by Vincent Canby in the New York Times). Much of its obscurity today may be because its U. S. release didn't come about until 1981 -- almost five years after its original release in Australia in 1976. It's a pity, because Morse is always a welcome presence in a film, and this movie showcases her at the height of her career before her film work began to dwindle as the decades wore on; eventually, she worked almost entirely in the theater. While it's a difficult motion picture to locate, Caddie is a worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours with a woman who, against the odds, managed to overcome the difficulties facing a woman trying to fend for herself a century ago.

Like most of the other folks who have reviewed this 1968 entry into the Clouseau canon, I agree that this film is a disappointing follow-up to Peter Sellers' two triumphs, both from 1964 -- the original "The Pink Panther" and the best entry in the series, "A Shot in the Dark." The latter was not only gaspingly funny, but it also introduced many of the characters who made the series so memorable, including Herbert Lom's twitchy, tic-ridden Chief Inspector Dreyfus and Burt Kwouk's manservant, Kato.

(Actually, it bears mentioning that the original "Pink Panther" was also a subpar entry in what became the series. It was supposed to be a vehicle for David Niven (who still had far more screen time than Sellers) and also had long, interminable sequences with Robert Wagner. It was only when Blake Edwards realized how Sellers enlivened the film that he expanded Clouseau's role -- allegedly much to Niven's annoyance.) But all of those characters, as well as the unforgettable Sellers himself, are absent here. The producers allegedly tried to entice Sellers and Blake Edwards (co-writer and the director of the first two entries), but they preferred to make "The Party," with Sellers adopting what is now a cringe-inducing Indian accent and a load of dark makeup. There are a few funny sequences in that film, too, but one can only imagine what Sellers (and Edwards) might have done with this film instead.

New director Bud Yorkin (who would go on to a fruitful partnership with Norman Lear) and Alan Arkin, who was also a competent actor when playing comedy, make a game try of it. But neither Arkin nor one else could so effortlessly play Clouseau as well as Sellers.

Despite those shortcomings, there are some funny set-pieces here. Arkin is given some amusing lines ("There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them") and Addison Steele (who looks vaguely like a young Elton John here) plays an interesting villain.

Thus, at one point Clouseau is chasing Steele's character as he drives an amphibious car. Steele zips down a boat ramp and turns his vehicle into a watercraft. Clouseau follows right along in a conventional car . . . And of course, sinks like a stone. In another sequence, Clouseau tries to send a microphone into the room occupied by the villains by arrow (don't ask) only to overshoot the target and tap into a television set that happens to be playing a movie with a fictional group of bad guys planning a heist. Naturally, Clouseau thinks he's tapped into a goldmine of information about the crooks he's shadowing -- while missing their real caper.

Sadly, Sellers was absent from the role for more than a decade before his triumphant return in 1975 in "Return of the Pink Panther." It's a pity that he didn't try his hand at this film in between -- he could have done a lot with his own shtick no matter what the script held, and with Edwards at the helm, it undoubtedly would have been superior. Instead, we missed out on a decade without Clouseau played by Sellers, and then after 3 sequels he suffered an untimely death in 1980.

After Sellers' death, of course, Edwards realized too late what a golden goose he had had, and kept trying to exploit it for far too long, churning out embarrassing films cobbled together with outtakes of Sellers and doubles -- unsuccessfully trying to recreate the magic that made the role so entertaining. Whatever one can say about "Inspector Clouseau," therefore, it was at least an honest failure -- and superior to any of those later films that Edwards pasted together.