Clue

Rating

Director
Jonathan Lynn
Screenplay
John Landis, Jonathan Lynn
Length
94 min.
Starring
Tim Curry, Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, Colleen Camp, Lee Ving, Bill Henderson, Jane Wiedlin, Jeffrey Kramer, Kellye Nakahara, Howard Hessman
MPAA Rating
PG

Review
My earliest memory of the film Clue was seeing a giant stand-up at the six-house theater at our local mall. It was a giant, Addams Family-like estate with six lit windows and an open door. In each window was one of the six suspects I had come to know and love in my many adventures within the board game as a kid and the door was being held open by the butler. The six weapons were also featured and for a ten-year-old kid who loved murder mysteries and the board game Clue, it was a tantalizing advertisement. The problem was, at least for my grandfather who was taking me to the movies, that I wasn’t old enough to see a PG film.

I eventually watched the movie a few years later on home video and it has remained one of my favorite films of all time. The story is set during the Red Scare when the House Unamerican Activities Committee was working its way through hardworking Hollywood and other walks of life establishing blacklists in its witch hunt to root out Communist threats. Six unacquainted house guests are invited to a large, foreboding estate by a mysterious host known only by the name of Mr. Boddy.

The film opens as the house butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry) has arrived to make sure everything is prepared for the first guest to arrive. Assisting him in preparing the house for dinner are the voluptuous maid Yvette (Colleen Camp) and the confrontational cook Mrs. Ho (Kellye Nakahara).

The guests were each requested to attend employing a pseudonym to protect themselves and the others. There’s: the sexy Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren); the stalwart, yet childish Col. Mustard (Martin Mull); the regal Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn); the accident-prone Mr. Green (Michael McKean); the excitable Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan); and the lecherous Prof. Plum (Christopher Lloyd). Each has a secret and each has been paying blackmail to their mysterious host Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving).

The night turns into murder and mayhem as Wadsworth encourages the guests to kill Mr. Boddy and end his vile attempt to extort money from them. They succeed, but his is only the first of several messy murders that occur throughout the picture, each carried out by one of the weapons (knife, candlestick, revolver, rope, lead pipe and wrench) they have been gifted by Mr. Boddy.

Exploring what makes Clue such a fantastic comedy has to start with the unparalleled cast. Among the seven main characters of the film, there are three Oscar nominees: Warren, Kahn and Brennan. All three women found great success through their careers as comedic actresses and here they further expand on that experience.

Lesley Ann Warren’s Oscar-nominated turn in Victor/Victoria is delightful, but she dials it back as Miss Scarlet. Playing the long-time operator of a call girl service, Warren conveys a complex understanding of human nature while keeping her exotic appeal. Her character is strong willed, determined and successful. She has no qualms about her “questionable” enterprise and has no problem talking about it despite the distaste on display from her fellow guests.

In Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, the witty, charming Madeline Kahn created ditzy characters that relied on her unerring comic timing to deliver the most clever comments without so much as a hint of effort. In Clue, she was given the opportunity to play a different role, one of the cold, calculating husband-killer Mrs. White. Kahn doesn’t try to convince the audience that Mrs. White is a pillar of virtue and when she casually explains her husbands’ deaths to the assembled crowd, there isn’t a hint of remorse, suggesting, but never admitting, her guilt. Kahn also has some of the film’s funniest lines, employing her effortless wit.

As the perpetually flustered Mrs. Peacock, the constantly-entertaining wife of a prominent Senator gives Eileen Brennan a chance to play broad comedy in a way not seen since Murder by Death, one of my other favorite murder mystery comedies. Brennan’s physical comedy is the highlight of her performances. Just watch her scenes fighting a belligerent headpiece or screaming uncontrollably at the thought she might have been poisoned. Hers is easily one of the best performances in the film.

Although the male side has no Oscar nominations between them (at least they didn’t at the time), the men are often just as funny as their colorful counterparts. Of the guests, Michael McKean is probably the biggest scene stealer. Mr. Green is an accident-prone social incompetent brought to the affair because of his homosexuality. McKean makes him the most likeable chap of the bunch, having no machinations in the event except surviving the night. McKean plays the pratfalls and verbal dynamics of his character with ease belying his general lack of experience on the big screen. It’s no wonder he eventually melded into Christopher Guest’s group of comic players (and even earned an Oscar nomination for it, albeit in the Original Song category).

Christopher Lloyd, who was better known that year for his apperance in Back to the Future as inventor Doc Brown, had no problem employing his comedic experience from the television series Taxi and showing that he didn’t need a zany character (Reverend Jim on Taxi and Doc Brown for example) to display his humor. Professor Plum is a sex-hungry medical professional whose frequent patient affairs have landed him in blackmail. Lloyd plays him as a smart, bland man whose physicality is incredibly limited. Although some of his past performances creep into a number of his exasperated expressions in the film, his more reserved take on the material makes for a nice contrast against his more vivid compatriots.

Starting out on Mary Hartmann, Mary Hartmann, Martin Mull made the transition to parody talk show host on the short-lived sketch comedy series Fernwood Tonight. That history informed much of his performance as the tough, but self-conscious Col. Mustard. Mull gives Mustard a kind of world weary temperament thanks to his years of military experience, but as his personal history is revealed, we find a spoiled child, smothered by his parents despite claiming that they were killed in a crash. It’s in these scenes that Mull’s abilities are on full display. Unfortunately, his is probably the least funny of all of the characters and that’s including Lloyd’s sometimes humorless Prof. Plum in the mix.

