Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we salute the late, great Peter Sellers with a toast to each of these three films.Our title this week comes, naturally, from the 1970 British comedy, There's a Girl in My Soup. In it, Sellers plays Robert Danvers, a vain TV host, opposite Goldie Hawn. She plays Marion, an American hippie who breaks up with her bum of a boyfriend, then embarks on a relationship of sorts with Danvers. It may be a stretch of the imagination, but a generation of middle-aged men took comfort in the notion that they could get next to Goldie Hawn no matter how overbearing their personalities were.
Marion embarrasses herself and Danvers by getting sloshed at a wine tasting event. Hey, isn't that what wine tasting events are for? There has been at least one over-imbiber at every one of them I've attended, and I'm happy to report it has never been me. At one point in the film, Marion asks, "Are you trying to get me tight?" Danvers replies, "You're frightening enough sober."
Sellers made the most of his standard line for women: "My God, but you’re lovely." Eventually he looks in the mirror and says it to his reflection.
Hawn says she was railroaded into doing the nude scene, her first in a film. She contends there was no logical reason for her to be naked in the scene. The director and the producer did not agree with her.
The wine country scenes are supposed to be in the south of France, so let's go to Provence. Domaines Ott has Château de Selle, for fans of expensive rosé. It's likely north of $45, which will knock four White Zinfandels off your shopping list.
The 1964 comedy, A Shot in the Dark, has Sellers playing French detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Blake Edwards directed this one, as he did the others in the Pink Panther series. Shot was the follow-up to the previous year's The Pink Panther.
Edwards and Sellers suffered a falling-out during this film, vowing that they would never work together again. Of course, they did work together again, on The Party and several more Panther iterations. Promises, promises.
Elke Sommer was his co-star, playing a beautiful maid who becomes a prime murder suspect. While falling over himself, and most everything else in sight, Clouseau also falls for the maid. In real life, Sellers at this time was busy meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Britt Ekland. That whole sequence took only ten days. Bad movies have longer shooting schedules.
A pink wine for a Pink Panther, please. Italian producer Usiglian de Vescovo makes a Pink Panther rosé. Their website is mildly hilarious. They boast that the wine is packaged "with all the care we are capable of" sounds less like a brag and more like a disclaimer. It must have lost something in Google translation. It's Sangiovese and it costs almost $40.
The Mouse That Roared burst onto the scene in 1959. Its nuclear disarmament theme foreshadowed Dr. Strangelove, as did a multi-role performance from Sellers. In The Mouse, he is Duchess Gloriana XII, Prime Minister Count Rupert Mountjoy, and military leader Tully Bascomb. Co-star Jean Seberg only got one role, but not everyone is Peter Sellers. The mouse, who has a key role in the movie, is uncredited.
The story hinges on wine. The economy of the tiny Duchy of Grand Fenwick is rooted in their prized export, Pinot of Grand Fenwick. An American company, possibly Bronco Wines, comes up with a knockoff version of it that is cheaper to buy, which throws the duchy into bankruptcy. Most winemakers will tell you it's tough enough just to meet payroll. Don't even ask how a small country manages to grow enough grapes to produce enough wine to support their entire gross national product. But if that seems a stretch, get a load of their plan to escape bankruptcy.
They dress in medieval armor, sail to the U.S., and declare war. They figure to get beaten quickly and take advantage of American generosity afterward. But, through ineptitude, they wind up with The Bomb. International hilarity ensues as the Duchy of Grand Fenwick snatches victory from the jaws of a sure defeat.
A Pinot would be perfect, even if it's not the fabled Pinot of Grand Fenwick. Gérard Bertrand makes a Pinot Noir from high altitude vineyards near Limoux, right about where the fictional duchy would be located. Domaine de l’Aigle Pinot Noir lists for $35.
Follow Randy Fuller on X and BlueSky
