It wasn’t until the second Pink Panther that Inspector Clouseau bumbled into the spotlight
Film Features Clouseau
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Coming 2 America now available to rent from home, we’re offering our own belated sequel to a past Watch This theme and singing the praises of more good comedy sequels.
A Shot In The Dark (1964)
Released only a year after The Pink Panther, A Shot In The Dark was the film in which Peter Sellers’ incompetent and oblivious Inspector Clouseau came into his own; it marked the introduction of Clouseau’s trademark accent (which Sellers is said to have borrowed from a hotel concierge a week into filming) and of the characters of Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), the police commissioner who is driven insane by Clouseau’s antics, and Cato (Burt Kwouk), the valet whose job it is to ambush Clouseau at inopportune moments so the detective can keep his fighting skills sharp. Previously a bumbling scene-stealer, Clouseau was now the star of the show—though not yet a complete cartoon.
Technically, it was more a spin-off than a sequel, but given that continuity in the Pink Panther series is as haphazard as any of Clouseau’s investigations, this seems like a moot point—the film wasn’t even supposed to feature Clouseau until Blake Edwards had the script (which featured a different inept French police detective) rewritten to entice Sellers. Oddly enough, the rewrite was handled by William Peter Blatty, who would later become famous for The Exorcist. Odder still, in the hit Broadway farce that provided A Shot In The Dark with its source material, the role given to Sellers’ Clouseau was played by William Shatner.
The plot is a standard murder mystery. A chauffeur has been found dead at the estate of the wealthy Benjamin Bellon (George Sanders), and a maid named Maria (Elke Sommer) is suspected to be the culprit by everyone except the smitten, periodically Quixote-esque Clouseau. Although the story was significantly reworked by Edwards and Blatty, its stage-bound origins partly explain why it feels more coherent than the later Pink Panther movies, which cashed in on Clouseau’s popularity, even when Sellers was absent (as in the next film, the forgotten Inspector Clouseau) or dead.
It has to be acknowledged that, both together and apart, Edwards and Sellers have a deservedly awful reputation when it comes to Asian stereotypes—we’re talking about everything from Breakfast At Tiffany’s to The Fiendish Plot Of Dr. Fu Manchu. Kwouk’s brief appearances as Cato are funny here, but the character increasingly became a caricature as the series progressed, turning some of A Shot In The Dark’s most memorable jokes into formulaic running gags. A little of the character goes a long way.
Out of all the films in the series, this is the one that best showcases Edwards’ tight control over comedy, which is obvious from the opening sequence, a long crane shot that follows the amorous goings-on at the Ballon estate as live-in servants sneak into each other’s bedrooms. This isn’t to say that the film is short on obvious improvisation (a particular routine with a wristwatch comes to mind) or truly ridiculous sequences, like Clouseau’s trip to a nudist colony, in which he attempts to preserve his dignity with a well-placed guitar. Decades later, the rise of Judd Apatow-style improv would turn Hollywood comedies into salvage jobs, with constant cuts between close-ups. In that light, it’s hard not to admire the dedication of this movie’s cast members, who manage to keep straight faces as Sellers bumbles his way through Edwards’ long takes.
Availability: A Shot In The Dark is available to stream on Amazon Prime with a Cinemax subscription, and can be rented or purchased digitally from Amazon and Fandango Now.
92 Comments
Hadn’t seen it in a while but I just caught this while channel surfing a couple weeks ago, hilarious stuff.I pronounce ‘clue’ the way Sellers does whenever possible.
You killed him in a rit of fealous jage!
A brilliant film. Left me gasping for air like a fish.
Hot take: The Blake Edwards stylee is to cinema what Vicars and Tarts parties are to getting people together.
Cannot decide if you mean that as an insult or compliment.
I don’t know, are you a vicar?
