Murder By Death (1976)

“No, no, it’s all right. My wine is not poisoned. It was just a bad year.” – Milo Perrier

Number of Times Seen – 1  (31 Jul 2013)

Brief Synopsis – An eccentric man invites 5 world renowned detectives to his house for a dinner party to solve a mysterious murder

My Take on it – What a clever idea for a movie and only Neil Simon could make it work.  This movie is funny and also captivating throughout it’s 90 minutes of whodunnit.

Simon expertly parodies some of fiction’s most well known detectives and the results are truly amazing.  Each one of the characters in this movie truly represent the fictional detective they are based on in just about every way and the outcome is remarkable.

The cast is great; David Niven, Peter Falk, James Coco, Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, Peter Sellers, Nancy Walker, Maggie Smith, a very young James Cromwell and Alec Guinness (in a hilarious role of the butler).  I laughed out loud at many of the verbal and visual jokes that were done throughout the movie.

Alec Guinness supposedly received the script from an unknown writer named George Lucas during filming and read it with the possibility of playing some kind of “elderly knight”. Little did he know how many fans it would bring him.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Guinness in this comic role since I have been more use to seeing him in very serious dramatic roles.  This movie proves how versatile an actor he really was.

Bottom Line – Very funny movie. well written and acted superbly. Recommended!

Rating – Globe Worthy