MovieChat Forums > A Shot in the Dark (1965) Discussion > Truth behind A Shot in the Dark?

Truth behind A Shot in the Dark?

posted 19 years ago by ftremblay
16 replies | jump to latest

Hi, I was reading the trivia for this movie, and I am a little confused. Two statements contradict each other.

"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)."

"The movie was completed before The Pink Panther (1963), 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 (1940)."

1. If the movie has been completed before the original Pink Panther, why would they have brought in Blake Edwards to keep Sellers on the project? Don't think they really knew each other before The Pink Panther movies, right? And if no Pink Panther movie had been released yet, why would Blake look at the script and think this is a good script for a Pink Panther movie?

2. The explanation on why Kato is not in the original doesn't make sense. If they made A Shot in the Dark before The Pink Panther, and Kato was in the former, wouldn't have it been normal to see him in the latter?

[–] ChrisWalkensPal 19 years ago

Here's my opinion. It probably is not correct.

1. Sellers was worried how the production was going with the adaptaion, so Blake Edwards comes to him and tells him about a great character for the story. They make the film, but not sure if anybody would like it. They make The Pink Panther, everyone likes it, then release this one. Blake had the idea of this character, and decided this script may suit him well.

2. The Pink Panther was supposed to start a series of movies for David Niven's charactern Litton, so Clouseau wasn't neccisarily the main character (for example, I don't think we ever saw his home). To me, it felt like the three "bad guys" where the main characters.

I'm probably wrong, but it all works up there in my head.

- ChrisWalkensPal
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[–] ScrambledMess 19 years ago

I'm sure that the first explanation is right and the other one wrong, since in A shot in the dark, Clouseau his accent is already starting to grow bigger (see the end for explanation). On the documentary this is also the story that they tell, so I'm sure the 2nd one is just wrong.

[–] ChrisWalkensPal 19 years ago

I'm sure it is wrong. Don't worry though, I don't trust myself either.

- ChrisWalkensPal
Vote: http://www.walken2008.com/

[–] Mariana Cornejo 19 years ago

Well, it's interesting if you compare it with the trivia for The Pink Panther in which it's written about Niven being the real character for a series of movies...

I can imagine a series of movies with a charming, ellegant, intelligent thief. An aristocrat that steals for fun, as an intellectual challenge and sport (Like Cassel's role in Ocean's Twelve).

But then Sellers steals the show and now the rest is history.

The point seems that Niven (first in the listing cast and with a lot of time in frame) was supposed to be the real protagonist, the principal character.

Hope you can tell us more about this point because I haven't seen any documentary about this.

Thanks.

[–] ftremblay 19 years ago

I know that IMDB's trivia can be written by almost anybody, but this contradiction just caught my attention. I guess we'll never know the real truth if we don't ask Blake Edwards directly.

[–] aroian_99 19 years ago

Blake Edwards has an interview in the Dvd set. He states that the film was Sellers next movie after Pink Panther, but he was in a panic and called Blake to get him out of it. Edwards talked him inot creating it as a vehicle for Clouseau instead. Edwards and a partner re-wrote the whole script so that it had little to do with the stage production on which it was based. Matthau was in the stage production. Edwards says he was called in to direct the new version and Sellers hated it. He begged Walter Mirisch not to release it at all. Edwards and Sellers went their own separate ways for 9 years after that.

[–] ScrambledMess 19 years ago

Exactly right! But they don't tell that in 1968 Blake en Peter DID work together on "The Party", while not on (what could have been a better movie if they were involved) "Inspector Clouseau".

[–] Cazamus 19 years ago

See I find it odd though, that they would Kato before Clouseau got a divorce. As he states many times in the Pink Panther, that his wife saved all their money on house cleaning, so having a servent would seem akward. What I felt was that Sellers needed someone to go home to at night, and since cats cant talk back and I highly doubt that the studios would want to see Sellers stepping on a animal or his clumsyness harming one in any way continusly, they added his excentric yet loving diciple Kato. I may be wrong but the whole series is revolving around the fact that Sellers cannot have relations with a women (Not saying that he was doing anything weird with Kato) instead he spends his time from... frustration with his servant Kato.

[–] Ultimate007 19 years ago

according to the biography/documentary "The Unknown Peter Sellers", production began on The Pink Panther first, but before it was completed (maybe it was hung up in post-production for some reason? it doesn't say), because they got along so well on the set of The Pink Panther, Sellers and Edwards decided to work together on A Shot in the Dark, which they wrapped and finished before The Pink Panther was fully completed...

i don't know if that makes much sense, but that's what i got out of it...

therapeuticpink.proboards102.com

[–] DJStahl 17 years ago

Seems to me the story always was meant to focus on Clouseau.

