A Shot In The Dark

C+

In this sequel of sorts to The Pink Panther, Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is back on the beat. The difference is that while the former movie is rich in plot where Sellers shared the screen with the likes of David Niven in a hilarious showcase of twisted double crosses and entangled relationships, A Shot In The Dark is closer to a character piece - that of the bumbling Clouseau - with traces of a whodunit. As far as British comedies go, this is a brilliant idea (Fawlty Towers applies the same formula), but A Shot In the Dark too tame to offer more than a few chuckles.

A murder has occured in the home of millionaire Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders), a chauffer has been shot dead and the parlormaid, Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer), is found with a smoking gun. One look at Maria, however, Clouseau's dim wit is caught up by something far more detrimental - love. Clouseau would not even think her guilty, even as the body count grows in the parlormaid's wake (one when she is relaxing in a nudist colony), and he is willing to see his career go out in flames before seeing her in prison - both prospects are equally probable.

As I said, A Shot In The Dark is a character piece. We follow Clouseau throughout most of the movie and follow his clumsy pursuits with as much sympathy and angst. Sellers thread a fine line in making the Inspector real, he is one character in everything he does. However, as we can expect, Clouseau's investigations seldom bring out fresh evidence and hence the story goes to a complete standstill - and we are stuck watching an idiot repeatedly shooting billiard with a bridge. The dialogues do not offer anything worth thinking about, they are mostly banters between characters that do nothing to give the much needed boost to the plot.

British comedies are ripe with dark humor and inaffable characters - it is sort of their speciality. Yet, A Shot In The Dark is glaringly plain and unadventurous and hence lacking an edge. The saving grace of this movie is Sellers, whose potrayal of Clouseau is pitch-perfect (if you want to see how bad an actor in this role can get, you don't have to wait long for the Steve Martin's interpretation). However, it is still, to me, an unworthy follow-up to the original Pink Panther movie.
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