Have You Ever Seen A Film Called...

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Murder By Death?

So have I!

Yes. Have heard of it. Came out decades ago.

Scary film!

"Murder by Death" (1976) is a comedy. It's a spoof of the mystery genre written by comedy writer Neil Simon.

A group of “Great Detectives” invited to the house of a mysterious host. Murder and comedy follow. Each detective it modeled on a famous film/literary detective. Sam Spade (and a Marie “Slim” Browning/Lauren Bacall type), Nick and Nora Charles (and dog Asta), Charlie Chan (and number-one-son), Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple.
All Star ensemble cast. Actors connected with other famous detectives include:
Peter Sellers was Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther 1963 (and other films).
Alec Guinnis plays the butler, and was Father Brown (amateur sleuth) in “The Detective” 1954. David Niven was James Bond in Casino Royale 1967 (and was in The Pink Panther 1963). Elsa Lanchester was in Witness For the Prosecution 1957

Nancy Walker played Mildred (a recurring character) in McMillan & Wife 1971, and was in Death Scream 1975 (the year before Murder by Death). Peter Falk was Columbo (Obviously) 1968 thru 2003

Interestingly, Elsa Lanchester was also the title character in Bride of Frankenstein 1935, and Katie Nanna in Mary Poppins (neither of which are really Detective Stories or Murder Mysteries or even close).

In real life the actress was married to Charles Laughton and she played his nurse and "sheep dog" in Witness for the Prosecution 1957, while he (Laughton) plays Sir Wilfrid Robarts Q.C., senior counsel for Leonard Vole, the accused. The film, Witness for the Prosecution, was one that Agatha Christie "herself considered it the finest film derived from one of her stories."

Glad I have met humans who have actually seen it! Phew!

When I was young I watched the ads for this movie and wondered what the big deal was.

Since then I have gone on a Detective/Murder Mystery kick. My wife and I read all the "Mr Monk" books about Adrian Monk. Then we watched a bunch of the shows on DVD. We also watched a bunch of the Thin Man movies with Nick and Nora Charles (and dog Asta). We have also read most of the Hercule Poirot books and watched several of the movies. Peter Ustinov is a good Poirot. We also recently rewatched some of the Bogart and Bacall films where he plays the hard-boiled detective. Interestingly, we have also been watching some of Sir Alec Guinness's filmography, and he is an amazingly versatile actor. Our Man in Havana, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Horse's Mouth and The Ladykillers are all really good films.

We had to watch "The Big Sleep" twice just to figure out what was going on.

We were planning on watching The Cheap Detective with Peter Falk. Peter Falk plays a character named Lou Peckinpaugh, a parody of Humphrey Bogart's iconic detective roles. Bernadette Peters plays one of the femme fatales in the movie, which is a spoof of classic detective films, especially Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon.

I think we would get a kick out of watching Murder by Death, now, with all this context.

"Murder by Death" -- a Neil Simon play -- was a parody of detective movies like "And Then There Were None".

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