A Shot in the Dark: Blake Edwards

I must confess that I had never seen a proper Pink Panther film until now. As a child, I remember occasionally catching a Pink Panther cartoon. There was even one time that my family watched Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), one of the Pink Panther films made after the original Inspector Clouseau, Peter Sellers, had died. But A Shot in the Dark was my first real exposure to the classic Clouseau schtick. I must say that I was quite pleased. The film follows the clumsy, inept Inspector Clouseau of the French Sûreté as he investigates a series of murders at a rich aristocrat's house. I expected the film to be much more over-the-top, due in large part to my exposure to Steve Martin's re-interpretation of the character. But I was delighted to discover that the entire film plays Clouseau and his incompetence straight. Clouseau legitimately takes great pride in his occupation and carries himself as a man of utmost importance. He just happens to constantly break things, accidentally get other people killed, and inadvertently drive his superiors to insanity. It also helps that Sellers was a comedic genius of the same caliber as Charlie Chaplin and the Monty Python troupe. It seems that I will be spending a lot of time with Monsieur Clouseau in the future...

8/10