The Pink Panther was never meant to have a sequel, so Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers went their separate ways.
Peter Sellers’ separate way involved making a movie to be called A Shot in the Dark for MGM. He was to costar with Walter Matthau, who had appeared in the Harry Kurnitz Broadway play “A Shot in the Dark.” (This play also starred Julie Harris and…William Shatner – [Spit take!].) “A Shot in the Dark” was, in turn, based on a French stage play by Marcel Achard called “L’Idiote” – which (for the BabelFish- or logically-challenged) means “The Idiot.” So the thing was a comedy to begin with – hence Sellers.
Yet Sellers did not like the quality of this project, for Sellers was nothing if not an exceedingly particular performer, often to his detriment. Here twas a good thing, though, for Blake Edwards was brought in to ensure Sellers stay on. Yes, at the time they liked each other, at least more than Sellers liked most people. Aiding Edwards in the rescripting process was cowriter William Peter Blatty, who – Say what?! The guy who created The Exorcist?! That’s a non sequitur I surely didn’t expect here.
Anyway, it was Blatty who noticed the story – a comic pastiche on the Agatha Christie-style mystery, starring a moron – would be a perfect fit for Seller’s Inspector Clouseau character from The Pink Panther. This jibed well with Sellers, for he had some notions of perfecting his buffoonery, and upping the ridiculous thickness of Clouseau’s French accent so much that other ostensibly French characters cannot even understand him. And so Clouseau was plopped into a largely-preexisting property, and thus was a Pink Panther sequel made – at most a half year after the original’s completion.
That’s also how The Pink Panther’s costar became the franchise’s true hero.
A Shot in the Dark is widely considered to be the best of the series, largely because it takes fullest advantage of the Clouseau character, who was still developing in The Pink Panther and who has been rather wrung dry by the later entries. It is a perfect comic mechanism, especially as a delivery system for countless running gags, devised around a bog standard murder mystery. That way, the jokes can stand unimpeded, with a plot far simpler than The Pink Panther’s.
And unlike that attempt, in this sequel Inspector Clouseau is the hero, no doubt about it. The comic formula has been reworked. Now the mumbling idiot triumphs at all times, in spite of (or because of) his incompetence. It keeps the audience on Clouseau’s side. With this reworking, Clouseau needs a villain, a competent straight man for his to invariably foil at every turn. As a murder mystery, that cannot be the murderer – lest we spoil the climactic twist. Rather, it is Clouseau’s superior at the French Sûreté, Commissioner Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom, Sellers’ non-Guinness costar in The Ladykillers).
Dreyfus is a recurring franchise element. As Clouseau’s opposite, he is eminently logical, and takes offense with every new Clouseauean success. Over the film’s course, Dreyfus descends into greater and greater madness, developing an eyeball tic and a nervous giggle. Though Dreyfus is not a comic grotesque as Clouseau is, Lom’s performance is fabulous, and effectively keeps the film from relying solely upon Sellers.
“Give me ten men like Clouseau and I could destroy the world.”
Dreyfus’ crumbling sanity is a joke Edwards can cut away to whenever Clouseau’s antics grow tired. (Machine for running gags.) Another joke (and nascent franchise element) is Clouseau’s manservant, Kato, or Cato, depending upon your spelling. Goldfinger’s Burt Kwouk, at any rate. As an Asian stereotype far less offensive than Mickey Rooney in Edwards’ Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Kato is prone to attack Clouseau (with Amazing Martial Arts™) at a moment’s notice. Result: slapstick. This is on Clouseau’s own orders, to keep his self-defense skills primed (that Clouseau thinks himself capable is itself amusing). Thus Kato lunges at totally random moments, as he interuptusizes coitus and even the movie’s climax. Like any good running gag, the audience has mostly forgotten about Kato by the next time he appears.
These are the side elements which add color to Clouseau’s world. The rest of the film is concerned with that murder mystery. A Spanish chauffeur has been shot (in the dark) over at the Chatteau de Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders), a plutocrat so influential he manages to keep Clouseau on the case even after Dreyfus wants him gone. But why is Ballon so insistent upon employing this klutzy dick?
The answer is rather complicated, as it is a mystery, but the short is this: Everyone but Clouseau immediately suspects the killer to be the Spaniard’s former lover, the maid Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer, attractive enough but surely no Claudia Cardinale). Clouseau cannot think this, not because he’s deduced anything (oh Lord no!), but simply because he is infatuated with Maria and her breasts. In fact, he spends the entire picture romantically pursuing Maria, with a considerable degree of success. And in case you ask, no, there is never any mention of Clouseau’s beloved ex-wife Simone, nor is there any reference to The Pink Panther (leaving that film’s anti-Clouseau ending a big question mark).
But here’s the thing (mystery-related SPOILERS, as though it matters): Maria is innocent. We know so much, having seen the real killer quite clearly in the ambitious one-shot opening sequence. It’s Ballon’s wife, Dominique (Tracy Reed, mmm…). As far as the case is concerned, it’s not so simple, for it seems every member of Ballon’s teeming estate is somehow culpable in this killing, or events surrounding it. Everyone, that is, except for Maria. The climax is largely concerned with expositing what we’ve mostly worked out, re: everyone’s guilt, while the details of all this are really of no one’s concern, including Edwards’. It is a comedy, after all, where tone is different, and all that need concern us is Maria’s innocence, which makes Clouseau’s pro-Maria actions a lot more forgivable.
Because Clouseau, kept on the case to Dreyfus’ fantastic chagrin, does all in his power to keep Maria out of prison, seduce her as Kato permits, and run the entire investigation in a rather counterintuitive manner. A consistent pattern emerges, each segment of that pattern its own independent running gag. Time and again, the following happens:
Maria is discovered over a freshly-murdered ex-suspect, and promptly arrested.
