When Sellers gets into a picture one naturally thinks he is an inept agent or clownish comedian who is going to extend a laugh over a gag and make the mundane look comical. So he does in a Shot in the Dark with the beautiful Elke Sommer who co-starred as an accused maid over a number of killings in her rich boss’s home.
Clousseau was name of this bungling agent who created antics out of every encounter and put his boss to such shame that the latter just wanted to kill him in the end. In fact he became the perpetrator of several attempts to eliminate his agent so that his credentials would not look so shabby.
The blond maid who Sellers defended always with the excuse that she could not have done the killing because they were always together somehow always found herself with a murder weapon in her hand when the crime scene unfolded. One her boss was blackmailed by the gardener for his nightly activities with another lady the plot unfolds and we begin to see that the he must have been accused but the audience does not know how many accused there are until the very end. It all adds to the comic thrill knowing through a suggestion in the beginning how couple members experimented with extra-marital affairs.
The closing of the light in the scene that Sellers sets up towards the end is a metaphor to the title of the film. One expects that there will be another murder after Sellers himself was targeted and the clumsy agent ends up with the maid in his arms and the drama comes to its rightful end.
