FILMS OF THE WEEK

THE BIG MOVIE

Spy (2015) 15 Saturday, 9pm, Ch4 This hilarious spy comedy from Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) follows our hero, Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy, above), as she graduates from CIA desk job to perilous, high-stakes field work. When the agent she idolises, dashing Bradley Fine (Jude Law), is killed, other agents are also put in the firing line, and it’s left to Cooper to go undercover and save them from Rose Byrne’s glamorous gangster princess. The spy spoof is nothing new, but McCarthy’s performance puts it in a whole new league. She is simply fantastic – smashing female stereotypes to smithereens – but Jason Statham’s super-macho posing, and Miranda Hart’s clumsy but dependable colleague and gal pal, are also worthy of special mention.

CLASSIC FILM CHOICE

A Shot In The Dark (1964) PG Sunday, 1.30pm, BBC2 Peter Sellers’s clueless Inspector Clouseau returns in this second in a long-running film series of mixed fortunes. Still oblivious to his own incompetence, Clouseau is assigned to investigate the murder of a rich family’s chauffeur. Maid Maria (Elke Sommer, above, with Sellers) is the prime suspect, but is too easy on the eye to convince Clouseau of her guilt, while Herbert Lom’s Commissioner Dreyfus flaps about trying to remove the useless detective from the case. Sellers and director Blake Edwards enjoyed a fraught chemistry for many years, but Clouseau was the glue that bonded them, while the fictional characters of Clouseau and Maria were also rather close. With Jacques, Maria had a son, played by Roberto Benigni in 1993’s Son Of The Pink Panther.