A Shot in the Dark

A Shot in the Dark is a 1964 film directed by Blake Edwards and is the second installment in the Pink Panther series. Peter Sellers is featured again as Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the French Sûreté. Clouseau's bumbling personality is unchanged, but it was only in this film that Sellers began to give him the idiosyncratically exaggerated French accent that was to become a hallmark of the character.

Inspector Clouseau

• You fool! You have broken my pointing stick! Now I have nothing to point with!

• Facts, Hercule, facts! Nothing matters but the facts. Without them the science of criminal investigation is nothing more than a guessing game.

• And I submit, Inspector Ballon, that you arrived home, found Miguel with Maria Gambrelli, and killed him in a rit of fealous jage!

• It's all part of life's rich pageant.
  • Ironic reaction after he has fallen into a fountain.

• I'm sorry, my idiot driver parked too close to the fountain.

• Look at that. I have Africa all over my hand.

• I believe everything and I believe nothing. I suspect everyone and I suspect no one.

• You fool! I could have killed you with a karatay chop-uh!

• You are forgetting the most important fact: motive.

• You fool! You're off the case.

Chief Inspector Dreyfus

• Someone has been murdered here. Please let it be Clouseau.

• You are back on the Gambrelli case!

• François, I seem to have cut off my thumb.

• Give me ten men like Clouseau and I could destroy the world.

Maria Gambrelli

• Tell me, why do so many men smoke afterwards? No wonder tobacco companies get rich.

Dialogue

• Hercule LaJoy: He beat her.
• Clouseau: He was Spanish!
• Hercule LaJoy: He tore her dress off.
• Clouseau: Oh, don't be ridiculous. Would you kill someone who tore your dress off?

• Clouseau: Uh... What was I saying? Uh... Listen, you, you daydreaming fool, what are you doing there? I mean, can't you pay attention when I'm talking? Don't know know what I was saying? You're not listening to me.
• Maurice: With the greatest respect, monsieur, I heard every word that you said.
• Clouseau: Would you be kind enough to tell me what it was that I said?
• Maurice: You were talking about the closet, monsieur...
• Clouseau: Uhhh, yes?
• Maurice: You were saying that when the closet door was open, Maria received a bump on the head, and from that that you inferred that someone had been hiding in the closet, monsieur...
• Clouseau: Yes, she received a bump on - And, listen, monsieur, next time I may test you without warning!

• Clouseau: There is something... personal... in this?
• Dreyfus: Yes, deeply personal. I hate you! Every little bit of you! Now get out!
• Clouseau: You want me to leave?

• Clouseau: And... they were your fingerprints!
• Benjamin Ballon: Well, why not? It's my house. I've often been in that closet.
• Clouseau: For what reason?
• Benjamin Ballon: Last time was moths.
• Clouseau: "Meuths"?
• Benjamin Ballon: [very clearly] Moths!
• Clouseau: Yes, "meuths."
• Benjamin Ballon: Maria was complaining of "murths."

[frowns at himself]

• Clouseau: "Meurths"? Is that right, Maria, that - that you were complaining about these "meuths"?
• Maria Gambrelli: Yes, I did complain about moths.
• Clouseau: Oh, you mean "meuths"!

• Dreyfus: François would you please call for a doctor.
• Françios: Are you ill?
• Dreyfus: I seem to have stabbed myself with the letter opener.

• Maria Gambrelli: You can have one of my cigarettes.
• Clouseau: Oh, thank you.
• Maria Gambrelli: You have it in backwards.
• Clouseau: Oh... it tastes very bad that way

• Clouseau: I am here on official business and I am looking for someone in the recreation area.
• Camp Attendant: Not unless you take off your clothes...
• Clouseau: You, sir, are under arrest.
• Camp Attendant: Arrest? What for?
• Clouseau: For making lewd and suggestive remarks to an official of the French government.
• Camp Attendant: Lewd and suggestive remarks?
• Clouseau: Also for indecent exposure... doesn't anyone wear any clothes around here?
• Camp Attendant: No.
• Clouseau: What!
• Camp Attendant: This is a nudist colony.

• Clouseau: Well... that just goes to prove what I have said all along.
• Dreyfus: What you've said, Clouseau, qualifies you as the greatest prophet since Custer said he was going to surround all those Indians!

• Dreyfus: [a car bomb has just killed the killers. Dreyfus refers to four other killings] A doorman, two customers, and a Cossack! And now eight more dead!
• Clouseau: But they were all murderers, except for Maurice, who was a blackmailer!
• Dreyfus: [whimpering] They were saints compared to you!

Cast

• Peter Sellers - Inspector Jacques Clouseau
• Elke Sommer - Maria Gambrelli
• Burk Kwouk - Cato
• Herbert Lom - Commissioner Dreyfus
• George Sanders - Benjamin Ballon
• Graham Stark - Hercule