Murder by Death
This was a perennial favourite for me growing up, and alongside Clue it provided a healthy disregard for the detective genre by placing extreme versions of field’s popular characters in a sleuthing battle royale before sitting back and watching them squabble like children.
To see Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers in the same film is a treat for fans of the Ealing comedies and it shows why the film contains one of the most perfect casts assembled. Maggie Smith and David Niven as grace personified, Peter Falk’s tetchy gumshoe is an utter delight – and how often do you get Truman Capote on screen?
There’s a very neat script behind it all too, with Neil Simon taking the conventions of the ripping them up and then reassembling them in a patchwork of logic which keeps the audience guessing until the very end. Less of a Whodunnit? and more of a Whatexactlydidtheydoagain? the film is great, great fun and deserves to be seen.
Favourite scene: A deaf maid, a blind butler, a fantastic performance from Alec Guinness and Neil Simon’s incredible comedic play. One of many scenes which could have been included.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXRYX3luHac
