A Shot in the Dark

A Shot in the Dark. 1964 United Artists & The Mirisch Company, distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Elke Sommer, George Sanders, Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk
Music: Henry Mancini
Director: Blake Edwards
Currently available only as part of the Pink Panther Film Collection, or the considerably more expensive Pink Panther Ultimate Collection.

Peter Sellers returns as the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau, and it looks like his French accent has become even more outrageous. Herbert Lom makes his first Pink Panther film appearance as Clouseau's boss, Commissioner Dreyfus, and Burt Kwouk debuts as the Inspector's servant Cato (not Kato). The movie wasn't intended to include Clouseau, but it was an adaption of a French stage play L'Idiote. Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty decided the story would be a good vehicle for Inspector Clouseau, so they rewrote the script around him and the new premise. A Shot in the Dark came out only a few months after The Pink Panther.

The good Inspector is called to the home of a Paris millionaire named Benjamin Ballon (Sanders) to investigate a murder. His first act is to stumble into the fountain after getting out of the car. Inside the mansion, all evidence of the murder points to the maid Maria Gambrelli (Sommer), but Clouseau is struck by the woman's beauty and refuses to admit she's guilty. The real culprits commit more murders to keep the truth hidden from Commissioner Dreyfus, since every time there's a murder, Maria is arrested, only to be set free by Clouseau. The Inspector also finds himself arrested by the police four times in quick succession for being in the wrong place at the right time.

Clouseau continues to botch the case, which drives Dreyfus mad, and he accidentally cuts his thumb off, and later, stabs himself with a letter opener. Meanwhile, an anonymous figure tries to kill the Inspector, but fails, killing a doorman, two cafe customers, and a dancer. In the end, all of the suspects (Ballon, his wife, the butler Maurice, and the surviving servants) are blown up while attempting to escape in Clouseau's car. The anonymous figure turns out to be Commissioner Dreyfus, driven over the edge, and in his attempt to eliminate Clouseau, accidentally killed the real murderers.

Highly, highly recommended. This would be the last Pink Panther film for Sellers for a while; he and Edwards stopped getting along during the film's production, and they said they would never work together again. "Never work together again" only meant four years, as they reunited for the production of The Party.