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“Then I submit, Inspector Ballon, that you arrived home, found Miguel with Maria Gambrelli and killed him in a rit of fealous jage!”



The Pink Panther received its world premiere in Italy in
December 1963 and was officially released in the US in March 1964. Despite David Niven topping the bill, the character of Inspector Jacques Clouseau - played by Peter Sellers - stole the film.



Just three months later, in June 1964, Inspector Clouseau
returned and this time in the lead. A Shot In The Dark was brought forward for a summer release, to capitalise on the success of The Pink Panther. It would be released in the UK in January 1965.



A Shot In The Dark was adapted for the screen from an original French play and changed almost beyond recognition, thanks to the combined talents of Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty (who would later go on to pen The Exorcist).



Maria Gambrelli, a maid employed in the service of the millionaire Benjamin Ballon, is accused of murdering chauffeur Miguel Ostos. Clouseau is assigned to the case and almost immediately is smitten by Maria. A series of subsequent murders occur and even Clouseau himself becomes a target. What we get is an almost perfect comedy film, with Sellers at the peak of his powers - just months away from his series of heart attacks in Hollywood - and crisp, tight direction by Edwards.



The film also marks the first appearances of Herbert Lom as Clouseau's long-suffering boss, Commissioner Dreyfus, André Maranne as Dreyfus's assistant François and Burt Kwouk as Clouseau's devoted manservant Cato.



So, as it is the 60th anniversary of ASITD's release what better excuse than to talk about it at length for Goon Pod? It's your host's favourite Peter Sellers film of all time and he spends what seems like the show's entirety giggling and chuckling so it falls on this week's guest - newly published novelist Adam Leslie - to inject a bit of professionalism to proceedings!



Lost In The Garden can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Garden-Adam-S-Leslie/dp/1915368480

Hi folks - normal service resumes tomorrow when the usual weekly edition of Goon Pod drops but here's a bit of extra rabbit from me explaining about forthcoming bonus content: Goon Pod Film Club!



Head over to patreon.com/GoonPod

Johnny Speight, creator of Alf Garnett, had a long friendship with Spike Milligan, stretching back to the mid-fifties and the Associated London Scripts days. Speight wrote Till Death Us Do Part which delighted and shocked television audiences in equal measure, with Garnett given to frequent outbursts against what he perceived as society's ills: immigration & foreigners in general, socialism, young people, increasing secularism, homosexuals, lack of due deference to the Royal Family and the ruling elite, feminism and anything else that he didn't really understand and felt threatened by.



In the mid-1980s Speight wrote a follow-up series to Till Death Us Do Part called In Sickness and in Health, which reintroduced audiences to Alf, now older but hardly any wiser. From the second series Alf was a widower (after the death of his co-star Dandy Nicholls) and there gradually grew a new set of characters to antagonise and exasperate him.



In the third series Spike had a guest appearance as Fancy Fred, squaring up to Alf at a tea dance and later bickering over where he parked his van. It's not a huge part and Spike wasn't aiming for any Bafta awards, but it's an intriguing cameo and one which we thought was worth talking about this week on Goon Pod - as well as talking about the Alf Garnett universe in general.



Joining Tyler is comedian John Dredge, currently riding high with a new series of his sketch show The John Dredge Nothing To Do With Anything Show - which can be found HERE: https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/john_dredge_show/

"... Must admit he was very funny. I laughed. I laughed a great deal. Thought I was going to cry. I did."



A Visit to Swansea was the fourth episode of the second
series of Hancock’s Half Hour and was originally broadcast on 10th May 1955, two days before Tony Hancock’s 31st birthday.



It was long considered one of the missing Hancocks until it was discovered last year by Richard Harrison of the Radio Circle and came from the same collection of recordings as The Marriage Bureau – the only episode of HHH to feature Peter Sellers and one we covered on Goon Pod previously with the guys from the Very Nearly An Armful podcast.



It’s intriguing as this is another formerly missing show to feature a Goon – in this case Harry Secombe in a cameo, and it followed on from the three previous episodes of HHH in which Secombe stood in for Hancock who had undergone some sort of breakdown and gone off to
Italy.



Naturally it warranted an evaluation on Goon Pod and who better to talk all things Hancock than friend of the show Scott Phipps, host of such shows as Reel Britannia and the Talking Pictures podcast.

"Being the account of the hole, the wonderful way it was filled, and with what. Written for the wireless by Spike Milligan."



On the 12th August 1957 a Daily Mirror reporter encountered Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan larking about around Cleopatra's Needle on London's Embankment:



""This is 1887!" yelled Spike Milligan, standing on the base in a pair of rust corduroy trousers, green shoes, a tail coat - and a topee.

""We've just brought this back from Africa, a well-known place."

"Alongside him were Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers in tail coats and toppers. Harry screeched (and ducked): "Look out - pigeon!" then started to sing a song about "Lord Palmerston I love you..."

"Having all convinced themselves that they had just brought the needle back across the seas, Harry announced: "I now declare this needle well and truly threaded!"

"Then they sang: "There'll always be an England" and gave three hearty cheers for the Empire."



Some three years after the interesting experimental edition of the Goon Show called The Starlings which was performed more as a radio play without an audience, in August 1957 the Goons reconvened ahead of the 8th series to record The Reason Why in a similar fashion. It purported to tell the story behind the transportation of Cleopatra's Needle from Alexandria to London but through a typically Goonish filter.



Produced by Jacques Brown and also featuring Goon Show rep company player Valentine Dyall, The Reason Why was not quite as successful in its execution as The Starlings, but still a fascinating curio and this week Phil Shoobridge joins Tyler to talk about it.

In 1972 a film was released which is generally regarded as
one of Peter Sellers' weakest films - Where Does It Hurt - and joining Tyler to kick it around for an hour or so are Jeremy Limb & Paul Litchfield.



Sellers plays administrator Albert T. Hopfnagel at Vista Vue Hospital, described by Sellers' biographer Roger Lewis as being like “every over-the-top insurance salesman and fraudulent television evangelist you pray you’ll never meet…. He’s a streak of brown lightning… he appears happy and comprehensively spurious as a minor Richard III, bribing and threatening.”



From the outset the film adopts a cynical framing of the US medical system.



When laid-off construction worker Lester Hammond arrives at Vista Vue seeking a routine check-up he gets more than he bargained for – Hopfnagel runs the hospital like a racketeer, where the age-old medical maxim
“First do no harm” has been downgraded to “First bleed them for every dime they’ve got”.



As well as comprehensively trashing the film the chaps turn to other matters of import, such as My Mother The Car, Derren Nesbitt, Doctor Who, the Carry On films and Dick Emery.



10-4!