Review of Clue (1985) by Graham M — 11 Sep 2012

"It's Not Just A Game Anymore.".

"Murder, madness, mystery, and mayhem. More fun than you can imagine.".

"Seven Suspects, Six Weapons, Five Bodies and Three Endings.".

Holds up suprisingly well, the cast has no real superstars, but Curry, Brennan, Kahn, Mull, Lloyd, Warren, and McKean make up a great ensemble, and are all up to the task. Director Jonathan Lynn would go on to direct the hits My Cousin Vinny and Trial And Error.

The film features 3 musicians, Tim Curry (Wadsworth) besdies Rocky Horror, had a top 40 hit with I Do The Rock, Jane Wiedlin (the singing telegram girl) was a member of the Go-Go's, and Lee Ving (Mr. Body) was the frontman for the seminal LA punk band Fear.

SPOILER: The painting behind Mr. Boddy's chair in the dining room depicts Mr. Boddy in a butler's uniform, foreshadowing the revelation in Ending C that Mr. Boddy was the real butler.

SPOILER: When Wadsworth cuts the power to the house during his solving of the mystery, it represents the point of divergence of the three endings.

[first lines].

Wadsworth: Is everything ready?

Yvette: Oui, Monsieur.

Wadsworth: You have your, um, instructions.

Mr. Green: Well, where is he?

[Miss Scarlet screams as the freezer door opens and Wadsworth falls out. Mr. Green catches Wadsworth, then drops him disgustedly].

Wadsworth: Mrs. White, you've been paying our friend, the blackmailer, ever since your husband died under, shall we say, mysterious circumstances?

Miss Scarlet: Ah!

[laughs].

Mrs. White: Why is that funny?

Miss Scarlet: I see! That's why he was lying on his back, in his coffin.

Mrs. White: I didn't kill him.

Colonel Mustard: Then why are you paying the blackmailer?

Mrs. White: I dont want a scandal, do I? We had had a very humiliating public confrontation. He was deranged. He was.

[points to head].

Mrs. White: a lunatic! He didn't actually seem to like me very much; he had threatened to kill me in public.

Miss Scarlet: Why would he wanna kill you in public?

Wadsworth: I think she meant he threatened, in public, to kill her.

[rolls eyes].

Miss Scarlet: Oh. Was that his final word on the matter?

Mrs. White: Being killed is pretty final, wouldn't you say?

Wadsworth: And yet, he was the one who died, not you, Mrs. White, not you!

Miss Scarlet: What did he do for a living?

Mrs. White: He was a scientist, nuclear physics.

Miss Scarlet: What was he like?

Mrs. White: He was always a rather stupidly optimistic man. I mean, I'm afraid it came as a great shock to hime when he died, but, he was found dead at home. His head had been cut off, and so had his, uh... you *know*.

[Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, and Mr. Green cross legs].

Mrs. White: I had been out all evening at the movies.

Miss Scarlet: Do you miss him?

Mrs. White: Well, it's a matter of life after death. Now that he's dead, I have a life.

Wadsworth: But, he was your second husband. Your first husband also disappeared.

Mrs. White: But that was his job. He was an illusionist.

Wadsworth: But he never reappeared!

Mrs. White: [admittedly] He wasn't a very good illusionist.

Mrs. White: [after Mrs. Peacock swears that the reason she's being blackmailed is a vicious lie] Well, I am willing to believe you. I, too, am being blackmailed for something I didn't do.

Professor Plum: Me too.

Colonel Mustard: And me.

Miss Scarlet: Not me.

Wadsworth: [surprised] You're *not* being blackmailed?

Miss Scarlet: Oh, I'm being blackmailed all right, but I did what I'm being blackmailed for.

Professor Plum: What did you do?

Miss Scarlet: Well, to be perfectly frank, I run a specialized hotel and a telephone service which provides gentlemen with the company of a young lady, for a short while.

Professor Plum: Oh yeah?

