Murder by DeathYou are cordially invited to dinner...and a murder. Yes, you really are--it's on the invitation. Well, okay, not you, but five esteemed detectives who might look a little familiar to mystery novel and film buffs, caricatures of some of those whodunit classics. They all get invites--how they received the almost stamped invitations is beyond me--and arrive through the fog as thick as bouillabaisse, crossing the perilous bridge which may or may not support the weight of two men and a car, and arrive at the lisp-tastic destination of Mr. Twain, 22 Lola Lane..."two two Twain"...yep, the night is young and the goofiness is just getting started.
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For a relatively obscure film--it is a genuine cult classic quoted endlessly in our household--Murder by Death boasts a remarkable cast of thespians giving their own impressions of detective story icons. The first of our five sleuths is Sydney Wang, an exaggeration of Charlie Chan, played both appropriately (and inappropriately) by the chameleon Peter Sellers in "yellowface", with a tendency to avoid using pronouns, prepositions, and articles, and attended by his adopted "number three" son, Willie (Richard Narita); this clever comic turn is in itself a kind of self-deprecating homage, since other caucasian actors (like Peter Ustinov) had played the role, and the diction is very self-aware. Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven and Maggie Smith, respectively) are a nod to "Nick and Nora Charles" of the Thin Man series of films, posh socialites with noses held so high, they might be above the clouds, and never without a martini near by or in hand. Monsieur Milo Perrier (James Coco) is a parody of Hercule Poirot, although Perrier is a foppish, snobbish (and other -ishes, I'm sure) extreme of the detective, as if someone turned the Frenchie on full blast--my apologies, I meant to say "Belgie"; his chauffeur, Marcel (James Cromwell), is often forced to clean up after the petulant criminologist after his chocolate-fueled outbursts of indignation. In a twist of expectations, Jessica "Jessie" Marbles (Elsa Lanchester) is the younger of the English duo, with her elderly nurse, Miss Withers (Estelle Winwood) wheelchair-bound and of questionable lucidity. Jessica Marbles is a brusque and brassy old lady, quite unlike the sophisticated dame of Agatha Christie she spoofs, Miss Marple. And, of course, we have Sam Diamond, a obvious riff on Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon, a tough talking gumshoe played so expertly by Peter Falk that if you were to close your eyes, you might think you were hearing Bogey giving some rather unusual lines--but then you'd miss the film, so don't do that. Only, this Sam has a secretive fascination for muscle man magazines, on his hunt for "suspects"--much to the disappointment of his frustrated secretary/"girl Friday", Tess Skeffington (Eileen Brennan). And no home of horrors would be complete without the host and staff. Attending to the arriving detectives is the blind butler, Jamesir Bensonmum (Alec Guinness), who seems to have no issue with the manor's unnerving doorbell--a woman's scream--nor to the fact that the cat growls...must be all the dog food they feed him. One of the funniest moments in the film involves Bensonmum and the arrival of the maid, Yetta (Nancy Walker); Yetta is deaf and mute, and cannot read or write English--needless to say, Yetta and Bensonmum's encounter is a setup for hilarity. ("I see," said the...oh, never mind.) And in the role of the supremely confident lord of Twain Manor is none other than Lionel Twain--played by Truman Capote in a rather clever bit of casting, who practically reinvented the crime novel with his marvelous "In Cold Blood"--an effete and arrogant self-styled criminologist (I'm talking about Lionel Twain, here) who has gathered his subjects together to make a wager: solve the murder yet to be committed, and win one million dollars. The plot congeals...
