Rating: 
Summary: Funniest, most cleverly written (and acted) comedy EVER!
Review: You will want to see this hilarious spoof on murder mysteries a dozen times! Each viewing will reveal new clues, clever dialog and comedic asides. You will laugh so long that you'll have to rewind to catch up! This is a classic comedy cult film.
Rating:
Summary: My Family's Absolute Favorit Movie!
Review: The Funniest movie ever made and the namesake of our e-mail address!!! Check out Peter Sellers hilarious insistance that "voice come from cow on wall".
Rating: 
Summary: Very funny, if slightly macabre.
Review: This movie had me rolling on the floor the first time I saw it. It has since become one of my favorites, and I can't wait to own it. I only give it four stars because, while the beginning and middle are excellent, the ending leaves a little to be desired, and could have been written better I suppose. Overall, I recommend this to anyone who has a sense of humor and is amused by the strange and silly.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious 1970s whodunnit spoof.
Review: Murder By Death is a must-see whodunnit spoof. Several famous detectives and their companions are invited to a murder mystery weekend hosted by the eccentric Lionel Twain. Each detective tries to solve the mystery before the weekend ends hoping to walk away with the cash prize, or at least his/her life. Hilarious! Ensemble cast includes Peter Falk, Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness, Nancy Walker.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece.
Review: The combination of Simon's script and the acting makes this one of the funniest send-ups of the detective genre in years. From the blind butler to the deaf maid (Alec Guinness and Nancy Walker) the quick-witted will see and hear more bon-mots and brilliant sightgags than any films since the Marx Brothers. Truman Capote is a unrivaled host to this magical farce that gets funnier with each viewing. The Peters (Sellers and Falk), David Niven, Maggie Smith, Eilene Brennen, et al, come together as one of the greatest ensembles on the silver screen. The puns run rampant throughout the dusky mansion at 22 Twain, parried by one of some of the best in the business. Not for the viewer weaned on Saturday Night Live (after 1979) or anyone still enamored with "Friends". Anyone who regularly watches "Frazier" is an apt candidate for playing 'Simon-says' from the great lines of this film.
Rating:
Summary: One of Neil Simon's Best!
Review: Hilarious beyond compare. That describes "Murder by Death." Spoofing everyone from Miss Marple to Sam Spade, Charlie Chan to The Thin Man, and everyone in between, Neil Simon's script (outdoing such Simon classics as "The Odd Couple") is so far out there that one can only fall in love with this movie.Being a big fan of mysteries, parodies, and all-star casts, this was the movie for me. The whole cast has a ball and hams it up to High Heaven. I love David Niven and Maggie Smith as Dick and Dora Charleston. Smith especially soars, giving an offhanded, almost nonchalant performance that leaves you rolling in the aisles. Elsa Lanchester is great as Jessica Marbles, and Estelle Winwood, in a very small role, gets a few good lines as her senile nurse. (Watch for their entrance!) James Coco is a comic riot as the always-hungry Monsieur Perrier. Peter Sellers is classic again as Inspector Wang (with every line funnier than the last). He has more proverbs than all the fortune cookies in Chinatown: "Treacherous road like-a fresh mushroom..." Peter Falk is insane as really-not-quite-there Sam Diamond, and Truman Capote gets in a fun cameo appearance as their puckish host, Lionel Twain. Smith, Coco, Sellers, and Falk shine. But two of the best performances are in rather small roles played by a pre-"Star Wars" Sir Alec Guiness (so don't expect to hear the Force theme on his entrance) showing his comedic talent as the blind butler, Bensonmum, and "Rhoda" alum, the great Nancy Walker, as the deaf-and-dumb cook, Yetta. These two have some of the funniest scenes in film history, each playing marvelously off the other's shortcomings. (Watch for when Bensonmun "fires" her--even holding the door open and pointing out--while she looks on, bewildered!) The classic lines are everywhere. Falk: "I gotta go to da can. Sometimes I talk so much, I forget ta go." Lanchester: "Pardon my language, but it scared the ca-ca out of me!" Smith: (in response) "You know, Dicky, I like her. I really like her." Capote: (chastising Sellers' broken English) "IT! IT! Use your damn pronouns!" Perrier's driver: (About a chocolate bar with almonds instead of nuts) "The man at the store had no nuts." Coco: (responding) "He was short?" Sellers: "Look! Voice come from cow on wall!" But the best line in the whole movie is when the butler has been gone for quite some time and not returned with their meal, and starving Coco, in detective mode, says, "The most important question is: Where is the butler? And why has he not returned...(Screaming dramatically)...WITH OUR DINNER! " I was in a murder-mystery play last year in which one character was a sendup of Truman Capote; I loaned this video to the actor who had that part. And this week, I'm playing a role in Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians," in which Estelle Winwood (Ms. Marbles' nurse in this film) originated the stage role of Emily Brent in 1944. This is a really fun movie to watch on a Friday night with lots of friends--for even more fun, watch it back-to-back with "Clue!"
