Murder by Death

Lured to the mansion of reclusive billionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote), the world’s greatest detectives assemble to dine and solve a mystery. They include wily Chinese Inspector Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers, parodying Charlie Chan), refined British couple Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven and Maggie Smith, parodying Nick and Nora Charles), food-loving Belgian Milo Perrier (James Coco, parodying Hercule Poirot), hard-boiled San Francisco P.I. Sam Diamond (Peter Falk, parodying Sam Spade), and Englishwoman Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lancaster, parodying Miss Marple). Once the group is assembled, Twain reveals that a murder will occur at midnight and one million dollars will be awarded to whoever is able to solve it.

It’s hard to believe now that hordes of Scary Movie sequels and imitators have ruined their good name, but parody films were once both entertaining and respectable. Released in 1976, Murder by Death ranks alongside Airplane as the best of them. Directed by Robert Moore and penned by Neil Simon, this pastiche of Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett sends up literary and cinematic detectives with humor and style to spare.

The film boasts an impressive cast. In addition to the leads, a pre-Star Wars Alec Guinness serves as Twain’s blind butler, a debuting James Cromwell plays Perrier’s beleaguered chauffer, and Eileen Brennan is Diamond’s flirty secretary. Nobody is slumming here. Falk does hardboiled deadpan to perfection, waving a gun around, accusing everyone in sight of scandalous misdeeds and reaching obvious conclusions with gusto. Sellers gives his Asian stereotype character some sly wit, and frequently draws Twain’s ire for his refusal to use pronouns.
With lines like “One of us will be one million dollars richer, and one of us will be going to the gas chamber...to be hung!” the overall dialogue is some of the funniest ever crafted. It’s also a testament to everyone involved that the laughs increase as the plot becomes more twisted and convoluted.

The one strike against Murder by Death is its muddled letdown of an ending, the ambiguity of which the film itself acknowledges. Simon is clearly trying to make a statement about the genre he’s lampooning, but the negationism he displays here feels cheap and unsatisfying.

Fearlessly irreverent, deviously self-referential, and shamelessly over-the-top, Murder by Death walks the line between clever and stupid with a circus performer’s skill. When all is said and done and the body count totaled, the only true casualty is likely to be your boredom.

8/10