[pulls out pen and a pad of paper].

Professor Plum: What's the phone number?

Wadsworth: You see? Like the Mounties, we always get our man.

Mr. Green: Mrs. Peacock was a man?

[Colonel Mustard slaps Mr. Green, who turns to get slapped by Wadsworth].

Mr. Green: [after Mrs. White knees Mr. Boddy in the crotch] Was that necessary, Mrs. White?

Colonel Mustard: Is this place for you?

Wadsworth: Indeed no, sir. I'm merely a humble butler.

Colonel Mustard: What exactly do you do?

Wadsworth: I buttle, sir.

Colonel Mustard: Which means what?

Wadsworth: The butler is head of the kitchen and dining room. I keep everything tidy.

Cop: [listening to caller on phone] Ah, would you hold on, please?

[Walks over to locked door, rattling the knob and banging on door].

Cop: Let me outta here! Let me outta here! You have no right to shut me in! I'll book you for false arrest, and wrongful imprisonment, and obstructing an officer in the course of his duty... and MURDER!

Wadsworth: [Wadsworth opens the door, feigning innocence, while other guests gather around] What do you mean... murder?

Cop: I just said it so you would open the door.

[other guests laugh].

Cop: What's going on around here? And why would you lock me in? And why are you receiving phone calls from J. Edgar Hoover?

Wadsworth: J. Edgar Hoover?

Cop: That's right! The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation!

Colonel Mustard: Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?

Wadsworth: I don't know, he's on everybody else's, why shouldn't he be on mine?

Wadsworth: Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn.

Cop: You all seem to be very anxious about something.

Wadsworth: It's the chandelier. It fell down, almost killed us.

Mrs. Peacock: Uh, is there a little girl's room in the hall?

Yvette: Oui oui, Madame.

[points].

Mrs. Peacock: No, I just wanna powder my nose.

Wadsworth: No.

All: No?

Wadsworth: No.

Colonel Mustard: [gesturing to another place setting at the dinner table] So, is this for our host?

Wadsworth: No, sir, for the seventh guest, Mr Boddy.

Mrs. White: I thought Mr. Boddy was our host.

All: So did I!

Mrs. White: So, who is our host Mr. Wadsworth?

[Wadsworth only smiles in response].

Professor Plum: And what was your role in all this?

Wadsworth: I was a victim, too. At least my wife was. She had friends who were.

[on the verge of tears].

Wadsworth: Socialists.

[all gasp, Mrs. Peacock is the loudest].

Wadsworth: [starts to cry] Well, we all make mistakes.

[Mrs. White approaches Wadsworth and hands him a handkerchief].

Wadsworth: But, Mr. Boddy threatened to give my wife's name to the House Un-American Activities Committee unless she named them. She refused, and so he blackmailed her. We had no money, and the price of his silence was that we worked for him for nothing. We were slaves. Well, to make a long story short...

Colonel Mustard: Too late.

Mr. Green: [gets up in front of everyone] I have something to say. I'm not gonig to wait for Wadsworth here to unmask me. I work for the State Department, and I'm a homosexual.

[pause].

Mr. Green: I feel no personal shame or guilt about this, but I must keep it a secret, or I will lose my job on security grounds.

[pause].

Mr. Green: Thank you.

Yvette: But it is dark upstairs and I am frightened of the dark. Will anyone go with me?

Professor Plum: I will!

Colonel Mustard: I will!

Mr. Green: No, thank you.

Mrs. Peacock: Well, someone's got to break the ice, and it might as well be me. I mean, I'm used to being a hostess, it's part of my husband's work. And it's always difficult when a group of new friends meet together for the first time, to get acquainted. So I'm perfectly prepared to start the ball rolling. I mean, I-I have absolutely no idea what we're doing here. Or what I'm doing here, or what this place is about, but I am determined to enjoy myself. And I'm very intrigued, and, oh my, this soup's delicious, isn't it?