It’s ironic that the two movies with the least to do with the Pink Panther diamond (this and Strikes Again) are the funniest ones. I remember seeing Strikes Again and thinking it was the funniest thing ever when I was a kid, then seeing Shot in the Dark and loving it almost as much. Immediately afterwards, I started saving up my allowance, forced my mom to drive me to the mall so I could buy the original on VHS despite never having seen it before, and sitting through it, slowly realizing what a horrible mistake I’d made. Revenge has nothing to do with the diamond either, but it stinks out loud, so I’m ignoring it to make my point.
How dare you, sir. Revenge might end on a meh note, but some of the funniest scenes in all of Panther-dom are there. The Old Swedish Fisherman, the Balls Brothers, anything involving the transvestite, Clouseau’s apartment turned into a brothel, and every bit of the funeral scene – they’re all winners.
Ugh. I love The Pink Panther Strikes Again so much. I’ve seen it more times than I can count and certain sequences have never failed to make me laugh until I can’t breath, like Clouseau disguised as a the dentist with the melting nose and the murderous Oktoberfest
And the monkey/blind beggar as the lookout outside the bank getting robbed.. I used to recite that entire scene from memory. But hey, better watch all these great movies before they are banned…
The hunchback costume schtick starts off so-oo stupid … but the weirdness keeps going until once he’s floating out the window it turns into sheer freak inspired lunacy.
So many classic bits in Strikes Again….And I lived the opening credits scene with all the movie parodies.
And here’s the credits!
Which one is the one where Dreyfus disintegrates the UN with a giant laser?
The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Soylent Green.
Strikes Again is so good.
One of my favorite corny dumb-ass payoff lines of all time.
“Zat ees not my dog!”Classic.
Cracks me up every time.
Revenge has Sellers almost lethargic, as if he were recovering from another heart attack, and Clouseau spends half the movie undercover as he faked his death. Edwards and Sellers couldn’t stand each other anymore and swore they would never work together again (not for the first time). At the time of his death, Sellers was working on Romance of the Pink Panther, with Clive Donner (What’s New, Pussy Cat) as the director. The script is easy to find. It would have delivered the same rote shtick as in Revenge, with another extended sequence at costume maker Balls, and a lot of bad puns. Yet, Blake Edwards used many of the ideas for Trail of the Pink Panther (along with deleted scenes from Strikes Again).But, then again, Edwards apparently lifted the plot for Strikes Again from an unused script that had been sent to him by French writer René Goscinny (the guy who had created Astérix, and also did some live action projects), as he had Peter Sellers in mind for the lead part, and wanted Edwards to deliver him the script. That may explain (along with Sellers’ health at the time or his relationship with Edwards) why Strikes Again had been mostly an improvement over Return, while Revenge is such a letdown.
“the return of the pink panther” or gtfo. it was the first film i paid to see repeatedly.
The Pavlova of the Parallel Bars bit in Strikes Again utterly cracked me up when I first saw it. I couldn’t stop laughing for at least a couple of minutes afterwards.
“Ahh, yes… I remembAAAHAHHHAAAAAARGLH… *thud thud thud*”Love that scene.But the montage of him trying to sneak into the castle is 100% the best part of the movie. I have peed myself laughing multiple times watching that sequence.
This is the funniest scene in the entire series. It perfectly captures Clouseau – the self confidence, the fastidiousness, the pride, the foolishness, the clumsiness. I’ve seen that 100 times and laughed every time.
Clouseau being repeatedly hauled off in that paddy wagon is my single favorite running gag in movie history.
Especially from the nudist camp.
Indeed, and the fact that it cuts to it ever more quickly just makes it even funnier.
Goddamnit i will brook no disparaging of Burt Kwouk.
Burt Kwouk is Life!
I really like this movie. Maybe the best sequel ever, and the best retort to anyone trying to argue that sequels are inherently inferior to the original.
The Godfather: Part II is the best retort.
Aliens says SSSSSSS!!!
My answer is always Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan.
I prefer Search for Spock.
Except The Godfather is better than The Godfather II.
Agreed, I think Godfather part II *is* one of the best sequels ever, but it isn’t as good as the first one.
