The
characterisations of Dreyfus and Clouseau are wonderful in this film.
Watching Dreyfus descend into total madness is one of the all time greatest
comic performances. Sellers is wonderful playing off of Lom, in such
great segments as the 'hallucinatory dentist' and the 'hunchback and
the bomber' scenes. This film is much less subtle than ‘A Shot
in the Dark’, but what it loses in subtlety, it gains in situational
humour unrivalled in any other comedy
Sellers
must be regarded as, if not ‘the’, then at least one of
the funniest actors ever to grace the silver screen. There was no end
to the ways he could make you laugh; from the subtlest expression, an
eye averted or perhaps the slight raising of an eyebrow, to the broadest
slapstick, it was all within his personal domain, and he was the Master.
Physically,
practically all he had to do to get a laugh was show up; consider the
scene in which he arrives at the hospital to visit Dreyfus: As he saunters
across the lawn of the vast grounds surrounding the buildings, a croquet
mallet and ball lying to one side catches his eye; there is just the
slightest hesitation in his step, the subtlest change of expression
in his eyes and the merest inclination of the head. And there, in that
briefest of moments upon the screen, you know, beyond the shadow of
a doubt, what is about to transpire.
This
page is dedicated to Dr R.H.Wilson (no he's not dead)