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CLUE
A perfect cast and the movie making skills of a gentleman named Jonathan Lynn combine to make the 1985 film comedy Clue a minor classic that has gained almost a cult following over the years.
If memory serves, the only film based on a Parker Brothers board game, Lynn has taken the characters and game pieces from this well-known game and fashioned a credible and hilarious live action murder mystery around them. It is a stormy New England night in 1954 at a gothic mansion where Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), Mr. Green (Michael McKean) and Miss Scarlett (Lesley Ann Warren) all receive invitations to the mansion for dinner and agree to appear, despite the fact they don't know who their host is, what the occasion is, or why the host makes them agree to use aliases instead of their real names.
The guests are greeted by the butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry) who reveals that all of the guest are being blackmailed and that their blackmailer is their host for the evening. The guests are all given lovely gift wrapped boxes with the famous weapons from the game (gun, lead pipe, rope, knife, candlestick, wrench) and before you can say "Whodunnit", the blackmailer and two more people wind up dead and that is just the beginning of the insanity to come.
The lion's share of the credit for why this silliness works has to go to director Lynn and his co-screewriter John Landis, who have crafted a story that moves at breakneck speed and doesn't allow the viewer time to figure out exactly what is going on. They have also presented a story where, despite it being stupid with outrageous physical comedy, finds large portions of the story told through the eye of the camera...asides, furtive looks, telling nods, badly hidden facial reactions to secrets that are much more effective than 40 pages of dialogue.
During the film's original theatrical release, Lynn and company had the inspired idea to film three different endings for the movie and tack them on randomly to copies during distribution so that most people who saw it in theaters did not see the same ending, a gimmick which spiked ticket sales because people would go see it multiple times in order to see all three endings. With the advent of video, this gimmick is a distant memory as the DVD features all three endings shown back to back. The movie is still a comedic joy and thee is a real Mel Brooks influence to Lynn's work here. The performances are uniformly superb, with standout work from Brennan and Curry. Treat yourself to a cult classic that still holds up almost 30 years later.
A perfect cast and the movie making skills of a gentleman named Jonathan Lynn combine to make the 1985 film comedy Clue a minor classic that has gained almost a cult following over the years.
If memory serves, the only film based on a Parker Brothers board game, Lynn has taken the characters and game pieces from this well-known game and fashioned a credible and hilarious live action murder mystery around them. It is a stormy New England night in 1954 at a gothic mansion where Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), Mr. Green (Michael McKean) and Miss Scarlett (Lesley Ann Warren) all receive invitations to the mansion for dinner and agree to appear, despite the fact they don't know who their host is, what the occasion is, or why the host makes them agree to use aliases instead of their real names.
The guests are greeted by the butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry) who reveals that all of the guest are being blackmailed and that their blackmailer is their host for the evening. The guests are all given lovely gift wrapped boxes with the famous weapons from the game (gun, lead pipe, rope, knife, candlestick, wrench) and before you can say "Whodunnit", the blackmailer and two more people wind up dead and that is just the beginning of the insanity to come.
The lion's share of the credit for why this silliness works has to go to director Lynn and his co-screewriter John Landis, who have crafted a story that moves at breakneck speed and doesn't allow the viewer time to figure out exactly what is going on. They have also presented a story where, despite it being stupid with outrageous physical comedy, finds large portions of the story told through the eye of the camera...asides, furtive looks, telling nods, badly hidden facial reactions to secrets that are much more effective than 40 pages of dialogue.
During the film's original theatrical release, Lynn and company had the inspired idea to film three different endings for the movie and tack them on randomly to copies during distribution so that most people who saw it in theaters did not see the same ending, a gimmick which spiked ticket sales because people would go see it multiple times in order to see all three endings. With the advent of video, this gimmick is a distant memory as the DVD features all three endings shown back to back. The movie is still a comedic joy and thee is a real Mel Brooks influence to Lynn's work here. The performances are uniformly superb, with standout work from Brennan and Curry. Treat yourself to a cult classic that still holds up almost 30 years later.