Exceptions that prove the rule. It’s also one of the few sequels that generally does retread the same core story but actually keeps it fresh. I think sequels getting a bad rap is the cultural holdover from the 80s when movies went 4-6 deep on a single trope….
And Aliens.
Also: The Empire Strikes Back.
We must surely add Aliens to the list?
Addams Family Values (I think I read an article about it recently)
Breakin 2 : Electric Boogaloo
I know I’m in the minority, but I prefer the first film. The snowy setting, the glamorous cast, jewel thieves and the European jetset. There’s even a musical number! Also, I think Sellers is best as part of an ensemble, such as The Lady Killers. In Strangelove you get the best of both worlds, where Sellers gets to play multiple roles and make a splash, while also sharing the screen with equally talented co-stars.
On Strangelove Sellers reputedly also wanted to play the Stirling Hayden, Slim Pickens and Peter Bull roles until Kubrick managed to persuade him otherwise. and isn’t this a great behind the scenes shot.
I heard the reverse, that Sellers wanted to get out of playing Major Kong. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers starring Geoffrey Rush has him turn up on set in a cast after his son said something about how to get out of school I believe that he picked up on.
That’s not entirely true. Sellers was originally supposed to play four parts in the film, but it was due to a request by the studio, who wanted to top the three parts Sellers had played in “The Mouse That Roared” a few years before. Neither Kubrick nor Sellers were enthusiastic about the gimmick, and they had difficulties finding a fourth part suitable for Sellers, even if he was the big selling point for the project. Sellers’ fee was actually more than half the overall budget, so when reporters joked that with Sellers he had fours actors for the price of one, Kubrick would reply “I got three for the price of six”. Kubrick ultimately decided to cast him as Major “King” Kong, and some stills survived (just like there are stills from the pie fight at the end of the film, which was later deleted).The problem was that Sellers couldn’t master a good Texan accent, and grew more and more uncomfortable with the part. So, when he hurt his ankle, Sellers and Kubrick explained to Columbia it was too difficult for him to move in the cramped cockpit set, but the truth was that he was simply happy to give up his fourth part.They hired Slim Pickens instead, who has the particularity of having two of the most memorable death scenes in film history, riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove and bleeding to death after being shot in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the scene for which Dylan wrote “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”.
And the final car chase sequence.
It Had Better Be Tonight is one of the most infection ear worms of all time. Just you mentioning musical number has it running through my brain on a loop.
The Pink Panther (1963) has one of the funniest car chase scenes ever committed to film. Cracks me up every time:
There’s a reason for which Sellers delivered most of his best work with Blake Edwards and Stanley Kubrick.Seller was a high energy guy who delivered it all in the early takes, also improvising from take to take (which is naturally a continuity nightmare). After the third or the fourth take, he would be exhausted and would just perform pale and unusable imitations of what he had previously achieved. This required the director to set up multiple cameras and a flawless technical setup for the first take. Kubrick would use three cameras at once, to get all the angles, Edwards was one of the first directors (along with Jerry Lewis) to experiment (on The Party) with video assist, so he could adjust things on the spot.
Considering what a perfectionist Kubrick was (sometimes doing hundreds of takes for a single shot), that is surprising. But he and Sellers must have gotten along, as he is one of the only actors Kubrick ever reused.
More than a perfectionist, Kubrick was somebody who couldn’t articulate exactly what he wanted until he saw it. Behind most of the 100+ takes stories, Kubrick would feel that something was off but couldn’t say what, until the actors tried something a little different, more to his tastes. Also, most of the takes didn’t bring anything. Some of his assistants could predict that even when he asked for fifty takes, he ended up using the first one. With people like Sellers, he got what he wanted right from the start.In other occasions, it was just power play for Kubrick. He would ask for dozens of takes not for a particular reason but because he just could. Kubrick was perfectly able to work fast when needed. Dr. Strangelove and even A Clockwork Orange were shot quite quickly after some extensive research work (it helped that Malcolm McDowell was, like Sellers, reliably good in the first takes). After that, Kubrick was quite aware that, by working in England, he just needed a skeleton crew onset, compared to the dozens of people required for a studio production, because of guilds and unions. As he had also signed contracts with the cast without any date of completion set in stone, he could afford shooting for months, as the film stock would end up as the main cost if there was some additional time.
