Review of A Shot in the Dark (1964) by Edith N — 19 Jan 2008

There is a play that this film is ostensibly based on. However, during the filming, so much was changed that no character from the play actually appears in the movie. In fact, Walter Matthau was supposed to be in it, but his character was completely sacrificed in order to make it into a movie that Peter Sellers felt right being in. Due to a quirk in filming and its being shelved for a while, this was an Inspector Clouseau movie that did not feature the Pink Panther name or animated character, the only one that does not.

Much stuff happens. There are murders, many murders. Elke Sommer is accused of them, but of course she cannot be guilty, because she is young and blonde and pretty and Inspector Clouseau manages, Gods know how, to get into her pants. Or, as the case may be, tiny maid uniform. Someone tries over and over to kill Clouseau and fails. There is hilarity and even hijinks, and it all goes on from there. Obviously, this is not really my thing, though that's in no small part because I think the talent of Peter Sellers is wasted here, and it continued to be wasted as he made film after film wherein he played Inspector Clouseau. I believe he had fun at it, of course, but I don't believe it's very good.

It's funny enough, I guess, though a lot of the humour isn't really my thing. Physical comedy doesn't appeal to me. I prefer wordplay and wit. Still, Peter Sellers does, as expected, [i]inhabit[/i] the character, to the extent that I'm fairly sure people who have only seen Pink Panther movies (sadly, quite a lot of people, I'm sure) don't realize how brilliant an actor he actually was.

Elke Sommer was, um, pretty. This appears to be what she did with her career, though she was on a made-for-TV movie wherein she played Magda Goebbels. (Who was pretty much a pretty symbol of the Fatherland. But anyway.) Most of the other main performers in this movie seem to have basically made a bunch of Pink Panther movies, though many of them made interestingly-titled things between them. (The notable exception is Herbert Lom, who--while he did, in fact, do a bunch of Pink Panther movies, made a bunch of other things people've actually heard of as well, such as the movie of [i]The Dead Zone[/i].).

Astonishingly, Peter Sellers never won so much as an honourary Oscar. He was nominated three times, once for Live Action Short; in 1964, he lost Best Actor to Rex Harrison for [i]My Fair Lady[/i]. Now, I like Rex Harrison, and I like [i]My Fair Lady[/i], but asking Rex Harrison to act misanthropic is like asking Tom Hanks to act nice; this is simply not challenging enough to really deserve an Oscar. (Both Richard Burton [i]and[/i] Peter O'Toole were nominated that year, too, but I really think Sellers deserved it more.) Peter Sellers fans--and Stanley Kubrick fans--will be looking at the year 1964 and may well already know what movie he was up for. We've discussed it here, in fact. [i]Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb[/i], officially one of the longest-titled nominees in Oscar history. Not winners, though; it didn't win. (It lost three of its four nominations to [i]My Fair Lady[/i], actually.) Don't get me wrong, now. I assuredly do not think Peter Sellers should've been nominated here, much less won. But it's something to think about, isn't it?