Sometimes I get complaints that really seem to come out of left field. Take this message, for example, left on my office phone: "How can you recommend a movie and say the best thing about it is a nude scene?"
What movie could that be? Had someone dug up one of my old reviews from the archives? Had I actually written that?
It just didn't sound like me.
The message was brief (and rather mean), and the title of the movie was not mentioned. But it was in "today's paper," according to the caller, referring to Monday. I remembered a DVD review in that edition, about Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies and the "Pink Panther" movie series.
Then it hit me: The caller was talking about the 1964 "Pink Panther " sequel, "A Shot in the Dark."
In the story, I described the film as "one of the all-time great movie comedies, nearly perfect in every way." I also wrote that there is a sequence where the main character, "in what is arguably the film's funniest set-piece, goes to a nudist colony."
Well, obviously the caller had not seen the movie. And if you haven't seen "A Shot in the Dark," I'll recommend it again. It really is a near-perfect blend of slapstick and verbal comedy, with a number of hilarious moments, chief among them a sequence set in a nudist colony.
But let's remember that this was 1964, and American movies were not yet really showing nudity.
One of the things that makes the "Shot in the Dark" nudist-camp sequence so funny is that Peter Sellers, as Inspector Clouseau, doesn't realize where he is until he is told he must remove his clothing. In his embarrassment, he covers himself with a guitar, and all we really see are his hysterical wide-eyed reactions.
This sequence is actually quite instructive in how much funnier things can be when played subtly.
In the 1970s and especially in the '80s, a lot of movies tried to get laughs with naked actors (or, more correctly, naked actresses), but it was always more distracting than funny.
That distinction was summed up nicely by Michael Caine in an interview a few years after he starred in one of these '80s sex farces, in which his younger female co-star spent a lot of time unclothed. He said that doing the film was one of his worst mistakes, because everyone was watching her and no one was watching him.
In the "Shot in the Dark" nudist-camp sequence, you can't take your eyes off of Sellers. He's a riot, partly because most of us readily identify with his embarrassment.
It's a difficult hat trick, of course. And the best comedy is always the most difficult to accomplish.
Director Blake Edwards honed his great sense of comic timing by watching Laurel & Hardy and Buster Keaton, but in later years, just like everyone else, when movies could be more obvious, he often went too far.
But not here.
"A Shot in the Dark" was the second of the "Pink Panther" movies. It's a spoof of the old Agatha Christie-style drawing-room murder mysteries, where all of the suspects are gathered in a room at the end and the detective in charge (or Miss Marple, if you prefer) explains the motives of each one and finally unmasks the killer.
In this case, a beautiful young maid (Elke Sommer) is suspected of murder in a house full of offbeat characters. And the only reason Clouseau believes her to be innocent in the face of mounting evidence is because he finds her enchanting.
And as he clumsily investigates, he drives his boss insane (Herbert Lom, who is hilarious in his own right).
Actually, I'm willing to concede that the other "Pink Panther" films are a bit more hit and miss, and some of them even drag in places.
But not "A Shot in the Dark," which stands alone in the series — and outside the series — as a masterful cinematic achievement by all concerned. Truly, Edwards, Sellers and company were all at the peak of their comic powers.
And the nudist-camp sequence remains a riotous gem.
E-mail: hicks@desnews.com