Murder by Death

For the rock band, see Murder by Death (band).
Murder by Death

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Moore
Produced by Ray Stark
Written by Neil Simon
Starring Eileen Brennan
Truman Capote
James Coco
Peter Falk
Alec Guinness
Elsa Lanchester
David Niven
Peter Sellers
Maggie Smith
Nancy Walker
Estelle Winwood
Music by Dave Grusin
Cinematography David M. Walsh
Edited by Margaret Booth
John F. Burnett
Production
company
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release dates
  • June 23, 1976 (1976-06-23)
Running time
94 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Box office $32,511,047[2]

Murder by Death is a 1976 American mystery comedy film with a cast featuring Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, and Estelle Winwood, written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore.[3]

The plot is a broad parody or spoof of the traditional country-house whodunit, familiar to mystery fiction fans of classics such as Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. The cast is an ensemble of British and American actors playing send-ups of well-known fictional sleuths, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, and Sam Spade. It also features a rare acting performance by In Cold Blood author Truman Capote.

The film was presented at the Venice International Film Festival in 1976.

Plot

A group of five renowned detectives, each accompanied by a relative or associate, is invited to "dinner and a murder" by the mysterious Lionel Twain. Having lured his guests to his mansion managed by a blind butler named Jamessir Bensonmum, who is later joined by a deaf-mute cook named Yetta, Twain joins his guests at dinner. The house is then sealed off. Twain announces that he is the greatest detective in the world. To prove his claim, he challenges the guests to solve a murder which will take place at midnight; a reward of $1 million will be presented to the winner.

Before midnight the butler is found dead and Twain disappears, only to re-appear dead from a stab wound immediately after midnight; the cook is also discovered to have been an animated mannequin, now packed in a storage crate. The party spends the rest of the night investigating and bickering. They are manipulated by a mysterious behind-the-scenes force, confused by red herrings, and baffled by the "mechanical marvel" that is Twain's house, and they ultimately find their own lives threatened. Each sleuth presents his or her theory on the case, pointing out the others' past connections to Twain and their possible motives for murdering him.

When they retire to their guest rooms for the night, each of the guests are confronted in their rooms by things that threaten to kill them: a snake, a venomous scorpion, a descending ceiling, poison gas, and a bomb. They all survive, and in the morning they gather in the office, where they find the butler waiting, very much alive and not blind. Each detective presents a different piece of evidence with which they each independently solved the mystery, and in each case, they accuse the butler of being one or another of Twain's former associates.

At first the butler plays the part of each of the persons, male or female, with whom he is identified, but then he pulls off a mask to reveal Lionel Twain himself, alive. Twain disparages the detectives, and metafictionally, the authors who created them, for the way their adventures have been handled, including such misdeeds as introducing crucial characters at the last minute for the traditional "twist in the tale" (something the assembled detectives had been doing a few minutes earlier) and withholding clues and information to make it impossible for the reader to solve the mystery. Each of the detectives departs the house empty handed, none of them having won the million dollars. When asked whether there had been a murder, Wang replies, "Yes: killed good weekend."

Alone in his home, Twain pulls off yet another mask to reveal Yetta, who smokes a cigarette and laughs diabolically while rings of cigarette smoke fill the screen.

Cast and characters

The story takes place in and around the isolated country home populated by eccentric multi-millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote), his blind butler Jamessir Bensonmum (Alec Guinness), and a deaf-mute cook named Yetta (Nancy Walker). The participants are all pastiches of famous fictional detectives:

Production

The film was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, then named "The Burbank Studios."

Charles Addams, creator of The Addams Family, drew the art and caricatures displayed at the beginning, during the end credits, and on the poster.[4]

Deleted scenes

An additional scene, not in the theatrical version but shown in some television versions, shows Sherlock Holmes (Keith McConnell) and Doctor Watson (Richard Peel) arriving as the other guests are leaving.[5] Author Ron Haydock states that an early draft of Neil Simon's script featured Holmes and Watson actually solving the mystery, but their roles were reduced to a cameo appearance and finally deleted, as the lead actors felt they were being "upstaged."[6]

References

  1. "MURDER BY DEATH (A)". Columbia-Warner. British Board of Film Classification. June 14, 1976. Retrieved March 15, 2014.
  2. "Murder by Death, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
  3. Canby, Vincent (June 24, 1976). "Murder By Death (1976) Simon's Breezy 'Murder by Death'". The New York Times.
  4. Angel Tagudin (January 22, 2013). "Murder by Death (1976)". Art of the Title. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  5. De Waal, Ronald B. "The Universal Sherlock Holmes". University of Minnesota. Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  6. Haydock, Ron. Deerstalker! Holmes and Watson on Screen. Scarecrow Press, 1978. ISBN 0-8108-1061-1

External links

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