No household names left us this past month, though I definitely felt like death as I was out sick for a week. That has delayed this review. I am sure so many of you noticed the inexplicable void in your lives. But illness cannot keep me down for long! My wonderful sister (who represents 20% of my loyal readership) had a birthday last week. It may not be her favorite movie anymore, but when we were younger, she requested the same movie repeatedly – often on her birthday. That movie was Clue (1985, dir. Jonathan Lynn).
Clue is conceptually based on the board game of the same name – bringing together a group of people for a dinner party at which they learn they have all been blackmailed by the same person, Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving). Mr. Boddy convinces them they should kill Wadsworth the butler (Tim Curry) and nobody would know their shame. This plan backfires as Mr. Boddy is killed. Several more murders occur throughout the night with each dinner guest considered a suspect. Was it one person who murdered them all? Was it several of them acting together? Did everyone kill one person? The final act of the film gets into it in thrilling fashion.
Clue is one of the most fun films in existence. The whodunnit aspect is a reliable film style to keep an audience entertained. This particular whodunnit keeps twisting as new murders occur. The cast is uniformly brilliant, with Curry leading the way. The dinner guests (each representing the six playable characters in the board game) are all stellar – Martin Mull, Lesley Ann Warren, Eileen Brennan, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, and Madeline Kahn. Kahn, in particular, has some of the more quotable moments. I can only imagine what craziness went on behind the scenes with this group of comedic legends in one place.
One of the most interesting aspects of Clue has to be the ending, or rather endings. In a strange marketing decision, they filmed three unique endings to the film and released them separately into theatres, thinking fans of the film would come back to see the alternate endings. That…did not work. However, it led to a smart choice on the release of the film on VHS (and subsequent more modern formats) that included all three endings back to back to back. Seeing it that way, I cannot imagine only getting one of them.
I feel like Rian Johnson has brought back the whodunnit genre of filmmaking with the Knives Out series (the third of which releases on Netflix shortly). Most of the whodunnit films prior to Clue focused on weightier themes. Lynn’s entry into the genre gives plenty of serious moments, but the tone is far more comical, which makes it stand out as unique at the time. It is never a bad idea to revisit a classic, and Clue certainly qualifies. Watch it as a birthday celebration for my sister.
FUN FACT – Carrie Fisher was initially cast as Miss Scarlet. However, she was recently out of rehab and the film’s insurance company would not sign off on her participation. This led to a last-minute recasting of Lesley Ann Warren. Hard to imagine Princess Leia as Miss Scarlet.
Just Watch says that Clue is not currently streaming on any service. It is available for rent/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and many other services.
As a reminder, here is the original post that details the scores and weighting system.