On paper, this should have been a comedy smash. A cast to die for (pun intended), comic legend Neil Simon in the writers' chair, and a set up that offers many funny possibilities. Sadly, this promise is wholly squandered. Do not believe the stories you have been told about Murder By Death - it's HORRIBLE. Clearly, 99% of the small budget went on hiring Peter Sellers and David Niven, leaving nothing for anything else. The story - the world's greatest detectives assemble at a spooky mansion to solve a murder that has yet to be committed - should have been the springboard for great fun poked at the sleuth genre. But, instead...nothing happens. The cast sit in a room and talk, then split up and talk somewhere else, and then reassemble to talk some more. NOTHING HAPPENS. I actually had to check the timer on my DVD player when the closing credits mercifully spelled the end of this atrocity - I couldn't believe that just 90 minutes had passed or that in those 90 minutes the cast has effectively *not done anything*.
A fascinating cast, to be sure...David Niven, Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers (who had starred alongside one another in the past but had never been a trio in one film) together in one film is noteworthy in any case. Niven is his usual elegant and genial self, Guinness is fine, but Sellers seems oddly subdued. Perhaps it is the character he is playing, the serene mystic detective Sidney Wang (Charlie Chan), but my money is on him merely sulking because he's just one star among many for once. Elsa Lanchester, the Bride of Frankenstein herself, appears as Jessica Marbles aka Miss Marple - and she's pretty bloody awful. Stick to Man From UNCLE guest spots and mute roles, Elsa, you have all the screen presence of a goat cadaver. James Coco, who is never anything but HUGELY annoying in any film, overacts like crazy as Milo Perrier (aka Poirot), while th4e normally great Peter Falk as Sam Diamond (Spade) is just flat out offensive. A worryingly young James Cromwell plays Perrier's assistant, and as a character is just as redundant and pointless as Wang's Japanese 'Number 3' son. Said son has the negative honour of delivering the worst of all the film's many ghastly lines - "Holy Shanghai!". This is symptomatic of a movie that is racist towards Asians in general, as well as homophobic and misogynistic...basically everything Sam Diamond says ticks one or more of those bigoted boxes. Eileen Brennan, whom director Robert Moore seemed to believe was very attractive, is wasted in a pointless role in which she has maybe eleven lines...as is Nancy Walker, whose role as the deaf and dumb maid gives us one of the movie's few genuine laughs - the silent scream. Truman Capote, bizarrely cast as the host of this murder mystery dinner, seems to have done all his scenes in an hour and then fled the set. The same seems to apply to Alec Guinness, who doesn't bother to disguise his boredom with the terrible script. I don't blame them. Talk about a voyage of the damned! This film was a ponderous trial to get through...ideas such as the shifting house rooms are brought up and then are not actually dealt with. The murder's twists and turns make no sense on any level, and you are left wondering at the end what the point of it all was. Every time it seems as if the story will actually start going somewhere, it immediately shuts down and goes back to the cast talking in the dining room. (No money, you see) And it's just NOT FUNNY. There are literally about six good lines in the whole thing, and even they aren't great. It's hard to believe Neil Simon, creator of such comedy classics as The Sunshine Boys, thought this drivel was worth filming. Robert Moore's direction swings between competent and inept with dizzying speed, and his job is not helped by the fact that all of the movie's very fake-looking sets appear to have been erected on one tiny soundstage.
Avoid this movie like the plague...do not trust anyone who says this film is funny. It's not. It's absolute garbage. A complete waste of the talent on screen, and any Peter Sellers movie that makes Where Does It Hurt? look like Blazing Saddles in terms of jokes must be bad. The pits. You have been warned.
A fascinating cast, to be sure...David Niven, Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers (who had starred alongside one another in the past but had never been a trio in one film) together in one film is noteworthy in any case. Niven is his usual elegant and genial self, Guinness is fine, but Sellers seems oddly subdued. Perhaps it is the character he is playing, the serene mystic detective Sidney Wang (Charlie Chan), but my money is on him merely sulking because he's just one star among many for once. Elsa Lanchester, the Bride of Frankenstein herself, appears as Jessica Marbles aka Miss Marple - and she's pretty bloody awful. Stick to Man From UNCLE guest spots and mute roles, Elsa, you have all the screen presence of a goat cadaver. James Coco, who is never anything but HUGELY annoying in any film, overacts like crazy as Milo Perrier (aka Poirot), while th4e normally great Peter Falk as Sam Diamond (Spade) is just flat out offensive. A worryingly young James Cromwell plays Perrier's assistant, and as a character is just as redundant and pointless as Wang's Japanese 'Number 3' son. Said son has the negative honour of delivering the worst of all the film's many ghastly lines - "Holy Shanghai!". This is symptomatic of a movie that is racist towards Asians in general, as well as homophobic and misogynistic...basically everything Sam Diamond says ticks one or more of those bigoted boxes. Eileen Brennan, whom director Robert Moore seemed to believe was very attractive, is wasted in a pointless role in which she has maybe eleven lines...as is Nancy Walker, whose role as the deaf and dumb maid gives us one of the movie's few genuine laughs - the silent scream. Truman Capote, bizarrely cast as the host of this murder mystery dinner, seems to have done all his scenes in an hour and then fled the set. The same seems to apply to Alec Guinness, who doesn't bother to disguise his boredom with the terrible script. I don't blame them. Talk about a voyage of the damned! This film was a ponderous trial to get through...ideas such as the shifting house rooms are brought up and then are not actually dealt with. The murder's twists and turns make no sense on any level, and you are left wondering at the end what the point of it all was. Every time it seems as if the story will actually start going somewhere, it immediately shuts down and goes back to the cast talking in the dining room. (No money, you see) And it's just NOT FUNNY. There are literally about six good lines in the whole thing, and even they aren't great. It's hard to believe Neil Simon, creator of such comedy classics as The Sunshine Boys, thought this drivel was worth filming. Robert Moore's direction swings between competent and inept with dizzying speed, and his job is not helped by the fact that all of the movie's very fake-looking sets appear to have been erected on one tiny soundstage.
Avoid this movie like the plague...do not trust anyone who says this film is funny. It's not. It's absolute garbage. A complete waste of the talent on screen, and any Peter Sellers movie that makes Where Does It Hurt? look like Blazing Saddles in terms of jokes must be bad. The pits. You have been warned.