Frame Grabs 17 Jan 2008 09:16 am
A Shot In The Dark
- Warner Bros. had just closed their cartoon studio. Friz Freleng was out of work, and, with partner David DePatie, got the job of doing the title sequence for Blake Edwards’ film, The Pink Panther.
Blake Edwards enjoyed the Pink Panther production, and was asked to adapt the play A Shot In The Dark by Marcel Achard. The English translation of a French play had successfully had a year-long run on Broadway. Edwards brought “Inspector Clouseau” into the adaptation and brought Peter Sellers in to play him.
He went back to DePatie and Freleng to do the titles, and the film opened right on the heels of the original Pink Panther. A new animation studio was born in a full fledged way. Edwards asked the animators to create theatrical shorts based on the character, and they won an Oscar for that first short – Pink Phink. (On YouTube here.)
Here are frame grabs for the titles to A Shot In The Dark. The colors aren’t the best; sorry.
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on 17 Jan 2008 at 12:21 pm 1.Jerry Beck said …
As I note in my book, PINK PANTHER: The Ultimate Guide (currently available for as low as 1 cent on Amazon.com), the titles were boarded and designed by John Dunn and the animation production was farmed out to George Dunning’s studio.
on 17 Jan 2008 at 12:43 pm 2.Tim Rauch said …
wow those are really fun, thanks michael!
on 17 Jan 2008 at 2:00 pm 3.Michael said …
Thanks Jerry. I bought the book last week, when you wrote about it. It’ll be great seeing the info. What a deal – 1 cent!
on 17 Jan 2008 at 10:09 pm 4.Pete Emslie said …
I must admit, though I love this film, I always considered the title sequence a bit inferior, especially when compared to the titles from the original “Pink Panther” film that Hawley Pratt directed. I think the version of Clouseau that ended up in the series of “The Inspector” cartoons was much nicer also. I reckon I just like animation to be a bit slicker, that’s all. Still, these titles are pretty funny!