A Shot In The Dark (1964)

When rich M. Ballon's spanish driver is found shot dead, Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is the first official on the scene. All evidence suggests Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer), the maid, to be the murderer. But Clouseau, being attracted to the beautiful girl, is convinced that she is hiding something. So, he has her released from jail and tries to follow her secretly, even to a nudist colony. Things do not work out the way the inspector wanted and people keep being murdered, and each time innocent Maria seems to be the killer. But with someone important wanting Clouseau and nobody else to cover this case, his tolerance-challenged boss Charles Dreyfuss is close to losing his mind when casualties keep turning up. And Clouseau keeps on causing hilarity to ensue without knowing it...

Trivia: Only official Clouseau film not to use the name "Pink Panther" nor use that cartoon character in the opening credits. This film was originally meant to have been an adaptation of the stage play by Harry Kurnitz. Walter Matthau and Peter Sellers were to have been the detectives, but Sellers did not like how things were going and wanted out. United Artists brought in Blake Edwards to keep Sellers on the project. Edwards looked at the script and thought that it might be better suited to the character of Inspector Jacques Clouseau, and rewrote the entire script with a young William Peter Blatty. It was released only three months after the original The Pink Panther (1963). None of the characters in the Harry Kurnitz stage play appears in the film. The character of Maria Gambrelli first appears in this film and was played by Elke Sommer. The character resurfaced in Son of the Pink Panther (1993), played this time by Claudia Cardinale, who played Princess Dala in the original The Pink Panther. The movie was completed before The Pink Panther, but shelved because the studio didn't think it was any good. The success of the first film made the executives decide to release the shelved film. This also explains the short time span between the release of the first film and this one and the absence of Kato in the original but his appearance in this film and all the subsequent sequels. Burt Kwouk's character is named "Kato" (later "Cato") after the Asian sidekick in The Green Hornet.

I didn't know before I watched this that it was completed before The Pink Panther or that it was released only three months later but it kind of makes sense now. It has some quintessential panther parts but is missing others. It has the chief inspector who hates Clouseau and wishes only to be rid of him. It has Kato/Cato trying to keep Clouseau guessing. It has all the Clouseau characteristics. It has Henry Mancini genius music, but it isn't the Pink Panther theme (It was used in the cartoons as the Inspector Clouseau theme). It doesn't have the Pink Panther animated title sequence though it does have the animated Inspector Clouseau that made it to the cartoons. I am glad that they didn't use the assistant Hercule character in the next few movies, Clouseau was far funnier without him and you started to wonder why Hercule allowed Clouseau to do some of the things he did. Peter Sellers is great in this movie, while Elke Sommers was good, but the rest of the cast seemed to not be able to figure out how to react to Clouseau and was therefore inconsistant. The nudist camp was very well done, kepping all the naughty bits concealed while still conveying the humor. All in all it was a funny movie.