Psycho's Movie Reviews #81: CLUE (1985)

Clue is a 1985 American black comedy mystery film based on the popular board game of the same name. Directed by Jonathan Lynn, who collaborated on the script with John Landis, and produced by Debra Hill, it stars the ensemble cast of Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren.

Inspired by the nature of the board game, the film's initial release featured various different endings, with one of three possibilities sent to movie theatres at the time. Home media releases include all three endings presented sequentially. The film initially received mixed reviews and did poorly at the box office, grossing $14.6 million in the United States against its budget of $15 million, but later developed a considerable cult following.

Plot:

In 1954, six strangers arrive by ominous invitation at a secluded New England mansion, despite most of the guests being from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Greeted by Wadsworth the butler and Yvette the maid, each guest receives a pseudonym: Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green, Professor Plum, and Miss Scarlet.

A seventh guest arrives, Mr. Boddy, whom Wadsworth reveals has been blackmailing the others: Mrs. Peacock is accused of taking bribes for her husband, a US senator, but denies any wrongdoing and claims she has paid the blackmail to keep the scandal quiet; Mrs. White is suspected in the death of her husband, a nuclear physicist; Professor Plum has lost his medical license due to an affair with a patient; Miss Scarlet runs an underground brothel in Washington, D.C.; Colonel Mustard, though initially suspected of being one of Miss Scarlet's patrons, is a war profiteer; and Mr. Green is a homosexual, a secret that would cost him his State Department job.

While threatening to expose the guests if he is arrested, Mr. Boddy gives them each a weapon—a candlestick, a knife, a lead pipe, a revolver, a rope, and a wrench. Suggesting that someone kill Wadsworth, Mr. Boddy turns out the lights. A gunshot rings out, and the lights are turned back on to reveal Mr. Boddy apparently dead, without any indication at first glance as to how.

Wadsworth explains to the guests that his wife had committed suicide due to Mr. Boddy's blackmail because she refused to name friends who were socialists, and he has summoned the guests to force a confession out of Mr. Boddy and turn him over to the police. The group suspects the cook, but they find her dead as well, having been stabbed with the knife. Mr. Boddy's body disappears, but the guests find his now bleeding body in the bathroom, having been struck on the head with the candlestick.

Wadsworth locks the weapons in a cupboard. He attempts to throw the key away, but a stranded motorist arrives, and Wadsworth locks him in the lounge. While the guests search the mansion in pairs, an unknown individual burns the blackmail evidence, unlocks the cupboard and kills the motorist with the wrench. Discovering a secret passage, Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet find themselves locked in the lounge with the motorist's corpse until Yvette shoots the door open with the revolver.

A cop investigating the motorist's abandoned car arrives to use the phone. The mansion receives a call from J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, which Wadsworth takes alone. After distracting the cop successfully, the guests resume their search until another unknown person turns off the electricity. Yvette, the cop, and a singing telegram girl who arrived while the lights were out, are murdered with the rope, lead pipe, and revolver, respectively.

Wadsworth and the others regroup after he turns the electricity back on, and he reveals he knows who the murderer is. Recreating the night's events, Wadsworth explains that the five other victims were Mr. Boddy's informants. An evangelist interrupts the gathering, but Mrs. Peacock shuns him by closing the door, and Wadsworth continues his explanation, with one of three possible outcomes:

Ending A - Yvette murdered the cook and Mr. Boddy on orders from Miss Scarlet, for whom she once worked as a call girl. Scarlet then killed Yvette and the other victims. Planning to sell the guests' secrets, Scarlet prepares to shoot Wadsworth, who asserts there are no more bullets causing them to bicker over how many shots there have been and disarms Scarlet as law enforcement raid the house. The evangelist, revealed to be the police chief, congratulates Wadsworth – an undercover FBI agent. Wadsworth attempts to demonstrate the revolver was empty, but a remaining bullet brings down a chandelier, narrowly missing Colonel Mustard whilst Miss Scarlet laughs about being correct.

