A SHOT IN THE DARK
Tagline: It's Sellers the Sleuth... and there's nothing he won't do to track down a body -- dead or alive!
Preshow Entertainment: ABC PROMO REEL
BEST SELLERS
PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT:
For Preshow, we watched the rest of the ABC promo reel from the 1960s and 1970s. These were commercials as well as promos (for affiliates, I guess) of premieres and returning shows. Here's some of the spots we saw:
Coincidentally, we watched a lot of Mannix, Voyage, Giants and Time Tunnel this year, so it was pretty cool to also see how they marketed the shows.
AND NOW, OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION:
With cartoons, TV shows, reboots, sequels and even sequels of remakes, there's no question as to the success of any panther of the pinkish variety. It's the Starbucks of movie franchises, popping up at every turn. Even today, nearly 45 years after his debut, I saw a Sweet'N Low TV commercial starring the Pink Panther and Regis Philbin. What is open for debate is how good they are. "Not very" is a fine answer for most of them. But the first two, THE PINK PANTHER and A SHOT IN THE DARK, were the bright spots. The 2006 Steve Martin one, which he also co-wrote, was an empty and sad attempt, with nary a joke to be found. So that could only mean one thing - they're making a sequel, due in 2009.
Also debatable is which movie was first, A SHOT IN THE DARK or THE PINK PANTHER. Released only months apart, it turns out SHOT was shot, shelved by the studio, and released only after the huge success of PANTHER.
A SHOT IN THE DARK is a classic parlor room mystery, but instead of Hercule Poirot we get Jacques Clouseau, a bumbling detective who makes Inspector Lestrade look like Lt. Columbo (it's wisely never mentioned just how a fool like Clouseau could ever be on a police force).
ASITD opens with tryst-seekers making staged, farcical entrances in and out of rooms of a mansion to Mancini's haunting "Shadows of Paris." Then, a single gunshot. A murder has been committed at the home of millionaire Ballon (George Sanders) and somehow Clouseau is put in charge of the case.
And this is all you need to know. The rest of the movie is all Sellers. His slapstick falls (like from the car into a fountain or rocking himself right off the couch), his spoonerisms ("a rit of fealous jage!", though that's rumored to have been a slip of the tongue and they just left it in), his declarations ("I suspect everyone, and I suspect no one!"), and the way he progressively drives his boss (Herbert Lom) so mad he may actually commit a murder himself. The murders pile up (at one point someone is even after Clouseau) but it doesn't really matter. Clouseau is smitten with Maria, and we want him to win the girl and the case. And also get his hand stuck in a spinning globe.
A SHOT IN THE DARK is thought by many to be the best of the franchise. Ironic, since the original script didn't even have Clouseau in it. It was a play (with Walter Matthau!) retro-fitted for Sellers and the character. Blake Edwards directed the movie (we're seeing his movie 10 next month, to celebrate the beginning of RMC's 10th year) and co-wrote it with William Peter Blatty, who went on to write the book and script for THE EXORCIST. That's just cool.
I have friends who love Peter Sellers and others who hate hate hate him. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. I love the clueless Clouseau even in the bad movies. I laughed a lot at his Mr. Hulot-ish turn as a guest in THE PARTY, and as a lawyer in I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS. His poetic performance as Chauncey Gardner in BEING THERE is, for my money, his best. I loved him in LOLITA and DR. STRANGELOVE. But I didn't care for much of his other work (that I've seen). It's too bad BEING THERE wasn't his swan song. No, he had to go make THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU.
And now, if I may paraphrase Clouseau regarding who will like A SHOT IN THE DARK - "I suspect everyone, and I suspect no one!"
Tags: random movie club, a shot in the dark, old ABC promos, peter sellers, elke sommer
