Murder By Death (1976) **
1976's Murder By Death has a cool premise (five famous detectives are invited to "dinner and a murder") and it has an impressive ensemble cast. From what I can see it plays much like a precursor to 1985's Clue—I've actually never seen that film (though I've read and seen plenty of whodunits). But the film is a mess of wasted potential and rife with stereotypes that derail it within the first few minutes. It has aged very poorly.
Truman Capote (and his house of trickery)—in one of the renowned writer's only screen roles—plays the mysterious master of ceremonies, Lionel Twain. His dinner guests are send-ups of legendary fictional sleuths. David Niven and Maggie Smith play Dick and Dora Charleston, a dull parody of Dashiell Hammett's Nick and Nora Charles of the Thin Man series (my review of the first film here), and a waste of their talent. Peter Sellers plays Sidney Wang, a parody of Charlie Chan—complete with atrocious yellowface and Chinese stereotypes galore. James Coco plays Milo Perrier, a parody of Agatha Christie's Belgian dick Hercule Poirot, in a mildly funny performance. Elsa Lanchester's Jessica Marbles (a parody of Christie's Miss Marple) is one of the livelier characters and adds a certain level of charm to the proceedings. Peter Falk plays Sam Diamond—probably the funniest parody in the film (of Hammett's Sam Spade). His Humphrey Bogart impersonation is quite amusing for a while but even it wears thin—though writer/director team Neil Simon and Robert Moore apparently thought it was funny enough to carry a whole film two years later in their Falk-starring Bogie parody The Cheap Detective (which I haven't seen).
Alec Guinness, veteran of numerous Ealing "murder" comedies, such as Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949) (my review here), plays Bensonmum (which proves a decent pun gag for a bit), the blind butler. There's also a deaf and dumb maid (Nancy Walker) who, along with Bensonmum, are there to serve (sorry, had to) plenty of "hilarious" mockery of disabled persons. These two performances may qualify as lesser infractions though because they both provide decent gags later on, which I won't go into to avoid spoilers.
I don't consider myself an overly sensitive viewer. I don't seek to point out problematic material. Honestly, I'm sure there is plenty of offensive content that goes right over my head because it relates to challenges I don't face. I don’t necessarily need characters that align with my moral compass. And I am even willing to accept outdated sources of humor in films. But this whole movie does nothing but constantly call attention to its racism and ableism (and to a lesser extent homophobia) so it’s kind of hard not to just roll your eyes at the whole affair.
The worst crime that this film commits though is the fact that it’s just not that funny and not that good. Perhaps if it was, the offending elements could be somewhat overlooked (a la Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) or the Pink Panther series). But those elements are egregious. Admittedly, some of the film's gags and dialogue elicit an occasional giggle (like the Fay Wray screaming doorbell). But Murder By Death is a perfect example of how one writer/director (Mel Brooks) can take stereotypes/controversial material, make it funny and create classic spoofs, and another writer/director team (Simon/Moore) can make a dud. The reveal of MBD tries to be clever and at first is one of the funnier parts of the film but still manages to collapse on itself. Easily the weakest whodunit I’ve ever seen.
Truman Capote (and his house of trickery)—in one of the renowned writer's only screen roles—plays the mysterious master of ceremonies, Lionel Twain. His dinner guests are send-ups of legendary fictional sleuths. David Niven and Maggie Smith play Dick and Dora Charleston, a dull parody of Dashiell Hammett's Nick and Nora Charles of the Thin Man series (my review of the first film here), and a waste of their talent. Peter Sellers plays Sidney Wang, a parody of Charlie Chan—complete with atrocious yellowface and Chinese stereotypes galore. James Coco plays Milo Perrier, a parody of Agatha Christie's Belgian dick Hercule Poirot, in a mildly funny performance. Elsa Lanchester's Jessica Marbles (a parody of Christie's Miss Marple) is one of the livelier characters and adds a certain level of charm to the proceedings. Peter Falk plays Sam Diamond—probably the funniest parody in the film (of Hammett's Sam Spade). His Humphrey Bogart impersonation is quite amusing for a while but even it wears thin—though writer/director team Neil Simon and Robert Moore apparently thought it was funny enough to carry a whole film two years later in their Falk-starring Bogie parody The Cheap Detective (which I haven't seen).
Alec Guinness, veteran of numerous Ealing "murder" comedies, such as Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949) (my review here), plays Bensonmum (which proves a decent pun gag for a bit), the blind butler. There's also a deaf and dumb maid (Nancy Walker) who, along with Bensonmum, are there to serve (sorry, had to) plenty of "hilarious" mockery of disabled persons. These two performances may qualify as lesser infractions though because they both provide decent gags later on, which I won't go into to avoid spoilers.
I don't consider myself an overly sensitive viewer. I don't seek to point out problematic material. Honestly, I'm sure there is plenty of offensive content that goes right over my head because it relates to challenges I don't face. I don’t necessarily need characters that align with my moral compass. And I am even willing to accept outdated sources of humor in films. But this whole movie does nothing but constantly call attention to its racism and ableism (and to a lesser extent homophobia) so it’s kind of hard not to just roll your eyes at the whole affair.
The worst crime that this film commits though is the fact that it’s just not that funny and not that good. Perhaps if it was, the offending elements could be somewhat overlooked (a la Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) or the Pink Panther series). But those elements are egregious. Admittedly, some of the film's gags and dialogue elicit an occasional giggle (like the Fay Wray screaming doorbell). But Murder By Death is a perfect example of how one writer/director (Mel Brooks) can take stereotypes/controversial material, make it funny and create classic spoofs, and another writer/director team (Simon/Moore) can make a dud. The reveal of MBD tries to be clever and at first is one of the funnier parts of the film but still manages to collapse on itself. Easily the weakest whodunit I’ve ever seen.
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