Mrs. Peacock: So, what do you do in Washington D.C., Mr. Green? Come on! What do you do? I mean, how are we to get acquainted if we don't say anything about ourselves.

Miss Scarlet: Perhaps he doesn't wanna get acquainted with you.

Mrs. Peacock: Well, I'm sure I don't know. But if I wasn't trying to keep the conversation going, then we would just be sitting here in an embarrassed silence.

Professor Plum: Are you afraid of silence, Mrs. Peacock?

Mrs. Peacock: Yes-What? No! Why?

Professor Plum: Well, it just seems to me that you are. You seem to suffer from what we call "Pressure of Speech".

Miss Scarlet: "We"? Who's we? Are you a shrink?

Professor Plum: I do know a little bit about psychological medicine, yes.

Wadsworth: I can explain everything.

Cop: You don't have to.

Wadsworth: I don't?

Cop: Don't worry, there's nothing illegal about any of this.

Wadsworth: Are you sure?

Cop: Of course, this is America.

Wadsworth: I see.

Cop: It's a free country, don't you know that?

Wadsworth: I didn't know it was *that* free.

Mrs. Peacock: What are you all staring at?

Mr. Green: Nothing.

Mrs. Peacock: Well who's there?

Colonel Mustard: Nobody.

Mrs. Peacock: What do you mean?

Wadsworth: Nobody. No body, that's what we mean. Mr. Boddy's body, it's gone.

Mrs. White: Maybe he wasn't dead.

Professor Plum: He was!

Mrs. White: We should've made sure.

Mrs. Peacock: How?

[muttering].

Mrs. Peacock: By cutting his head off, I suppose.

Mrs. White: That was uncalled for!

Mr. Green: You're Mr. Boddy!

[Wadsworth laughs evilly].

Professor Plum: Wait a minute. So who did I kill?

Wadsworth: My butler.

Professor Plum: Oh, shucks.

Wadsworth: He was expendable like all of you. I'm grateful to you all for disposing of my network of spies and informers. Saved me a lot of trouble. Now there's no evidence against me.

The Motorist: Where is it?

Wadsworth: What? The body?

The Motorist: The phone. What body?

Wadsworth: There's no body. Nobody. There's-there's nobody in the study.

Cop: Uh, can I come in and use your phone?

Wadsworth: Of course you may, sir! You may use the one in the, um... no. Uh, you could use the one in the stud... no. Uh, uh, would you be kind enough to wait in the, um, in-in the, um, uh library?

Wadsworth: "Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die.".

Professor Plum: Die?

Wadsworth: Merely quoting, sir, from Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Colonel Mustard: Hm, I prefer Kipling, myself. "The female of the species is more deadly than the male." Do you like Kipling, Miss Scarlet?

[offers her a tray].

Miss Scarlet: [takes food off the tray] Sure, I'll eat anything.

Miss Scarlet: Maybe there is life after death.

Mrs. White: Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage!

Wadsworth: You were jealous that your husband was schtupping Yvette, that's why you killed him too.

Mrs. White: Yes. Yes, I did it. I killed Yvette. I hated her, so much... it-it- the f - it -flam - flames. Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breath...

[recurring line].

Mr. Green: I didn't do it!

Wadsworth: Ladies and gentlemen, you all have one thing in common: you're all being blackmailed. For some considerable time, all of you have been paying what you can afford, and in some cases MORE than you can afford, to someone who threatens to expose you. And NONE of you know WHO's blackmailing you. Do you?

Mrs. Peacock: [nervously smoking] Oh, please! I've never heard anything so ridiculous. I mean, nobody could blackmail me. My life is an open book. I've never done any thing wrong.

Wadsworth: [short pause] Anybody else wish to deny it?

Miss Scarlet: [after Mr. Boddy hands out his party gifts] I enjoy getting presents from strange men.

Wadsworth: Mr. Boddy. Dead... Again!

