Saturday 2 January 2016

Murder by Death (1976 Robert Moore)

Written by Neil Simon as a sort of homage to great film sleuths - Peter Falk does a good Bogie (Eileen Brennan his gal), Peter Sellars is Charlie Chan, James Coco makes a splendid Poirot (with James Cromwell mugging along), Elsa Lanchester is Marple, David Niven doesn't make enough of the Nick Charles role, though Maggie Smith is fun as Nora. Alec Guinness didn't mind being a blind butler, and features Truman Capote of all people as the victim.

It's quite silly, but not silly enough - it almost needs to be less so or have the full Mel Brooks treatment. Moore is primarily a TV director, and not really up to the task.

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