Peter Sellers and Kirk Douglas are the only two Kubrick used more than once I can think of.
The only other one I know of is Joe Turkel, who had supporting roles in The Shining, Paths of Glory, and The Killing.
Leonard Rossiter – 2001 S.O. and Barry Lyndon.
There are definitely more, especially if you take bit parts into consideration:- Sterling Hayden (The Killing, Dr. Strangelove)- Leonard Rossiter (a Russian scientist in 2001 and Barry’s rival at the beginning of Barry Lyndon) who’s also “Sergeant Yard”… in The Pink Panther Strikes Again.- Margaret Tyzack (another Russian scientist, and a conspirator in A Clockwork Orange). Part of the recurring cast in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.- Patrick Magee (Mr. Alexander in A Clockwork Orange, Balibari in Barry Lyndon)
– Philip Stone (Alex’ dad in A Clockwork Orange, a bit part in Barry Lyndon, Grady in The Shining). He’s the British officer in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.- Steven Berkoff (ACO, Barry Lyndon)- Leon Vitali (Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon, master of ceremony in Eyes Wide Shut), who was also Kubrick’s assistant- “Little” Joe Turkel (The Killing, Paths of Glory, and Lloyd the bartender in The Shining). He was also Tyrell in Blade Runner. And he is of average height…
Yes, you’re right, Dwigt! I’d forgotten all about Sterling Hayden and Patrick Magee. The others… I’m not so likely to have registered.
Odder still, in the hit Broadway farce that provided A Shot In The Dark with its source material, the role given to Sellers’ Clouseau was played by William Shatner.Except for the French (or “French”) accent, I can totally see Shatner as the bumbling, hopelessly smitten detective. His inclination to hamminess would be put to excellent use in the role.
“I believe. Everything. And I. Believe. Nothing. I. Suspect everyone. And. I Suspect no. One.” ~ Capt James T Clouseau (William Shatner), Star Trek: A Phaser Blast in the Dark
Funnily enough, I believe Shatner can actually speak French.
Almost certainly so, but I expect with a Quebecois accent rather than a French one. Although that may be close enough for a broad farce.
Given the “French Accent” Peter Sellers used?Yeah, Shatner’s QuebecoisFrench would be just fine…..
not this one but one of my fave exchanges:(after he has destroyed a beautiful piano)“but that’s a priceless steinway!”“not anymore.”
A Shot in the Dark was the best in the series for me and can stand on it’s own merits.Of course, Elke Sommer makes it easy to watch too.
The star of the very fine I Know What You Did, Elke Sommer.
I love that the title of the REM album “Lifes Rich Pageant” is not just a general reference to that phrase, but specifically to the bit in this movie where, after Clouseau has fallen into a fountain like a dumbass and is trying to act like he meant to do that, Maria worries that he’ll die of pneumonia and Clouseau says (with a perfect mix of attempted nonchalance and ridiculous grandiosity) “Yes I probably will, but it’s all part of life’s rich pageant, you know?” I can’t decide whether that means Michael Stipe has a very sly sense of humor or none at all.
I love the Sellers Pink Panthers. Idk why they tried to do it so many times without him. I love Steve Martin and Alan Arkin and stuff but its not the Pink Panther without Peter Sellers.
Don’t forget that Alan Arkin played Clouseau in 1968 in a non-Edwards version called “Inspector Clouseau” it did not do well.