Murder by Death was written by Neil Simon, who is also a well-known playwright; coincidentally, the film is in many ways about the staging of a murder. Prior to the arrival of the guests, a black-gloved mystery figure goes about setting the scene by placing props and effects throughout the house--cobwebs of candied sugar, baking flour for dust--including making doors creepily creak and messing with the time on grandfather clocks; although sometimes, the extent to which this figure goes to try to sell the creepy castle motif ends up diving over the deep end--every guest has a personalized gargoyle they're just dying to meet. The dialogue consistently errs on the side of absurd, bounding back and forth between characters in an exchange of silliness. Sydney Wang always has a "fortune cookie" of Eastern wisdom which sounds more like a corny vaudevillian joke than an excerpt from the Tao Te Ching. Bensonmum's unusual name--plus his service-oriented profession--leads to humorous exchanges with the Charleston's about him and his father, "Howodd" Bensonmum, and a presumed jest which escapes M. Perrier after introducing himself to the spoiled inspector. Another favorite moment is when Bensonmum introduces the Charlestons to their room--that of the late Mrs. Twain, whom he informs them "murdered herself in her sleep", kept just as it was "the night she choked herself". Yep, plenty of that. Twain's offer of one million dollars to the one who solves who the killer is for a murder that hasn't happened is rightly acknowledged by Sam as insane, and that the only thing that should be committed is Twain. But when it does happen, the party turns to elaborate and implausible theories; implausible, because they might work in a corny detective story, but when we stop to think about it, they are often--as Wang observes regarding one theory posited by Dick Charleston--stupid, the "stupidest theory...ever heard". The detectives start unloading information against one another, trying to play their elaborate game of Clue to discern who among them is a killer, and who will go to the "gas chamber to be hung", with revelations about each one of them subverting our expectations of the detectives these characters are meant to represent. As they all resign themselves to sleep on it, they are treated to uniquely styled tortures, and it's a wonder if anyone will get out alive in a last ditch effort by the killer to snuff out the competition. Ultimately, everyone reaches their own conclusions, again both plausible and ridiculous, just like a pulp fiction novel; even in the big reveal, they are called out on their "twists", their "powers of deduction", called out on their reversals in the most appropriate fashion, reminded that--just as the ending reminds us about mystery--when being clever, don't forget to be humble.
Recommended for: Fans of murder mysteries and serials of the earlier days of cinema, a great satire of those whodunits on screen and in print. This movie holds a special place as a family favorite, quotable almost in its entirety by the whole family; it's that funny and worth a watch.
Murder by Death was written by Neil Simon, who is also a well-known playwright; coincidentally, the film is in many ways about the staging of a murder. Prior to the arrival of the guests, a black-gloved mystery figure goes about setting the scene by placing props and effects throughout the house--cobwebs of candied sugar, baking flour for dust--including making doors creepily creak and messing with the time on grandfather clocks; although sometimes, the extent to which this figure goes to try to sell the creepy castle motif ends up diving over the deep end--every guest has a personalized gargoyle they're just dying to meet. The dialogue consistently errs on the side of absurd, bounding back and forth between characters in an exchange of silliness. Sydney Wang always has a "fortune cookie" of Eastern wisdom which sounds more like a corny vaudevillian joke than an excerpt from the Tao Te Ching. Bensonmum's unusual name--plus his service-oriented profession--leads to humorous exchanges with the Charleston's about him and his father, "Howodd" Bensonmum, and a presumed jest which escapes M. Perrier after introducing himself to the spoiled inspector. Another favorite moment is when Bensonmum introduces the Charlestons to their room--that of the late Mrs. Twain, whom he informs them "murdered herself in her sleep", kept just as it was "the night she choked herself". Yep, plenty of that. Twain's offer of one million dollars to the one who solves who the killer is for a murder that hasn't happened is rightly acknowledged by Sam as insane, and that the only thing that should be committed is Twain. But when it does happen, the party turns to elaborate and implausible theories; implausible, because they might work in a corny detective story, but when we stop to think about it, they are often--as Wang observes regarding one theory posited by Dick Charleston--stupid, the "stupidest theory...ever heard". The detectives start unloading information against one another, trying to play their elaborate game of Clue to discern who among them is a killer, and who will go to the "gas chamber to be hung", with revelations about each one of them subverting our expectations of the detectives these characters are meant to represent. As they all resign themselves to sleep on it, they are treated to uniquely styled tortures, and it's a wonder if anyone will get out alive in a last ditch effort by the killer to snuff out the competition. Ultimately, everyone reaches their own conclusions, again both plausible and ridiculous, just like a pulp fiction novel; even in the big reveal, they are called out on their "twists", their "powers of deduction", called out on their reversals in the most appropriate fashion, reminded that--just as the ending reminds us about mystery--when being clever, don't forget to be humble.
Recommended for: Fans of murder mysteries and serials of the earlier days of cinema, a great satire of those whodunits on screen and in print. This movie holds a special place as a family favorite, quotable almost in its entirety by the whole family; it's that funny and worth a watch.