FILM : Sellers Has Perfect Aim in Edwards’ ‘A Shot in the Dark’

As a modern movie comic, Peter Sellers was peerless. Nobody could do what he did--turn good manners and absurd dignity into the classiest of slapstick--nearly as well.

His prime performances were so frequent and individual that it’s hard to pick any that easily defined him. I’d have to put Sellers’ work with Stanley Kubrick in “Dr. Strangelove” and “Lolita” at the top, simply because it showed how sophisticated his talents could be. But his Pink Period probably stands out to most people.

Sellers’ creation, the self-approving but bumbling French Inspector Clouseau, was first introduced in early 1964 with “The Pink Panther,” and then reincarnated later that year in “A Shot in the Dark,” both directed by Blake Edwards.

“A Shot in the Dark,” screening Friday at UC Irvine as part of the “Early Films by Acclaimed Directors” series, is a blissfully dopey flick that manages to avoid idiocy. Even when Edwards resorts to Jerry Lewis-like shtick, especially when the physical gagsterism accelerates, it seems more nonchalant about getting laughs than it is desperate.

As Clouseau, Sellers shares something with Jacques Tati. Sellers is more ripe and obvious, but he taps into the same awareness of personal inadequacy disarmed by personal pride (Clouseau, like Tati’s character, would never admit to his foolishness) that Tati executed so naturally.

In the Pink Panther movies, it makes for a comic premise that deflates the hot-air balloon of pompous authority figures. “A Shot in the Dark” has Clouseau trying to decipher a murder, but he can barely make it through a room without maiming himself and those around him.

This time around, he generates much of his havoc at the chateau where a Spanish playboy has been killed. The primary suspect is Maria, a comely maid played by a pouty Elke Sommers.

Clouseau is constantly offering important-sounding but meaningless declarations such as “I believe everything and I believe nothing. I suspect everyone and I suspect no one,” and then promptly tripping over this and that. Everything gets in his way; it’s as if the physical world were conspiring against him.

Besides the slow-take pratfalls (Sellers is a pro at drawing out these agile missteps), Blake buoys “A Shot in the Dark” with several running gags. For instance, Clouseau can never complete his undercover surveillances because the police keep arresting him. And then there’s the monkey business with his butler Kato (Burt Kwouk), who picks the oddest times to engage Clouseau in their karate workouts.

The most famous scenes occur when Clouseau enters a nudist colony to find Maria. The humor seems a little shopworn these days, but you can still appreciate Edwards’ audacity in choosing such a site for Sellers and Sommers to frolic.

What: Blake Edwards’ “A Shot in the Dark.”

When: Friday, April 17, at 7 and 9 p.m.

Where: UC Irvine’s Student Center Crystal Cove Auditorium.

Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to Jamboree Road and head south. Go east on Campus Drive and take Bridge Road into the campus.

Wherewithal: $4.

Where to Call: (714) 856-6379.