This movie is definitely an improvement over Pink Panther, but I do not like this movie. The “that is not my dog” joke is one of the all time great jokes, and obviously the running Cato gag is so funny that 30 Rock can just lift it directly and it will still make me laugh out loud, but there’s something about the police chief trying to kill Clouseau and instead racking up a huge body count that is too dark for me to enjoy (even though my tastes tend to lead darker). I think it’s Lom’s performance, he plays it too much like a man who has snapped and is in the midst of a psychotic breakdown with no comedic lightness, and then you contrast that with Sellers who is doing the most comedic of comedic performances, and it just doesn’t work for me. Watching it, I got why it’s such cliche in American police comedies for the police chief to yell at the main character from behind a desk; take it too much further and it starts to affect the comedy.
Doesn’t Lom’s character snap in one of the later sequels?
He kind of snaps in all of them, but there was one where he was the villain.
… and unlike the usual supervillain demands, all he (and the crew he convinced to go along with him) is just the death of Clouseau or he’ll destroy increasing numbers of things with his giant laser.Which is why at one point, secret agents from many world governments try to kill Clouseau … with disastrous results.
I’m just here for the Elke Sommer
Sommer Lovin’
This is hands down the best Pink Panther movie. Why? Elke Sommer, George Sanders, Bert Kwouk and Herbert Lom (before those last two had let their characters devolve into caricature).
And it has the line “killed her in a writ of fealous jage” which no other movie has.
Sellers wasn’t even originally cast as Clouseau in The Pink Panther. It was originally to be Peter Ustinov, and the character was far less prominent. When Ustinov pulled out at short notice and Sellers took the role Edwards realised just how good he was and rewrote large chunks of the script to give him a bigger role. I rewatched A Shot In The Dark recently and it’s still a joy. The PP Strikes Again is also a lot of fun but it shows the shift towards farce rather than more smartly observed comedy. A shame Edwards and Sellers ended up hating each other so much.
I haven’t seen this movie out of the first five or six. And yeah I saw Trail of the Pink Panther, released after Peter Sellers’ death. Don’t bother with that one.
Mancini’s “Pink Panther” theme gets all the musical glory, but “A Shot in the Dark” might be even better. It’s so…slinky…that I wonder if Mancini actually wrote it earlier for “Peter Gunn” but never used/submitted it.
I collect soundtracks from Peter Sellers’ films on vinyl and one of things that upsets me most is that there was never a soundtrack release for A Shot in the Dark. The best you can do is get the song on a Mancini compilation. It makes me so sad not to even have the option to own it.
The theme kicks major ass when a loud band like John Zorn’s Naked City or Oranj Symphonette roars into it.
In the late Eighties, I used to hang out with a band in Detroit called the Kaos Killers, who only played spy and detective themes. I loved their version of this one.
It’s not the original version, but I really love the version John Zorn did for his “Naked City” album in the early ‘90s.
Janet, I’ve been a huge Mancini fan since childhood (really!) and it wasn’t until I really paid attention to the films he was scoring that I wished we had gotten actual “soundtrack” albums, instead of the “twelve songs, six on a side, with just re-recorded versions of the cues” that passed as “Original Soundtrack Albums.” I would have loved to hear the intensely creepy score to “Experiment In Terror” on its own, for instance. (“Mister Easy Listening,” indeed!) Nowadays, of course, “soundtrack albums” are the actual cues.
“Quixote-esque”
Something against quixotic?
Editing is sometimes tilting at windmills. Thank you.
I always found it kind of sad how Blake Edwards kept trying to return to the Pink Panther series after Sellers’ death, first with the zombie/salvage job sequel Trail of the Pink Panther, then with two non-starters of attempts at reviving the series with a new lead actor.
It’s also a little ironic, because the last full installment he did with Sellers, 1978’s Revenge of the Pink Panther, though a box office success, suggested the Sellers-Edwards-Panther project had already run out of gas. Also because in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s Edwards found himself in a bit of a run of successful films made with his wife, Julie Andrews: 10, S.O.B., and Victor/Victoria.
