Product: Murder by Death (1976)
Rating: 4.0
Spoofing the Great Detectives
Anyone who is a fan of the old fashioned detective mysteries will want to see this film. It spoofs murder mysteries as several world famous detectives are invited to a mysterious house. The detectives are thinly disguised versions of Nick and Nora Charles (the Thin Man), Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Charlie Chan, and Sam Spade. They are told by their lisping host Truman Capote that a murder will take place at midnight, and they must try and solve it. Can the great detective minds figure it all out? Everyone in the all star cast seems to be having a good time, with especially funny bits provided by Peter Sellers as the Charlie Chan character, Maggie Smith as the Nora Charles character, Eileen Brennan as Spade's girlfriend, and Alec Guinness and Nancy Walker as the servants. Some of the jokes are very obvious, but fans of the genre will enjoy the accurate spoofs plus the commentary supplied by Capote's character about the frustrations of solving the crimes in mystery novels. This one is a lot of fun.