Ending B - Mrs. Peacock killed all the victims to conceal her taking bribes from foreign powers. She holds the others at gunpoint as they allow her to leave. Wadsworth reveals he is an undercover FBI agent sent to investigate her. While escaping to her car, Mrs. Peacock is surprised by the evangelist, who is revealed to be the police chief, as the police raid the property. After the police chief assures her arrest, Wadsworth asks if anyone would care for some fruit or dessert.

Ending C - Everyone apart from Mr. Green has killed at least one person: Professor Plum missed Mr. Boddy with the revolver but later killed him with the candlestick; Mrs. Peacock stabbed the cook, her former employee; Colonel Mustard bludgeoned the motorist, who was his driver during World War II; Mrs. White throttled Yvette out of jealousy and hatred for the latter's affair with her husband, whom she had also killed; and Miss Scarlet clubbed the cop, whom she was bribing. Wadsworth reveals that he shot the singing telegram girl (the patient Professor Plum had the affair with) and that he is the real Mr. Boddy; the person that Professor Plum killed was Mr. Boddy's butler. With his spies and informants disposed of, he plans to continue blackmailing the guests. Mr. Green then draws his own revolver, kills Wadsworth, and reveals himself to be an undercover FBI agent and that the earlier phone call from J. Edgar Hoover was for him. He also reveals that his earlier admittance as a homosexual was a ruse in order to get close to the real Mr. Boddy. Green then opens the front door, bringing in the authorities to arrest the others as the evangelist is revealed to be the police chief. After telling the police chief he has killed Mr. Boddy in the hall with his revolver, Mr. Green says: "Okay, Chief, take 'em away! I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife!"

In home media releases which include all three endings, Ending C is presented through title cards as the real ending.

Production

Development:

The multiple-ending concept was developed by John Landis, who claimed in an interview to have invited playwright Tom Stoppard, writer and composer Stephen Sondheim, and actor Anthony Perkins to write the screenplay. The script was ultimately finished by director Jonathan Lynn.

A fourth ending was filmed, but Lynn removed it because as he later stated, "It really wasn't very good. I looked at it, and I thought, 'No, no, no, we've got to get rid of that." In the unused fourth ending, Wadsworth committed all of the murders. He was motivated by his desire for perfection. Having failed to be either the perfect husband or the perfect butler, he decided to be the perfect murderer instead. Wadsworth reports that he poisoned the champagne the guests had drunk earlier so they would soon die, leaving no witnesses. The police and the FBI arrive and Wadsworth is arrested. He breaks free and steals a police car, but his escape is thwarted when three police dogs lunge from the back seat. This ending is documented in Clue: The Storybook, a tie-in book released in conjunction with the film.

Casting:

Carrie Fisher was originally contracted to portray Miss Scarlet, but withdrew to enter treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. Jonathan Lynn's first choice for the role of Wadsworth was Leonard Rossiter, but he died before filming commenced. The second choice was Rowan Atkinson, but it was decided that he wasn't well known enough at the time, so Tim Curry was eventually cast.

Filming:

Clue was filmed on sound stages at the Paramount Pictures film studios in Hollywood. The set design is credited to Les Gobruegge, Gene Nollmanwas, and William B. Majorand, with set decoration by Thomas L. Roysden. To decorate the interior sets, authentic 18th- and 19th-century furnishings were rented from private collectors, including the estate of Theodore Roosevelt. After completion, the set was bought by the producers of Dynasty, who used it as the fictional hotel The Carlton.

All interior scenes were filmed at the Paramount lot, with the exception of the ballroom scene. The ballroom, as well as the driveway gate exteriors, were filmed on location at a mansion located in South Pasadena, California. This site was destroyed in a fire on October 5, 2005. Exterior shots of the Pasadena mansion were enhanced with matte paintings to make the house appear much larger; these were executed by matte artist Syd Dutton in consultation with Albert Whitlock.

Mrs. White's famous "Flames" speech was improvised by Madeline Kahn.

