A Shot in the Dark (1964) starring Peter Sellers, Elke Sommer, George Sanders, Herbert Lom directed by Blake Edwards Movie Review

A Shot in the Dark (1964)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Peter Sellers in A Shot in the Dark (1964)

Sommer Loving

When a man is murdered at a country home it is Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is called in investigate and interview Maria (Elke Sommer) the maid and chief suspect. But Clouseau, harbouring a crush on the pretty Maria, allows her to go as he believes she knows the truth and will lead him to the killer. The trouble is more people show up dead with each time the evidence pointing to Maria and with Clouseau refusing to arrest her causes his boss Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) plenty of stress.

I think when it comes to Inspector Clouseau I am in the minority as I have never found them that funny. Now in fairness up until now I had never watched an entire Clouseau movie, I had started them and watched for half an hour or so and often gave up because every time I just didn't find what I was watching funny. So after being told that "A hot in the Dark" is the best of these movies I watched and watched and unfortunately finished having laughed but a handful of times.

Elke Sommer in A Shot in the Dark (1964)

Now I could tell you about the story to "A Shot in the Dark" but the truth is the storyline is not that important as not once do we care who the real killer is or whether or not Clouseau will solve the case. Nope the truth is that "A Shot in the Dark" is all about the accident prone crime work of Clouseau be it masquerading as a balloon seller to tail Maria to incidents whilst playing billiards from using a banana cue to causing all the cues to tumble out of the rack. Now maybe the continual stupidity of Clouseau and the occasional moment of witty dialogue will be good fun but more often than not I found it dull, repetitive and just stupid.

You can probably guess what is coming next as well and whilst Clouseau is probably Seller's most famous character it is one which does nothing for me. In fact none of the characters do a great deal for me and a such the acting whilst good didn't blow me away either.

What this all boils down to is that "A Shot in the Dark" did nothing for me and whilst I would never say it was a bad movie it is a case that you need t enjoy daft, repetitive humour to enjoy it.


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