Despite all of the amazing talent above, Tim Curry’s refined butler Wadsworth is the triumph of the cast. In 1975, 29-year-old actor Curry starred in a film that would earn him more fame and notoriety than anything he would ever do. Rocky Horror Picture Show is legendary and aside from some of the great cinematic classics, it may be one of the best known, if least celebrated, films in history. Curry took on the challenging and daunting role of Frank N Furter, a mad scientist from a distant planet with a love of women’s clothing. It was a role he originated on stage and with which his familiarity helped define one of the most iconic roles on celluloid. Although he would never have another film as popular as that, Clue is probably his only other truly remarkable performance.

In the beginning, Curry makes Wadsworth a mild-mannered, duty-bound servant in a vast estate. You easily accept his role in the events of the night, thinking him a simple butler. However, as the film progresses, Curry lets himself go, shifting from simple servant to mourning husband to crazed organizer. And by the time he launches into the film’s famous whodunnit revelation sequence, he’s lost all manners of grace and refinement, embracing the sheer lunacy of the whole affair. Rushing from room to room, you would be hard pressed to find an actor who worked so hard in creating the perfect third act resolution. It simply wouldn’t have worked without him.

The screenplay by Jonathan Lynn and John Landis isn’t the most sophisticated, takes a few liberties with history and has a handful of debatable plot holes, but much of their script is tightly written, neatly observed and undeniably funny. The screenplay was written to capitalize on a novel and abandoned concept of showing a different ending in each theater the film played. Three conclusions were crafted and audiences across the country were allowed to witness only one. Before the advent of the internet, this concept might have caused those in the know to travel vast distances to find a print with a different ending, but today simply would have been revealed to the world at large. Still, the concept is so neat that I’m amazed it was even greenlighted. The need to create a movie with three separate and distinct conclusions that actually seemed plausible was a daunting task. If a couple of minor details make one or more of them inaccurate it isn’t for lack of trying.

In spite of the factual or logistical errors found in the screenplay, the rapid-fire dialogue, clever double entendres and witty social commentary make the film most enjoyable. This has to be one of the most quotable movies ever written. Some may enjoy quoting from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Star Wars or the body of Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s career, but I frequently find great moments to toss in a favorite quote from this film. They may not be witty on the level of All About Eve or as enduring as Casablanca, but there’s so much fun to be found within Clue, that it deserves to be remembered.

The film is something of an experiment. It tests the audience’s ability to catch details and assemble them into a solution. Great mysteries are more exciting when you can find that you have completely misjudged the ending, but realize that it was a clue you missed, not a last-minute curveball, that enabled the failure. It’s not hard to see why some have dismissed the film, but you will never find a better adaptation of a board game than this one. It may seem commercially crass, but if you’re a fan of the board game, there’s no reason not to be impressed with this wonderful achievement and that it’s so fun and easy to quote just adds to its excellence.

Clue may be a sometimes conventional series of comedic moments, but it’s a fun series of comedic moments and I consider it one of the greatest success of experimental comic storytelling to date.

Original Review

Note: This is a Resurfaced review written in 2002 or earlier. For more information, please visit this link: Resurfaced Reviews.

Basic Plot

Based on the Parker Brothers board game of the same name.

Review

Was it Miss Scarlet with the candlestick in the ballroom or Professor Plum with the revolver in the lounge?

The board game, released in 1948 in the UK and in 1949 in the US, comes to glorious life in this comedic adaptation starring the usual cast of Clue: Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd) along with Wadsworth, the butler (Tim Curry) and Yvette, the maid (Colleen Camp).

As the film opens we watch Wadsworth arrive to make sure that all is in order before the guests arrive. He makes sure that the ferocious dogs are kept on a short chain and after stepping in a pile of dog dung steps inside to begin his activities.

He checks in on Yvette who is in the library preparing for the guests. After he leaves, she quickly checks the bottom of her feet for the smell that is following him. He checks next on the cook (Kellye Nakahara) in the kitchen and then the doorbell rings. It’s Mustard whom he shows into the library to wait for the others.

Arriving next is White who appears “pale and tragic.” Not long after come Green and Peacock. Scarlet and Plum arrive together after he picks her up on the road after her car breaks down.

Now that the guests have arrived, it’s time for dinner. They fight curiosity through dinner and eventually the final guest arrives: Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving).

They are shown into the study where they soon discover that they have each been paying blackmail…to Boddy, no less. Wadsworth suggests that they inform the police and end it all. Boddy, however, has a different idea, the only way is to tell the police and have him expose them all or kill him.

Boddy brings each guest a gift to help them in their decision process: a knife, a noose of rope, a revolver, a wrench, a lead pipe and a candlestick. He then switches off the light, the revolver is fired, a vase is broken and a controlled scream. Then Peacock turns on the light and lying dead on the floor is Mr. Boddy.

From there several other people in the house (including the cook) and some visitors (a motorist and a cop) are killed. It is from there that they must figure out who killed Mr. Boddy, in what room and with what.

The film is a light-hearted comedy with dark undertones. Each murder is somewhat gruesome, but each is done in such a way to be quite benign. “Clue” focuses on comedy. It’s not your standard Hitchcockian mystery; instead it’s in the vein of Neil Simon’s “Murder by Death.”

In its original theatrical version, “Clue” was shown with one of three different endings (all three endings appear together on the video). Each solution more surprising than the last, “Clue” is one of the few films to feature separate endings shown in separate theaters.

No one gives a bad performance and each is up to his or her comedic best. The most impressive are Curry, Kahn and Camp, but none of the rest should be ashamed. The film captures the fun of the board game without losing its charm. The comedy in the film is a bonus, for the film could easily have worked on a more dramatic scale.

“Clue” is one of those films that almost anyone can enjoy either by themselves or in a party setting.

Review Written
September 24, 2004