Clue (1985, PG)
Written and Directed by Jonathan Lynn
Story by Jonathan Lynn and John Landis
Based on the board game by Anthony E. Pratt
Starring Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Llyod, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, Lesley Ann Warren, Colleen Camp, and Lee Ving
As Reviewed by James Brundage (MovieKritic2000)
Yesterday I was in a chatroom. This is the 90s, the information age, and not at all an abnormal experience. When inside chatrooms, as we all well know, everyone talks past each other. One could say that the chatroom is the ultimate proof of Mark Twain's thesis "there are no conversations, only intersecting monologues."
My personal monologue concerned the nature of movies. The people around me persisted at chatting away on which movie was good or bad, as they normally do, with no progress being made towards agreement.
At about 7:40 EST, something inside me cracked.
LOOK, I said, THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS THAT MOVIES SUCK. THEY HAVE ALWAYS SUCKED, THEY WILL ALWAYS SUCK, BUT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE ALONG COMES A GREAT MOVIE THAT GIVES US HOPE TO CONTINUE.
I am not going to say that Clue is that movie. No. What I am going to say is that this is an example of that fact that, no matter how predictable each individual movie may be, movies as a whole are a completely wild and unpredictable animal.
A proof of this thesis is the movie Clue. A studio movie by the two producers that inspired the book "Hit & Run", Peter Guber and Jon Peters (the ones so annoying that Barry Levinson's contract with Rain Man explicitly said that they be barred from the set), Clue is something quite different from what we associate with studios. For one, it is a dark comedy. For two, it has a script with dialogue that jumps off the page. For three, it's postmodern and satiric.
Clue takes place during the McCarthy era of the 50s where the red scare was in full effect and the Cold War was heating up in Korea. Six people, all under an alias, come to the house of Mr. Body (Lee Ving) at the behest of the butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry). In the bunch are a Senator's wife, Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), a black widow killer, Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), a World Health Organization ex-psychiatrist who got friendly with his lady patients, Professor Plum (Christopher Llyod), a homosexual, Mr. Green (Michael McKean), a war profiteer, Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), and a lady pimp, Ms. Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren). All of them are locked in a mansion and given the opportunity to stop the blackmailing or kill the blackmailer. Thus because a series of murders and perhaps the funniest spoof of parlor-mysteries ever done.
As each of a bunch of supporting cast and visitors die (the maid, the cop, the singing telegram girl, the cook, and the motorist), the seven become increasingly paranoid and increasingly funny. Sure, sometimes it resorts to completely childish humor (i.e. the sexy woman says "search me", the man proceeds to feel her up), but the film works incredibly well. As repressed as the McCarthy era was, several jokes are made at its expense as well as using several plays on words and a heavy use of dramatic irony. An example is when a beatnik comes to the door and has a quick snippet of conversation with the entire terrified bunch.
"The time of Armageddon is near." he says.
"You ain't just Whistilin' Dixie." retorts the tart Miss Scarlet.
"Your souls are in danger."
"Our lives are in danger, ya beatnik!" yells Mrs. Peacock as she slams the door on his face.
Admittedly not the most intelligent movie of all time, Clue remains a bit of childish fun. A low-grade dark comedy and a high-grade spoof, it is worthy spending a couple of hours with.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews