Home Page | Alphabetic Index | Ratings Index | Web Resources

A Shot in the Dark (1964)

A review by Damian Cannon.
Copyright © Movie Reviews UK 1997
A highly amusing farce, A Shot in the Dark sees Inspector Clouseau apply his unique talents to a puzzling murder enquiry. In the chateau of respected millionaire Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders), the body of his Spanish chauffeur Miguel has been discovered in Maria Gambrelli's (Elke Sommer) room. Since she was found with the smoking gun clutched in her hand, with the door locked from the inside, the conclusion is inescapable. However, when Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is assigned to the case, by mistake, the situation hardly seems so clear-cut. To Clouseau's eyes, it's hardly possible that anyone as beautiful and charming as Maria could be a murderer.

Instead, to the despair of his long-suffering superior Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), he formulates a case that features Maria shielding her lover. Even his young assistant Hercule Lajoy (Graham Stark) is convinced by the weight of evidence, but Clouseau is determined to follow his instincts. By getting close to Maria (a not unpleasant experience) he hopes to flush the jealous killer out into the open. However, when Clouseau himself finds Maria standing over the corpse of the gardener, with the bloody shears in her hand, it appears that he's backed the wrong horse.

Such prosaic logic proves unpersuasive for Clouseau though, thus he orders her release from prison yet again. Unfortunately his choice of disguise is as flawed as his handling of the facts (a balloon seller outside a jail!), causing the arrest of Clouseau before he can follow Maria to her presumed lover. Interestingly, at about the same time, it is revealed that Ballon was seen climbing down from Maria's window on the night of the shooting. Not that this would influence Clouseau, since he suspects everyone and no-one. Anyway, his hands are full with Kato (Burt Kwouk), his martial-artist servant.

Building upon the characters established in the first Pink Panther movie, A Shot in the Dark whips them up to even greater heights of comic absurdity. Clouseau blunders about, blissfully unaware of the ensuing chaos, naive and innocent in a peculiar way. The majority of the laughs stem from this clumsy, bumbling fool, a role that Sellers handles to perfection. His exceptional timing and physical acuity imbues Clouseau with a special aura, a feeling that somehow everything will turn out alright despite the errors made along the way. It's this ability that so infuriates Dreyfus, driven to distraction by this thorn in his side yet unable to rid himself of Clouseau because he might just be right.

A Shot in the Dark is awash with moments of outstanding comedy, covering slapstick, verbal, visual, physical humour and much more. The script is dripping with wonderful lines, made perfect by their dead-pan delivery, while some of the scenes leading up to this dialogue are simply hilarious. Sellers might be the star of the show but the cast arrayed around him all perform excellently, filling their respective roles with appropriate reactions and comments. Combined with a fine score, the result is a film which utilises several forms of comedy brilliantly, and it's almost all due to Seller's talent. Who else could make the simplest action seem fraught with difficulty?

Home Page | Alphabetic Index | Ratings Index | Web Resources