MovieChat Forums > Murder by Death (1976) Discussion > Great movie for mystery fans

Great movie for mystery fans

posted 9 years ago by bpollen
2 replies | jump to latest

I have loved this movie since I first saw it years ago. Love love love it.

The writing is excellent (what else...it's Neil Simon!), the acting superb, a bevy of stars, a clever plot, twists and turns. A wonderful comedy. Lots of little jokes about the famous detectives depicted.

Alec Guinness as the butler is inspired. Maggie Smith when she was younger....glamorous and sexy. Peter Falk is hysterical. Eileen Brennan is hte perfect film noir babe.

If you like mystery films or books, you'll love this movie.

Brennan gives a bio of Twain, the Capote character, which includes:

He was arrested trying to smuggle a load of rich, white Americans across the border into Mexico to pick melons. They put him in mental rehab.

[–] Ace_Moonshot 9 years ago

I think this movie works best for those that have watched, or read, tons of old mysteries. I'm a huge mystery fan. I love all of them. Even some of the really the bad ones. Put an old B&W Whodunit on TV and I will be glued to the screen. I found MBD's send up of the tropes hysterical. The parodies were such that you could tell that Simon had great affection for the originals. The cast was simply amazing. I found the couples the funniest (although they were all great). Falk and Brennan, Niven and Smith were so good I wanted them to have their own comedy mystery show.

If you liked this movie I suggest The Cheap Detective. Same writer, director and many of the same cast. Namely Falk.

Why choose the lesser evil? Vote Cthulhu 2016

[–] avortac4 (3770) 3 years ago

This is a great movie for MANY kinds of people!

Those, who:

- Love mansions
- Love old movie atmosphere
- Respect and admire Columbo
- Understand Peter Sellers' genius and talent, and find his comedy funny
- Get the spoofs, parodies and jokes (Sellers' character especially - and it's NOT offensive)
- Hate how overly-serious some old movies and characters are/were
- Know about old detective stories
- Are annoyed about how pompous, self-important and perfect those old detective heroes were
- Rolled their eyes at 'impossible movie escapes'
- Hate movie tropes, like 'But ACTUALLY, I am [insert stupidly impossible character]
- Have been frustrated by needless convolution in movies
- Hate how mystery movie or book endings don't make sense, or are implausible
- Like to laugh at detective tropes
- Love good humor
- And so on!

It's a great movie for all kinds of people, I'm tellin' ya..