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#167 - Murder by Death
Robert Moore, 1976
Five legendary detectives and their sidekicks are invited to the country home of a wealthy eccentric to participate in a lucrative but dangerous competition.
Murder by Death certainly has a fair bit going for it. It features an extremely novel idea in having facsimiles of famous fictional detectives like Hercule Poirot or Sam Spade be made to compete against one another in order to solve a country-house murder mystery. To make matters better, it does bring together one incredibly impressive ensemble cast to recreate these iconic characters or bring a deft comic touch to original creations (most obviously Alec Guinness as a blind butler). The deconstructive air that hangs over proceedings does a decent job of justifying some of the cast's more outlandish characteristics (such as Peter Sellers yellowing up to play a thickly-accented Charlie Chan knock-off) in addition to offering some comical variations on a lot of the usual whodunit tropes. As good as these qualities are, they only go so far in filling out a film that definitely starts to run out of steam after about an hour. Though this could be considered part of the film's caustically parodic nature, one wonders exactly how much the film actually wants to inflate the importance of these characters instead of deflating them. At least it's a generally fun little caper either way.
Robert Moore, 1976
Five legendary detectives and their sidekicks are invited to the country home of a wealthy eccentric to participate in a lucrative but dangerous competition.
Murder by Death certainly has a fair bit going for it. It features an extremely novel idea in having facsimiles of famous fictional detectives like Hercule Poirot or Sam Spade be made to compete against one another in order to solve a country-house murder mystery. To make matters better, it does bring together one incredibly impressive ensemble cast to recreate these iconic characters or bring a deft comic touch to original creations (most obviously Alec Guinness as a blind butler). The deconstructive air that hangs over proceedings does a decent job of justifying some of the cast's more outlandish characteristics (such as Peter Sellers yellowing up to play a thickly-accented Charlie Chan knock-off) in addition to offering some comical variations on a lot of the usual whodunit tropes. As good as these qualities are, they only go so far in filling out a film that definitely starts to run out of steam after about an hour. Though this could be considered part of the film's caustically parodic nature, one wonders exactly how much the film actually wants to inflate the importance of these characters instead of deflating them. At least it's a generally fun little caper either way.