Every week, new films come out. But are you, dear Screengrab readers, ready for them? In this weekly column, I'll be offering up an old-school film recommendation to prepare you for the big screen’s latest and – hopefully – greatest.
This week, anyone interested in buying what The Pink Panther 2 is selling – which, from the looks of things, is Steve Martin's overripe French accent, lots of lame pratfalls, and a bunch of formerly respectable thesps slumming it for an easy payday (Jeremy Irons, what’s become of you?) – will first want to become acquainted with 1964's A Shot in the Dark. Despite being the second of Blake Edwards' Pink Panther films, it’s the first in which comedian par excellence Peter Sellers – relegated to second fiddle in the original, more generic The Pink Panther – was unquestionably front and center. Freewheeling and ridiculous, and featuring not only a great Sellers performance but a borderline-brilliant turn by Herbert Lom as Clouseau’s increasingly exasperated and twitchy superior, it’s a superior sequel that, despite the absence of a substantial plot, an opening animated sequence featuring the titular cat, and even the series' signature theme song, remains a brisk, cheery model of slapstick nonsense and droll wit.
Enjoy this tease, and then fire up that Netflix (fast!)