The idea of the "gentleman thief" is a hoary one. "A.J. Raffles" was a popular character in stories c. 1900. "The Saint" goes back nearly as far. Both were subjects of numerous novels, radio series, and successful movies long before the 1960s. Probably there are many less familiar examples, and they show up in conventional detective stories too.

David Niven was a super-star in the 1960s, and naturally would get top billing above Peter Sellers. Sean Connery today similarly would get higher billing than an up-and-coming lead, particularly a comic lead.

But seems the intention from the outset was to make the bumbling Clouseau the center of the story. Litton, "the Phantom," was a pastiche of the classic gentleman-thief type, and having Niven himself play the role made it even more easily recognizable to audiences of that time.

Niven as "Raffles" was a big hit in 1939.

[–] rogueforte 17 years ago

It seems like the most logical explanation would be that after production on The Pink Panther began, everyone quickly realized that the main focus of the story would not be Niven's Charles Litton character, but Seller's Clouseau. However, they couldn't completely re-write the movie, so they deftly completed A Shot in the Dark in the middle of making The Pink Panther with the idea that A Shot in the Dark would be the released as a follow-up movie in which there would be no question as to who the lead role belonged to.

They then went back and finished up work on The Pink Panther, which was subsequently released first, even though A Shot in the Dark had already been completed.

IOW, The Pink Panther would ultimately be the movie which introduced the character of Clouseau, and from that point on, beginning with A Shot in the Dark, the rest of the 'Pink Panther' series would be vehicles devoted entirely to Seller's Clouseau.

[–] ronin_fox 18 years ago

You're pretty close to how I understand it. From what I gathered, while Sellers and Edwards were making the Pink Panther, this project came up at the same time.

You're right that David Niven's character was supposed to be the star of Panther, but everyone fell in love with Sellers as Clouseau on the set, and his part got bigger and bigger. When A Shot in the Dark came up, and Edwards was brought in, he saw it as an opportunity to put Clouseau in the spotlight.

I think the trivia on Shot in the Dark being completed before Pink Panther is off. If I understood right from commentaries on the dvds, the productions did overlap, but Pink Panther was completed first. Shot in the Dark was completed before Pink Panther was RELEASED, not completed.

[–] deontee2002 17 years ago

I always figure that piece of trivia was complete *beep* Because if SITD was filmed before the Pink Panther, wouldn't William Peter Blatty be credited with creating the character alongside Edwards, instead of Maurice Richlin?

[–] Ultimate007 18 years ago

I would also take every piece of trivia you read in IMDB with a grain of salt - it's just as bad as wikipedia for people adding lots of unsubstantiated information.

worse, because at least with Wiki, you can fix the problems fairly quickly if you know what you're talking about... here, corrections seem to take FOREVER sometimes!

[–] BijouBob8mm 15 years ago

Ah, the on-going mystery behind A SHOT IN THE DARK and THE PINK PANTHER: Which came first?

A SHOT IN THE DARK starting filming in September of 1963, the very same month THE PINK PANTHER had been previewed in Hollywood. (Not to be confused with PANTHER's official premiere in March '64.) In addition to studio records, issues of "Daily Variety" and "The Hollywood Reporter" at the time also document SHOT's production information. (Going beyond the starting and stopping dates of each production, also check the dates each script was registered and/or when each completed film was submitted for copyright.)

Blake Edwards and Maurice Richlin wrote the PINK PANTHER screenplay in July of 1962, and it was to start production that November until casting changes pushed the start date back to January of 1963. (Also keep in mind that Peter Ustinov was slated to have been Clouseau in THE PINK PANTHER, and Sellers was only brought on board after Ustinov dropped out. Had Sellers already played the part in SHOT, he would not have taken a back seat to Ustinov, there would have been more focus on Clouseau in PANTHER, and we would have seen Inspector Dreyfus and Kato worked into the screenplay, as well.) THE PINK PANTHER had finished filming and sat on the shelf for months before its release, as David DePatie and Friz Freleng kicked around various ideas for the animated titles and the studio planned its marketing campaign for such a unique hybrid of humor and heist.

A SHOT IN THE DARK was originally planned to be a film version of the popular stage play of the same name, to star Peter Sellers. (A play that had nothing to do with either Clouseau or the Pink Panther diamond.) Sellers wasn't happy with how things were going, and Blake Edwards was brought in to keep Sellers on board. Only after Edwards became involved was it decided to rework the property into a vehicle for the Clouseau character.

[–] 17 years ago

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