Movie: Murder By Death

This film (1976) completes the trilogy of murder mystery spoofs, along with "Sleuth" (1972) and "Deathtrap" (1982).  Great fun in lampooning the conventions of the genre, and great turns by a bevy of great actors:

• Sir Alec Guinness, who was reading the Star Wars script at the time
  
• Peter Falk, doing Columbo channeling Humphrey Bogart doing Sam Spade
  
• Peter Sellers, made up as a Chinaman (with a Japanese son...)
  
• Eileen Brennan
  
• Truman Capote
  
• James Coco
  
• David Niven
  
• Estelle Winwood
  
• Maggie Smith
  
• Elsa Lancaster
  
• Nancy Walker
  

Bought a copy of "Clue" (1985) at Goodwill yesterday.  Definitely a cheap knockoff copy of the genre.

Fabulous cast though: Martin Mull, Michael McKean, Eileen Brennan (again), Madeline Kahn, Lesley Ann Warren, Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd.

Unfortunately the script was sub-par, and the rehearsal insufficient for the cast to gell.  Pacing was off, editing was off, there was no sense of tension building.  Large parts of the movie looked like Keystone Kops, other large parts like a high school production.

The big "gimmick" of this movie was that they filmed three different endings, and sent different ones to different theaters.  It hardly matters -- everything is so over-the-top madcap silly that you end up not caring a bit.