Colonel Mustard: Mr. Boddy threatened to send those pictures to my dear old mother, the shock would've killed her.

Mrs. White: Oh, that would've been quite an achievement, since you told us that she's dead already.

[to Wadsworth].

Mrs. White: So, he had the motive.

Wadsworth: You *all* had a motive.

Mr. Green: [yelling] Will you stop that?

Wadsworth: No.

Wadsworth: Picked up the dagger, ran down the hall, and stabbed the cook!

Mrs. Peacock: Take your hands off me! I'm a senator's wife!

Mrs. White: Oh, you're a doctor?

Professor Plum: I am, but I don't practice.

Miss Scarlet: But practice makes perfect. Ha! I think most men need a little practice, don't you Mrs. Peacock?

Professor Plum: Stand back!

All: So, who did it?

Mrs. White: Well, one of us must have killed him!

Wadsworth: Is everything all right, Mrs. Ho?

Mrs. Ho: Dinner will be ready at 7:30.

Wadsworth: Do come in, Madam. You are expected.

Mrs. White: Do you know who I am?

Wadsworth: Only that you are to be known as Mrs. White.

Mrs. White: Yes. It said so in the letter. But why?

Miss Scarlet: It should be just off there.

Professor Plum: That must be it!

Miss Scarlet: [they see their destination as lightning splits the sky over Hill House, giving it an ominous cast. The car engine stops] Why has the car stopped?

Professor Plum: It's frightened.

Mrs. White: You say you are used to being a hostess, as part of your husband's work?

Mrs. Peacock: Yes, it's an integral part of your life when you are the wife of a... Oh, but then I forgot, we're not supposed to say who we really are, though, heavens to Betsy, I don't know why.

Colonel Mustard: Don't you?

Mr. Green: I know who you are.

Miss Scarlet: Aren't you gonna tell us?

Mrs. Peacock: How do you know who I am?

Mr. Green: I work in Washington, too.

Professor Plum: Washington? So you're a politician's wife?

Mrs. Peacock: Yes, I-I am.

Colonel Mustard: Well, come on then, who's your husband?

Mr. Green: [dropped a spoon, spilling soup onto Miss Scarlet] I'm sorry. I'm afraid I'm a little bit accident prone.

[starts to wipe soup off Miss Scarlet].

Miss Scarlet: [raises her hands, making him stop] Ah, watch it!

Mrs. Peacock: This is one of my favorite recipes.

Wadsworth: I know, Madam.

Professor Plum: [next to Miss Scarlet in the rain, with backs to the door] What a godforsaken place!

[gropes her backside; she tries to brush his hand off].

Wadsworth: [opens door suddenly and sees this] Professor Plum, and Miss Scarlet, I didn't realize you were acquainted.

Miss Scarlet: We weren't.

[walks past Plum into the house].

Professor Plum: [pointing to Mrs. Peacock's drink] Maybe he was poisoned!

[Mrs. Peacock immediately drops her glass full of brandy and starts screaming].

Mr. Green: [trying to get her to the couch] Mrs. Peacock, please. Mrs. Peacock, it's alright. It's alright. We don't know anything. Sit-sit down, sit down, Mrs.-.

[slaps her; everybody stares].

Mr. Green: Well, I had to stop her from screaming!

Colonel Mustard: This is war, Peacock. Casualties are inevitable. You can not make an omelet without breaking eggs, every cook will tell you that.

Mrs. Peacock: But look what happened to the cook!

Wadsworth: And monkey's brains, though popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often to be found in Washington D.C.

Mr. Green: Is that what we ate?

[makes a retching sound].

Wadsworth: The key is gone!

Professor Plum: Never mind about the key, unlock the door!

[smacks Mr.Green on the shoulder].

Mr. Green: [grabs Professor Plum by the collar, throttling him] I CAN'T UNLOCK THE DOOR WITHOUT THE KEY!

[releasing Plum, Mr. Green rattles doorknob].