Good concept, poorly executed.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A woman comes out of jail, everything around is gray except for a colorful assortment of balloons a salesman is holding. Sure it's not meant to fool us... then why are we laughing when the salesman finally reveals his face and it is Inspector Clouseau working undercover? Clouseau doesn't have time to follow his target that a cop asks him if he's got a license, if you pay close attention, half a second, Clouseau seems to try to get off the ground... with the balloons? The next shot shows that he didn't, he's hauled off in a police van with the balloons floating outside, a sight gag... for the road!That's the secret of "A Shot in the Dark", it is funny on three levels: unpredictability, predictability and one within another. In a movie where a detective trained his Chinese servant to attack him at the least expected moment, anything can basically happen at anytime. When he tries to get a grab on a spinning globe or impress his assistant about his sense of deduction or impress with his pool skills, we're always one step ahead of him and anticipate the disaster. But it's all in the reaction of Clouseau, the seminal bumbling detective, the high profile inspector who's the right man for the right situation, but it all depends from which perspective you're speaking. If you really believe his incompetence serves the villains, you have another thing coming. There's no logic in Clouseau, the only logic is : make'em laugh.One year prior to the film, Blake Edwards made Peter Sellers a star with his most iconic role and introduced the world to perhaps the last icon of the Golden Age of Animation, and his signature music signed by Henry Mancini. I said in my review of "The Pink Panther" that the film ended with the perfect note. Clouseau stealing David Niven's thunder was the perfect indicator of the real driving force of the movie (the panther's cameo was the cherry on the cake). And I expected Clouseau to be a major player in the sequel. "A Shot in the Dark" doesn't disappoint on that level, the only thing missing is the Pink Panther in the credits, but the film wasn't meant as a follow-up to the original and Sellers is strong enough to carry it alone. Still, the film starts with a nice tribute to the trope forever associated with Mancini's jazzy signature. It opens with a wonderful choreography of nighttime sneakiness, people tiptoeing all over a residence, getting from one room to another, a lovers-and-mistresses ballet that goes for almost five minutes, in a long uninterrupted and beautifully directed shot. There's no Panther's theme but Shirley Bassey's "Dreams of Paris" song, haunting like a James Bond's theme. a melody so hypnotic that we would almost miss what happens. I had to replay the intro and keep concentrating on who was who and who did what. Retrospectively, it doesn't really matter if you miss what happens so the joke was on me.I initially thought there would be a plot, but that's Blake Edwards' talent, when confusion is deliberate, even zaniness can glides beneath the surface of class and elegance. So the opening ends with a gunshot. Watching the film, I was reminded of that Tex Avery's "Who Killed Who" episode where a detective pushed a button to call the suspect and the usual suspects immediately popped up: mean-looking maid, butler and chauffeur. Here, the chauffeur has gone the way of the dodo, but the gardener, the maid, the plumber, the rich man, his wife, are all reunited like in an Agatha Christie story. Everything seems to accuse Maria, the maid, who was found holding a smoking gun, she has no alibi, but she catches the eye and heart of Inspector Clouseau. Does he suspect her or does he try not to suspect her? As he says "I suspect everyone and no one" which kind of sums up the way he handles the whole investigation. Who am I kidding? The only word to sum up the investigations stands in four words: "gags", the film is a series of hilarious moments, running (and driving) gags that explore the best of Sellers' comedic talent, and the feeblest of them manages to extract chuckles and smiles. "A Shot in the Dark" isn't exactly a parody in the 'Monty Python' or "Naked Gun' meaning but the humor is no less effective, it's like a whole piece of art crafted in order to generate laugh or never leave a dull moment, even Elke Sommer creates a fun pairing with Sellers, even George Sanders manages to maintain his 'heavy' composure in a lighthearted film.Once you get that it's all for the jokes that it's played, you just enjoy the film for what it is. But Blake Edwards is a sneaky fellow you know, it might take time before you really grab how hungry for your laughs the film is and you might follow it as if it was indeed a straight investigation. That's ignoring the escalation toward madness from Clouseau's Chief (Herbert Lom) and to put it simply, an ending you wouldn't see coming. I can't spoil it but the last five minutes alone justifies why the film ended as the sole representative of the "Pink Panther" series in AFI's Top 100 Comedies. That Edwards and Sellers didn't get along is baffling, both have been raised by silent comedy and their directing and acting skills really peaked with that one.Sellers reminds of Louis de Funès, the kind of actor who'd never let a detail miss, in a scene where he asks two sidekicks to wink as a signal, he'd notice that one of them winks better than the other and the whole scene turns into an winking routine. Sellers has many routines like this in "A Shot in the Dark", but it sure never gets routinely.

Leonard Maltin gives "A Shot In The Dark" 4 stars and calls it "gaspingly hilarious", but it's really quite leisurely by today's standards. It's often funny (especially when Clouseau discusses the case with his assistant Hercule), Sellers is tops, Elke is one of the major screen goddesses of the 1960s, but the whodunit resolution is weak and rushed. The "nudist colony" sequence is a surprising tease for the period, but it takes place in what is all too obviously a soundstage, which is a little distracting. **1/2 out of 4.

I recently watched the original Pink Panther film and came away feeling disappointed by it. It was an OK movie, but I didn't really find it all that amusing or compelling. However, this sequel to The Pink Panther is very entertaining with plenty of laugh out loud moments and colorful characters. Peter Sellers really shines in this role of the bumbling detective. Reminded me of Frank Drebin from the Naked Gun movies. I would assume Jacques Clouseau provided some inspiration for that character. I felt that the slapstick gags in the first movie came across as forced, but they work really well here. Overall, this is a fun movie that should keep you entertained from beginning to end.7/10************SPOILERS************Recommended for those that enjoy cartoon intros, clumsy french policemen, breaking things, spilling things, ripping things, burning things, tripping over things, falling off of things, falling into things, personal stealth karate-boy personal trainers, death by gun, death by throwing knife, death by blow dart, death by poison, death by garden shears, nudist colonies, eye twitching, ankle biting, unreliable timepieces......but that's just like, my opinion, man# Of Times Watched: Once

Else Sommer is the woman in Clouseau's life. She is caught red handed about six times. Someone has died and she is standing over them. It doesn't matter because he refuses to think she had anything to do with the murders. Herbert Lom plays Cloueau's long suffering boss who is always answerable for his bumbling detectives faux pas. Then there is Kato who has been trained to attack his boss at the most inopportune times. Eventually, he bumbles his way into the center of the action because he is always successful in spite of himself. Lom ends up a basket case (probably weaving them in an institution). What I love the most is the hilarious speech pattern of Clouseau, calling a bomb a "bim." Great performance by Peter Sellers in the best of the Pink Panther movies.