Clouseau lectures about “facts,” meanwhile destroying something of value in his office inadvertently. In spite of his assistant Hercule’s (Graham Stark) protests, Clouseau then ignores facts and has Maria released from prison purely out of horniness.
Dreyfus, twitching nervously in his office, tirades about Clouseau’s latest actions. (“Idiot nincompoop lunatic!”) Then he causes grievous harm to his person (i.e. he cuts off his own thumb).
Clouseau stakes out the prison as a vendor, and is himself duly arrested for lacking a license.
A police wagon hauls Clouseau off.
Such a framework takes a little while to get established, but once it’s there, it continues to pay off again and again. It’s a much more efficient comic structure than Edwards devised for Part One, partly because there are more moments afforded for one-off gags unrelated to plot. In fact, Clouseau’s whole fumbling routine is one long joke generator. Astoundingly for such a device, the slapstick is relatively subdued, at least compared to the output of the Three Stooges and their ilk. Credit Clouseau’s efforts to appear competent even whilst tumbling out of windows. A Shot in the Dark is nowhere near subtle, but neither is it pitched to the rafters.
Add to Clouseau’s physical flailing his verbal clumsiness, as Sellers has perfected his linguistic performance into the perfect mockery of the French accent. (One point which is never addressed is Clouseau’s Frenchness, how even in Paris he is never understood by others – whom we assume are too “speaking” French, though we hear it in English.) Further running gags evolve from this newly unearthed foible, notable debates on the pronunciation of the word “bump” (which Clouseau renders as “bimp” or, more accurately, “biouemp”). This eventually extends to also include “Miguel,” “bomb” and “moth.” And seeing as A Shot in the Dark derives from a stage play, this new tic allows the necessary scenes of extended dialogue to pass by painlessly.
Many comedy-mongers would be content with all that is set up here, but Edwards is no ordinary purveyor of yucks. In true Edwardsian manner, he uses the remaining screen time to fashion individual comic sequences in which he (and Sellers) may explore new ideas. Some of these derive from the outline of a chamber-set murder mystery, but others are far more ambitious. Of greatest note is an extended detour to a nudist colony (don’t ask).
Edwards toys with notions of censorship and audience viewpoint in what we now recognize as the Austin Powers gag – nudity is covered up by the judicial placement of foreground objects. The ‘60s version of this joke is somewhat tamer in one sense, victim of time’s forward march. On the other hand, Edwards’ variation remains the crowning jewel of this family jewel japery, for it concerns mass nudity. Consider it. On screen, at once, are several dozen naked people, each one coyly kept in the PG realm by a separate innuendo-laden item. When it finds such moments, this movie is pretty balls-to-the-wall…so to speak.
And it goes on, Clouseau and Maria both naked as they reemerge into crowded downtown Paris. A gaggle of gawking gapers gathers, leading to –
Police wagon.
In another noteworthy set piece, Edwards explores black comedy. (One thing I like about Blake Edwards is how he formally examines various comic forms at will.) In this one, Clouseau is stalked by a black glover straight out of the fledgling giallo genre. Repeated attempts are made upon Clouseau’s life, each time Clouseau moving just slightly so some random, innocent passerby perishes instead. It’s luck as a superpower! Isolated within this one sequence, we see Edwards’ approach: First a lengthy “normal” version, then modified into shorter variations where every detail is refashioned as a joke.
Four people die so that Inspector Clouseau may live, and we laugh all the while. In a film as soufflé light as A Shot in the Dark, it takes a deft directorial hand to keep such horrors from miring in darkness.
And the killer’s identity is a punchline I shall not spoil here.
…
…
…No, I think I will. It’s Dreyfus!
But in the end, A Shot in the Dark is a textbook murder mystery. As such, it must conclude in the Accusing Parlor, to quote “Futurama,” as Clouseau does like Hercule Poirot and Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes and Nick & Nora and Sam Spade and Mr. Wong and Columbo and Peter Wolfe and Batman and simply assembles all the suspects together for an extended lecture. The intent, here as always, is to get the murderer to expose him/her/themselves, in light of Clouseau’s own ignorance. Here is where Clouseau’s own difficulties with the English/French/whichever language serve him worst. And because everyone is guilty (Maria aside, as we’ve said), they all react like fictional murderers – that is, a screaming match erupts.
Then every guilty party explodes, victims of a bomb the black glover meant for Clouseau. So add another 4 or 5 people (it’s unclear) to an astoundingly large comedy body count.
That’s A Shot in the Dark. But that’s all formalistic investigation. To sum it up best, one need only consider Clouseau’s individual tomfooleries.
CLOUSEAU’S BUMBLING ANTICS (exceedingly partial list):
- Falls from a car into a fountain.
- Squirts pen ink all over others, accidentally drinks it.
- Knocked out a window.
- Smacked in head by a door.
- Smacked in head by same door.
- Breaks a pointing stick over his dear friend.
- Falls down in the dark.
- Rips pants on a locked cabinet.
- Traps hand in a spinning globe.
- Somehow grabs his opponent’s pool cue whilst hugging himself.
- Assorted other pool cue-related mishaps, too numerous to recount.
- Falls from a second story window into the river.
- Is shat upon by a crow.
- Randomly falls into a pond.
- Smashes his hand through a plate glass window.
- Mishandles a telephone.
- Leans against a door and falls through it.
- Trods upon a matron’s foot.
- Falls off a sofa.
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Pink Panther (1963)
• No. 3 Inspector Clouseau (1968)
• No. 4 The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)
• No. 5 The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
• No. 6 Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)
• No. 7 Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)
• No. 8 Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
• No. 9 Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
• No. 10 The Pink Panther (2006)
• No. 11 The Pink Panther (2009)
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