Edwards and Sellers were already in bad terms by the time A Shot in the Dark was completed. They patched things up for The Party, then Sellers was blacklisted due to his antics during production of Casino Royale, shortly before Blake Edwards had a huge flop with Darling Lilli. It’s because they had so few opportunities that they accepted to work together on a low budget Pink Panther sequel (or TV series). The script (for the low budget thing or the pilot) was so good that they got some investors to turn it into a proper film, The Return of the Pink Panther (that’s also why the scenes with Christopher Plummer kill the momentum, they were late rewrites to add some action into the plot/reach feature length), and then United Artists (which had refused to invest directly into Return…) fast-tracked another sequel, Strikes Again.For The Trail… and The Curse…, by the beginning of the 80s, United Artists (soon to be MGM-UA) was desperate for sequels in their existing franchises, as things were otherwise quite gloomy in their production slate. They relied a lot on James Bond (some things never change), Rocky (ditto) and The Pink Panther. So, they were happy to sign a big check for two sequels shot back to back, including one that, through the miracles of editing, could have Sellers as the lead and prepare the transition to another lead. Then, the plan was for Ted Wass to star in many sequels, with the supporting cast introduced in Curse, with Edwards and his associates being remotely associated with the new series, that would have mostly been a Police Academy rival.Besides, don’t underestimate how much Blake Edwards may have embraced the opportunity to piss figuratively on Sellers’ grave with The Trail of the Pink Panther. For The Curse, he couldn’t get a satisfying lead, after Dudley Moore turned him down and MGM vetoed a then unknown Rowan Atkinson. Yet, based on his cameo, Roger Moore could have made a good Clouseau. Edwards and MGM blamed the lackluster performance of the two films on each other, resulting in a big lawsuit that was settled out of court after five years.Son of the Pink Panther is another total misfire. For a decade, Edwards had his ups and downs as a director, until he tried once again to reboot his career with a new Pink Panther film, cowritten by people who had worked on the early seasons of Webster. This time, Kevin Kline and a then famous Rowan Atkinson turned him down (they had definitely read the script), plans to get Gérard Depardieu collapsed, Tim Curry and Bronson Pinchot were considered, but getting Roberto Benigni allowed Edwards to secure Italian fundings for the project.Thing I was happiest to learn: most of the actors who turned down the part acknowledged (rightly) they couldn’t rival with Sellers.Thing I was unhappiest to learn: In addition to cashing in on Peter Sellers (without asking for authorization to use his name or outtakes from the previous entries), the Trail/Curse diptych was also the final performance of Sir David Niven, who was suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease and died two weeks before Curse was released. He was already so frail that they ultimately used an impressionist to dub his lines, something that Niven discovered much later by reading his newspaper.Strangest fact: There’s an unaired and never seen Pink Panther pilot. It was shot in 1989 without Blake Edwards (and presumably Sellers). It had a police detective teaming with the cartoon Pink Panther, who could talk. It isn’t a surprise that it was made just after Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
I think it would have been interesting to see Edwards do a full Pink Panther movie with Alan Arkin. I believe he made a cameo in one of the later Sellers-less sequels.“Inspector Clouseau” wasn’t a great movie by any stretch, but I was surprised that Arkin actually did a decent job with the character. Said the old Don himself, Roger Ebert:“Clouseau is Alan Arkin this time, instead of Peter Sellers, and it’s hard to say whether we gain or lose. Arkin flounders a little in the stiff French accent he inherited from Sellers. But in his movements and timing, he’s Sellers’ equal.”Atkinson or Kline would have been excellent choices. Moore not so much – he just had a different energy.
My fun personal fact about A Shot in the Dark is that when playing Trivial Pursuit as a teen in the early 90’s with a bunch of adults (who, like myself, loved the Pink Panther movies), the question came up as “what is the sequel to The Pink Panther?”.No one, not even my parents, had ever heard of this film. I grew up watching all the PP (lol) movies with my family and none of us knew about ASITD. My mom watched it shortly thereafter and said don’t waste your time. IDK, as I still have never seen it myself, let alone any PP movies at all since probably 1993.As for Sellers, though, Dr. Strangelove has never, ever gotten old.
Damn but George Sanders had a great voice. His Shere Khan is still one of my favourite animation voice overs.