Rating:
Summary: Grade B+ Neil Simon
Review: Despite the (mostly) excellent cast this movie production of Neil Simon's play leaves a little to be desired. In particular I think that director Robert Moore needed to work harder toward getting the timing of his players down pat and focusing the jokes. I also think it was a mistake to cast Truman Capote in the role of Lionel Twain, the eccentric millionaire who invites the five world famous detectives to his estate with the idea of matching murderous wits with them and fooling them. Although he looks the part, Capote stands out like a sore thumb amidst the much more experienced and talented cast, so much so that I almost felt sorry for him. He pronounces his lines competently but with neither flair nor finesse. The premise of the play reveals Neil Simon's satirical intent: the characters are all caricatures of famous fictional detectives: Inspector Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers ) as a Charlie Chan type; Sam Diamond (Peter Falk) as a Sam Spade type; Inspector Milo Perrier (James Coco) as a famous Belgique detective of similar name (Agatha Christie's Poirot) who could also be Georges Simenon's famous French detective (except that he cries out, "Not Frenchie--Belgie!"). The absurd plot begins as the detectives motor toward Twain's haunted, fog-shrouded castle in northern California for a dinner that is never served. Everything is played as a farce ("farce --n. 1. a comedy based on unlikely situations and exaggerated effects." --Random House College Dictionary) and everybody tries to ham it up. I particularly liked Peter Sellers as the Chinese Wang with his #3 adopted Japanese son in tow. Alec Guinness plays the blind butler ("The butler did it!") while Nancy Walker has a small part as the blind and deaf cook. David Niven is mildly amusing as the debonaire Dick Charleston who, unbeknownst to his wife (Maggie Smith), has only a buck-seventy-some in his tuxedo pocket (and some stamps) after going through some of her millions. Representative joke: When asked by his #3 adopted Japanese son why HE has to clean up the dead body, Inspector Wang tells him, "Because your mother isn't here." By the way, the makeup on Peter Sellers ("Inspector Slanty," according to Sam Diamond) is especially well done. As usual Peter Sellers manages to look more like the character he playing than himself, so much so that one needs to do a double take to realize it is Peter Sellers at work. One of the problems with a movie like this is that all the actors are trying to upstage one another and every line and pratfall is played as MY moment in the spotlight so there is little contrast around which to frame the best bits. Still, afficionados, especially those viewing this repeatedly, will find plenty to crack up about. See this for Neil Simon, one of America's most popular playwrights, whose semi-sophisticated, upbeat comedies delighted theater and movie audiences for several decades beginning in the Sixties. I particularly loved The Out-of-Towners (1970) with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis; The Good-bye Girl (1977) with Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason; and the unforgettable The Odd Couple (1968) starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Simon and Peter Falk followed this up with The Cheap Detective (1978). Incidentally, Falk's work here and in The Cheap Detective and in a couple of earlier Columbo movies served as a proving ground for his long-running TV hit Columbo.
Rating:
Summary: When I first saw it in the theatre, I went right back!
Review: I can't say I have ever laughed at anything so hard since. Neil Simon's parody of the 1930's and 1940's detective stories is superbly cast: Peter Falk plays Sam Spade, James Coco is Hercule Poirot, Peter Sellers is Charlie Chan, David Niven and Maggie Smith are reflections of Nick and Nora Charles. They're all summoned to Truman Capote's home to try and find out who is trying to kill them all. It's Simon intermixed with Clue and neither suffers for the blending. ENDORE! ENDORE!
Rating:
Summary: Don't let him park the car dickie
Review: I have never laughed so hard at something so stupid in all my life. Where have movies like this gone. Proof that a good movie starts with good writing. Ironic since it is a spoof movie that makes fun of literary characters. The actors look like they are having fun too. watch for a young James Cromwell playing a driver/servant.
Rating:
Summary: Death Becomes Them
Review: Murder By Death is an uproarious comedy, that benefits from a pitch perfect cast, a joke a minute screenplay by playwright Neil Simon, and a sure handed "ringmaster" leading the three ring circus. The film is pure lunacy and led the way for such spoofs as Airplane! and The Naked Gun films.
Eccentric millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote--spoofing himself) invites the world's greatest detectives to his home and challenges them to solve the perfect murder. Among the sleuths that try to solve the case are Milo Perrier (James Coco), Sam Diamond (Peter Falk), who brings his secretary Tess (Eileen Brennan) along, Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester), Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven and Maggie Smith), and Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers), all of whom are sharp parodies of beloved literary characters. Twain informs his guests that one of them will be murdered at the stroke of midnight. The pay-off: $1 million to whoever lives through the night
Spoofing just about every cliche there is among the murder mystery genre, Murder By Death is a tour de force for the entire cast, which also includes Nancy Walker as Yetta the proverbial maid and Sir Alec Guinness who is wonderful as the blind butler, Jamesir Bensonmum. For me though Sellers steals the film as a parody of slueth Charlie Chan. Some of the jokes will seem very corny to a few. But director Robert Moore and the cast make it work, ensuring it all holds together, despite that. The whodunnit isn't as important as how much fun it is getting to the end. Both Simon and Moore are adept at making the most of the limited setting.
The DVD extras include a 10 minute interview with Neil Simon in which he gives us an all too short glimse behind the scenes. A full sized retrospective would have probably been better and more satifying. Theatrical trailers for the film as well as its follow-up The Cheap Detective (also recommended), static talent files and a production notes insert top off the bonus material.
What's not to like about Murder By Death? As long as you understand how silly it's going to get--you'll have a good time watching pros at work.
|
