Assuming the third ending was the real ending what was Wadsworth's plan? Why did he bring the guests together?
Have the guests kill off Mr. Body's butler?
Just to kill off all his spies? What did he do to get them to comply?
I always figured that his plan was for them to murder his butler and his informants. This would protect him from his informants testifying against him some day, as well as giving him another thing to blackmail them with since now they've all committed murder.
How he got them to go along with it? Obviously he didn't tell them they would probably be murdered. Maybe he was blackmailing them too, and told them as part of their payment they need to show up that night, and not acknowledge the people they know there. The Butler might have thought that maybe he could convince someone to kill Wadsworth/Mr. Boddy. The Cook might have been his actual cook and was just there doing her normal job. The Maid had special instructions and definitely didn't think people would be murdered. The Singing Tell-a-Gram might have just been paid to show up then, and knew nothing about anything. The Motorist and Cop might have been told to just show up, take a quick look at who's there and call a number telling them what you saw. Mr. Boddy could have paid someone to answer the call and go along with what they were saying.
The only problem with this is that there was no informant for Mr. Green. So unless Green killed the butler, then there was no one for him to kill. Either Boddy got his information on Green himself, or this should have tipped him off that something was up.
Very good.
shareFirst, very good explanation. Since the butler's change of heart has always confused me, no matter how many times someone comes up with an explanation for his being present,
The Butler might have thought that maybe he could convince someone to kill Wadsworth/Mr. Boddyis the only answer possible. None of the other people in the mansion seemed to regard being there as a whim or experienced a change of heart; and the one and only weak part of this film for me (which I don't care about, since I watch at several times a year) is definitely the butler's sudden change of heart.
I concur with the others. He was tying up loose ends. This was a brilliant villain who knew the pressure of the guest's desperate dispositions could be manipulated. This way, his hands were clean (for all we knew the house was also the property of one he was blackmailing) as his victims killed the informants, and he had even more leverage. Remember Green was saying "And you'll just go on blackmailing us all"...."Of course...why not?" I took that as this being a way to tie up some loose ends and exert more control over them all. He drove the butler to slavery and the butlers wife to suicide... he was now getting that level of hold on the rest of them.
"Interesting the same people that want me to register my guns don't want me to show an ID to vote."
Of course this is speculation, but perhaps Mr. Green's informant was unable to attend (maybe he had been killed by Mr. Body, or simply had some sort of conflict).
IF Mr. Green's informant was at the party, maybe that would have tipped off to Mr. Body that the man posing as Mr. Green was in fact an imposter?
Good question. I believe that the real Mr Green went to the FBI and spilled his guts to them. Its a stretch but seeing as the blackmailed party all knew their informants, he told them about his as well. To this end, they likely confronted the informant and allowed him/her to plea and receive probation in exchange for witness protection and faking their own death. This would be far more appealing than a powerful blackmailer with connections in the military making him disappear since his identity was compromised. So when Mr Body got the whole plan together, it was simply one less loose end to tie up. And seeing as he had never met Green face to face, it was all on the up and up as far as he was concerned. At the very least he still had Mr Green as a co-conspirator to murder by simply being on the same premises as the others who had committed the crimes.
"Interesting the same people that want me to register my guns don't want me to show an ID to vote."