Murder By Death

I thought I would start the month of October with a classic whodunit? movie. This movie centers around an eccentric billionaire who invites a group of the some of the most brilliant detectives of literature to his large estate to solve a murder that is yet to happen. This is a great comic murder mystery that plays solely on the lunacy of every situation that not only makes you laugh not only every now and then but it has you laughing throughout the entire film. Yet one of the most interesting parts about this movie is that it is different from other comedies because it keeps you trying to guess what happened that in actuality throughout the film I was confused from time to time.

Murder By Death had a great ability to put together such a great all star cast. With such a great cast though Peter Sellers steals the show with his Sidney Wang character, who is an impersonation of Charlie Chan. He had me laughing every time he is on screen, without even having to say things at times because of his great look. Truman Capote plays the eccentric millionaire, and while Capote was never one of the best actors out there, his personality that he brought to the movie was the perfect amount of eccentricity.  Everyone else does a great job in playing there roles and they all play off each other so well.

Everything in this film, from the plot to the lighting is over the top and overly exaggerated, which really helps make this movie so humorous. A great example of this is that mystery readers accept that Hercule Poirot and Charlie Chan are so observant as to spot the most obscure clue, which conveniently points to the solution of the puzzle. In Murder By Death writer Neil Simon exaggerates that gambit. A guest detective draws the most outlandish conclusion from the most irrelevant fact, which in turn is shot down by another guest detective who points out the flaws, and then proceeds to do exactly the same thing. Not too mention this movie gives es so many twists and turns particularly at the end that it makes our heads spin.

One of the great brilliant little parodies throughout the film is that of the butler and the cook. I love the fact that the butler is blind and the cook is deaf. This gives the audience some great interactions back and forth between the butler and cook. Also Alec Guiness who plays the butler is absolutely hilarious. This is different then what most would say for Alec because he is known to play very serious roles. It shows his great versatility to be able to play more then all the different dramatic roles he plays.

This is definitely a classic. This movie does a great job at poking fun at all the great detectives in a light manor. The fact this movie can not only make your brain run, but makes you laugh even more. The over the topness of this movie is the reason that I am giving Murder By Death three buckets of popcorn out of five. This is definitely one that is great for anyone to watch to start the month of October.

-The Movie Man-