Product: Murder by Death (1976)
Rating: 2.0
The real crime...
...is the script. I am amazed at the rave reviews below. I envy their ability to laugh at jokes that wouldn't pass muster at Mad Magazine. The direction, by a theater director who seems to understand nothing about film, is flat and awkward. It's as if everyone, including the wonderful (and wasted) cast, conspired to snuff what little comedic potential there may have been in the script. As a supposed satire of mystery novels, the film is obliged to be more clever than the average novel it parodies, yet there is nothing remotely clever about the plot (if it can be said to have a plot), and makes no sense whatsoever, on any level. It was painful enough to sit through a cable channel broadcast. It seems a crime to ask anyone to actually pay for the ordeal.