A Shot in the Dark (1964)

A Shot in the Dark is a 1964 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, who co-wrote the screenplay with William Peter Blatty. Filmed in Panavision, it is a standalone sequel to The Pink Panther (1963) and is the second installment in the eponymous film series. Peter Sellers reprised his role as Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the French Sûreté, with Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom and George Sanders co-starring in supporting roles.

Clouseau's blundering personality is unchanged, but it was in this film that Sellers began to give him the idiosyncratically exaggerated French accent that was to later become a hallmark of the character. The film also marks the first appearances of Clouseau's long-suffering boss Commissioner Dreyfus (Lom), as well as André Maranne as Dreyfus's assistant François and Burt Kwouk as Clouseau's stalwart manservant Cato, all three of whom would become series regulars. Sommer portrays the murder suspect, Maria Gambrelli. The character of Gambrelli would return in Son of the Pink Panther (1993), this time played by Claudia Cardinale, who appeared as Princess Dala in The Pink Panther (1963). Graham Stark, who portrays police officer Hercule Lajoy, would reprise this role eighteen years later, in Trail of the Pink Panther (1982).

The film was not originally written to include Clouseau, but was an adaptation of a stage play by Harry Kurnitz, which he adapted from a French play L'Idiote by Marcel Achard. The film was released only a year after the first Clouseau film, The Pink Panther.