Cluedo

During one of the premium channel free preview weekends, I had the chance to record the movie Clue, a 1985 cult movie that takes the characters from the popular board game (originally British where it's called "Cluedo") and places them into a murder mystery reminiscent of the game itself.

The scene is a mansion in New England in 1954 (the game was first released in 1949, so this isn't an anachronism). A butler named Wadsworth (Tim Curry) has invited several guests to dinner at the mansion, with each of them being given a pseudonym, being told not to use their real names. Those are Miss Scarlet (Lesley Anne Warren); Col. Mustard (Martin Mull); Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn); Mr. Green (Michael McKean); Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan); and Prof. Plum (Christopher Lloyd).

None of these people know who's invited them, or why they are there. If you know the board game and are American, you may know that the murder victim in the game is called Mr. Boddy, and played here by Lee Ving. The seven of them sit down to dinner, where Boddy proceeds to present them with a quandary. Apparently, Boddy has been blackmailing all six guests, who live in Washington DC. Wadsworth brought all of them together, including Boddy, to tell them that Boddy is the man who had been blackmailing each of them and that the six plus Wadsworth can gang up on Boddy to force a confession. Boddy, for his part, gives each of the six colorful guests a weapon (the six in the American version of the game at the time), tells them to kill Wadsworth or face continued blackmailing by him, and turns off the lights.

Boddy winds up dead, with the revolver on the floor having been fired. But a cursory investigation seems to show that the shot might have missed Boddy who doesn't have an obvious bullet wound. Further murders happen to servants who are not part of the regular board game, while it turns out that Boddy wasn't killed in the initial incident, but later gets killed with the candlestick. All of the guests are beginning to panic, but agree to go off and investigate the murders in twos.

After a lot of shenanigans, it's time to reveal whodunit, with what weapon, and in what room. Now, in the original movie's release, there were three different endings, with various theaters getting different endings. In the version run on TV (and apparently on the DVD), all three endings are shown, with the first two being stated "possibilities" and the third what really happened.

There are probably plot holes galore since there's a lot to keep track of to make the three plausible endings all work. But there's also so much action going on that any plot holes that are there are like going to be missed. (I thought there were a few anachronisms, but the songs played were written before 1954.) Everybody did have reasonable motives to be a possible suspect, and as the movie progresses, we learn that they ultimately did all have connections of varying strength that puts everything together.

The amount of action, though, caused some minor problems for me in a different way. There's so much going on that the movie feels too frenetic at times, with the comic actors going over the top on occasion. I was hoping everybody would calm down a bit. Still, the movie as a whole is successful in keeping the viewer entertained, and is a fun take on the classic board game.