Movie Review: Clue

Clue a.k.a Cluedo a.k.a Clue: The Movie
Paramount Pictures, Guber-Peters Company, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Debra Hill Productions, USA, 1985.

Based on popular board game.

A group of people are invited incognito to dark mansion. Butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry) and busty maid Yvette (Colleen Camp) welcome the six visitors. The host of the evening is Mr. Boddy's (Lee Ving). The doors are locked and no one can get out. All the invitees have dirty secrets and Mr. Boddy is blackmailing them. Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd) is a sex maniac,  Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn) killed her husband and so on. Everyone is given a weapon. Then lights go out and Mr. Boddy is murdered until he dies from it. All have their motives but who did it?

Wadsworth

Mr. Boddy

Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, Miss Scarlet, Mr. Green, Professor Plum, Mrs. White and Mr. Green

The visitors try to solve the murder and avoid being the next victim as bodies start to pile up. Seemingly random people visiting the house are not safe either. "I suggest we stack the bodies in the cellar, lock it, leave quietly one at a time and pretend none of this ever happened."

Mr. Green and Yvette

Was it Miss Scarlet or Professor Plum?

Or maybe Mrs. Peacock?

Can there be a good movie based on a board game? "Clue" proves that it can be so. After a slowish start the murder mystery picks up the pace and turns into a hectic screwball dark comedy. It is kind of combination of Christie's "Ten Little Indians" and "Noises Off". Tim Curry's energetic butler is fantastic, and so is Lesley Ann Warren as cheeky Miss Scarlet. The story written by John Landis & Jonathan Lynn has quote-worthy dialogue and enjoyable twists. There are some jokes that do not work so well and sometimes it risks going a bit too macabre. The story is set in the 1950s referencing the events of the era so even J. Edgar Hoover has his part in solving the mystery. The gimmick of the movie in theaters were three randomly selected endings, which makes it impossible to deduce the culprit as there are several possibilities that all more or less make sense.

Rating:Very good

Starring: Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, Lesley Ann Warren, Colleen Camp, Lee Ving, Bill Henderson, Jane Wiedlin, Jeffrey Kramer, Kellye Nakahara, Will Nye, Rick Goldman, Don Camp, Howard Hesseman

Director: Jonathan Lynn