Shot In The Dark
After the original Pink Panther movie had resoundingly convinced everyone that a then unknown Peter Sellers could steal a movie from the likes of David Niven, Robert Wagner and Claudia Cardinale, the gears quickly shifted to making a sequel where Sellers would not be playing second banana to anyone and would instead get the full spotlight all to himself as the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Even better, this next movie released in 1964 would NOT see Clouseau being the sad butt of jokes at the hands of more refined elitist type characters, but instead the tables would be turned as Clouseau (despite being an idiot) would now be unwittingly outsmarting the snobs at their own game. All of this had come about in a rather strange way, as this movieâs story had first actually started as a stage play, a comedic murder mystery about a rich household in the country where the various members of the staff and residents were all sleeping around with each other before taking up with various acts of murder in order to solve their differences with Clouseau himself not even involved in the story at all (although a police inspector character did factor into the plot). Sellers was already cast in the film and heavily involved in the preproduction process in developing it for the screen but was deeply unhappy with the current rewrites. After the original director quit and was replaced by Panther director Blake Edwards, it was indeed Edwards who came up with the idea that was pitched to Sellers of completely rewriting and restructuring the script so that the character of the inspector investigating the case would actually be Clouseau himself and the whole film would now evolve into being an official Pink Panther sequel. Sellers loved the idea and straight to work Edwards went with future Exorcist author William Peter Blatty to put together a film that not only became a comedy classic in its own right but also according to popular opinion easily bested the original in its quality and very often shows up on many Greatest Comedy Movie lists (although whether itâs the best in the series is often up for debate though). Sellers certainly brought his A game to the table, but where Edwards perfected his formula was by not allowing Clouseau to be the sole put upon classic comedy character here, adding two others to the mix who would soon prove to be indispensable to the series. The first was Cato (Burt Kwouk), Clouseauâs Chinese servant and houseboy whom Clouseau (in order to keep his wits and reflexes sharp) has instructed to attack him âwhenever and whereverâ he least expects it, leading to scenes where Clouseau is ambushed in his own home and even his own bed by Cato with his warcry and their outrageous fight scenes resemble not so much anything else other than two little kids rolling around fighting each other by using highly dangerous tactics (although whenever the phone rings the fight must stop since Cato is expected to answer it). The other (and more renowned) new character in the mix is none other than the legendary Police Commissioner Dreyfus as played by the great Herbert Lom for the first time (a role he would continue to play even after Sellersâ death as he would become the flagbearer for the franchise). First seen as a suave type talking on the phone romantically with a woman that he seems to be so much in love with (and blowing off his own wife when she tries to call), Dreyfusâ initial breakdown as seen here from having to deal with an underling like Clouseau and the mental stress that comes along with it is a thing of comedic joy to watch with him going from being a dignified public servant to frothing like a enraged, rabid dog over what Clouseau has done to him. And therein lies the brilliant conceit that Edwards introduces into the story as yes, there is a murder mystery for Clouseau to solve here, but that is really secondary and practically irrelevant when compared to the growing divide between Clouseau and Dreyfus themselves, a hatred that spanned for several movies with hilariously over the top results as this filmâs main pupose essentially serves as the âorigin storyâ for their conflict with the rich people having a murderer in their midst meaning absolutely nothing next to Dreyfus being driven so insane by having to deal with Clouseau that he winds up going on a killing spree of his own, taking out several innocent people and always missing his mark of getting Clouseau because he KNOWS that taking Clouseau out of this world will bring him peace and restore his sanity as Lom plays it so awesomely to the hilt that he ensures that the world will not remember this series solely because of the contributions of Peter Sellers alone. As for the murder mystery that really just serves as being the red herring of the film, the chauffeur of the rich household has been found dead of several gunshot wounds to the chest and the murder weapon is found in the hand of one of the maids (Elke Sommer, one of the great European sex symbols of all time). Everyone is adamantly convinced that she is guilty but alas, Clouseau has been assigned to the case and upon meeting her, falls utterly, completely in love, so much so that he becomes determined to take what appears to be an open and shut case and instead drag out the investigation so that he can find the real killer (someone whom he believes to be a jealous lover) when really his own motivation is that he finds Sommer to be such a gentle, sweet natured girl that he will never bring himself to accept that she would ever be capable of cold blooded murder and has thus (perhaps unethically) used his position as lead investigator on the case to try to find a way to âsave herâ in the most romantic sense. Of course, the real question (the one that causes Dreyfus so many sleepless nights) is in whether or not Clouseau is actually RIGHT, a deduction that would make him a national hero and thus drive Dreyfus completely around the bend. In doing so, Clouseau proves himself to be such an imbecile that he winds up getting himself arrested no less than FOUR times (usually in disguise while conducting routine surveillance) and facing off with the millionaire head of the household played by the imposing George Sanders (widely considered to be the most wryly sardonic actor to ever live who later committed suicide because he was reportedly bored with life) who manages to get in a few amusing moments of his own while playing straight man to Sellers. Even as Sanders admits to Clouseau that he himself had carried on an ongoing affair with Sommer, he blithely denies that he could ever have anything to do with murdering anyone even as the bodies of household staff members keep piling up usually with Sommer being found at the scene holding the particular murder weapon of choice even though she proves to be completely useless at imparting any sort of useful information on what had really happened (thus reinforcing other peopleâs opinions of her guilt and Clouseauâs opinion that she is being framed). But the heart of the story is in Clouseauâs steadfast belief that such a girl whom he (someone who has always been portrayed as being sweet and childlike in his own right) is so completely head over heels for would never murder anybody simply because he would never feel anything for somebody like that. But this ludicrously instinctive approach to detective work is something that Dreyfus considers to be absolute rubbish even as he knows that any attempt on his part to impede Clouseauâs investigation would put him in hot water. As Lom first does his famous blinking eye and hilariously overwrought histrionics, Dreyfus at the peak of his insanity takes a cue from whoever is committing the rich household murders in order to try to commit one of his own. In the end, it barely matters who the killer is in the rich household (like Sanders himself, it seems that these rich and powerful types engage in it merely because theyâre so damned bored with life) but what does matter is this being the first time in the series that we witness what would be a legendary animosity between two classic comedy characters, made all the more funnier in that Clouseau doesnât seem to have the same hatred towards Dreyfus that Dreyfus has towards him as he is always shown treating Dreyfus with the utmost respect as it is in his (seemingly unintentional) bumbling actions that drives Dreyfus over the brink, even as Clouseau (like Sellers with his slapstick) claims that âeverything I do is intentionally planned.ââŚ
8/10