Release/Reception/Box Office:

The film was released theatrically on December 13, 1985. Each theatre received one of the three endings, and some theatres announced which ending the viewer would see.

The film initially received mixed reviews. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote negatively of the film and stated that the beginning "is the only part of the film that is remotely engaging. After that, it begins to drag". Similarly, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, writing, "Clue offers a few big laughs early on followed by a lot of characters running around on a treadmill to nowhere." Siskel particularly criticized the decision to release the film to theatres with three separate endings, calling it a "gimmick" that would distract audiences from the rest of the film, concluding that "Clue is a movie that needs three different middles rather than three different endings."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 2 out of 4 stars review, writing that it has a "promising" cast, but the film's "screenplay is so very, very thin that [the actors] spend most of their time looking frustrated, as if they'd just been cut off right before they were about to say something interesting." On Siskel & Ebert & the Movies, both agreed that the "A" ending was the best while the "C" ending was the worst.

The film-critics aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 68% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 34 reviews, with an average score of 6.3/10. The critics consensus reads: "A robust ensemble of game actors elevate Clue above its schematic source material, but this farce's reliance on novelty over organic wit makes its entertainment value a roll of the dice." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 39 out of 100 based on 11 critics, indicating "generally unfavourable reviews".

Clue has grossed $14.6 million globally, just short of its $15 million budget.

My Review:

Clue, hell, it's practically a playable Agatha Christie novel already: six shady characters, a dead body, a country house filled with rooms and weapons. And the player, but in this case the audience, has to figure out whodunnit. No, the only real problem with making Clue into a movie was that it was so obviously a narrative that the narrative had already been filmed several thousand times stretching into the silent era. But that doesn't mean it's bad, it's good.

I was rolling on the floor laughing the first time I saw this movie. To this day, my family and I still watch it and can quote it nearly word for word. The exceptional cast deliver performances that excel in comedic timing which is rarely seen today. Their expressive faces and gestures prove their place at the top of their craft. The amount of lines and delivery made by Tim Curry is astonishing. This was the first movie I saw Tim in after Rocky Horror and I place him in my 10 favourite actors. His voice alone is priceless. This film is just a pleasure to the eyes and ears and will never age.

This is probably the best game movie ever made, combining board and video games. Even after all this time the movie holds up, you can just imagine their mobile devices were collected at the door or left in the car. This is a fantastic combination of acting (I miss Tim Curry), writing and presentation. The presentation is the key with this one, the way information is drop fed, the way people are framed in scenes for ambiguity, and the best recaps ever put to screen. I honestly am struggling to come up with anything bad to say about this movie, so the worst part is probably the great poop joke at the beginning of the movie.

The game and this movie is fun. It brings out the mystery and fun of the game in pretty close to the same aspects. The cast was awesome and Tim curry was the greatest. Its more of a murder mystery with a humor twist type of movie. The cast did well working together on screen and it makes me want a Clue 2.( Even though I know that won't happen because I would want the original cast). The story, setting, and characters was believable. The building beautiful. I think they could have brought a bit more to the movie, but like the game its more of a mystery guessing game and straying probably would have ruined it and they already added a bit extra stuff. It will however remain one of my most loved movies regardless.

The 1985 board game adaptation by UK writer/director Jonathan Lynn takes all of the elements from the classic murder mystery, sprinkles in a now-iconic cast of comedians and ramps up the wordplay, physical pratfalls, and sexual innuendo.

It’s the perfect set-up: invite six strangers to a mansion during a storm, lock the doors, reveal their secrets, and wait for them to pick each other off one by one. Featuring an all-star cast of powerhouse women (Madeline Kahn, Lesley Ann Warren and Eileen Brennan) as well as Tim Curry, the murder mystery/comedy hybrid has all of the expected gags about murder weapons and secret doors but also has surprising bite with its commentary on McCarthyism and the Red & Lavender Scares.

To make a long story short (too late!): Clue is easily the best film adaptation of a board game and one of our favourite comedy films of all time! Will always be happy to watch this one, always recommended; 8/10.