S7E1. Oh, that's tacky: Murder by Death (1976)

Oh that's Tackie. That's really Tackie. Welcome to Wake Up Heavy, the world's greatest horror movie podcast. On this episode, my weird dad and his friends will be talking about what you've only seen murder by Death once, twice, three times no good. Laboratory tests have shown that in order to receive the required dosage of laughter, the normal movie goer must see Murdered by Death at least four times.

I have to go to the can again. I don't want to mention nothing. It's the funniest mystery visionary murder by de rated PG now theaters and drive ins everywhere. Check your local newspaper for listening. Hello, and welcome to Wake Up Heavy, recollections of horror.

This is Mark Bigley, your host, joining me once again the host of the Culture Cast. Mister Chris Statue. You know, Mark, I think this may be the last time I come on your show. Oh. I am deeply, deeply offended that you would make me watch this movie that is simply put a poor fact simile of clue.

I'm just what did you think I was going? You think I'm some sort of wokester? What is this? My wolkes? I'm looking for the ejected button on here at Yeah, he's been muted and now he's been ved from the call entire and we'll be editing all of that out.

Joining me. The only other person joining me tonight is the host of the Projection Movie podcast, mister Mike White. I don't get something pop. There was a murder, wasn't there? God weekend?

About an hour and a half of my time? Is what it really killed? Else? What a loom? Okay?

We are talking about the nineteen seventy six film Murder by Death, written by Neil Simon but not based on one of his plays, and directed by Robert Moore, not Roger Moore, and starring in diabolical order, Eileen Brennan, Truman, Capodi, James Coco, Peter Folk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lancaster, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, as well as James Cromwell, Richard Narita, Nancy Walker, Annis Dale Wynwood in a send up of old dark house movies murder mystery movies, and we are spoofing some famous detectives in this which we will get too shortly. So, Chris, I take it this was a first time watch for you what did you think, as if we did already know? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe you edited. This is a post production show, so maybe you edited that part out.

I can never know. You'll have to edit this part out too if you don't leave it in. It's funny. It wasn't last year, but I think it was the year of Our Lord twenty twenty one. Mike, you and I did No Jack and Co.

Which is very much murder can hurt you? Yes, right? Also no? Yeah? I like the title No Jack and Co.

More, which is the other title, I believe, right that is. That's the other title. That and this share a lot, obviously, I think it has similar problems. I think this one has more problems. And no not Peter Seller's in yellow Face.

That's its own ball of wax that we will have to deal with at some point and talk about. But I had never seen it before. It piqued my interest given that I spent the last year reading a lot of the kinds of books that these characters would appear in, so I was primed and ready to enjoy it. And it's almost like the movie hates the audience and wants the audience to go fuck itself at the end of the movie. By the end of the movie, it kind of does what I mentioned Clue.

It kind of does what Clue does, but Clue actually lands that that bullshit ending that this movie pulls. They have the same climax in a lot of ways. It's like, no, it's you and no it's you, and Clue kind of goes even further. But because Clue commits to it completely, I think it works a little bit better. I think this movie is okay.

I can kind of already sense that there may be some nostalgia glasses here that I'm missing about the ability to enjoy and maybe even the perceived quality of said film. And Mike, how about you? Sorry that was a long answer. What was a question? Wow, what's your experience with this film?

It's not going to say a good I watched this movie, I think when it was first out theatrically. I don't remember watching very many movies when I was super young, other than Star Wars, but I do remember Murder by Death, which came out a year before Star Wars. I would have been four years old at the time. I know for sure my folks took me to see it. I don't know if it was this original release or if it was a revival release.

I remember really liking it as a kid. I would watch it on TV whenever it was on, and I still was laughing. Unlike Chris, I had a wonderful experience going back and watching this movie, and it actually caused me to finally watched The Cheap Detective, which was kind of interesting as well. I think I like this more than The Cheap Detective, though I imagine it's probably one of those which one you saw first and which one you grew up with. I'll fully admit I probably am watching this with nostalgia glasses on, but I love these performances.

I really just enjoy every stupid joke that this movie has to offer. I will tell you that I was in a stage play when I was in high school that is very similar to Murder by Death, if not a direct rip off of Murder by Death, kind of like when we covered Arsenic and Old Lace. I was talking on that episode about play called Anybody for Tea. There was a play by Tim Kelly called The Butler Did It in which there are characters like Chandler Marlowe. Imagine who that is?

Louie Fan who is a Charlie Chan copycat. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, I went in yellow face as Louie Fan for my high school play version of The Butler did it so I'm not proud. You're going to get Justin Trudeau style canceled. Man. You can even see photos of me on my Facebook when I'm like seventeen with this fake got which is hilarious that I ended up with the real one, died black with like my black hair, yellow face and white outfit with my little fan that I had.

So there you go. That was the outing of yourself you were going to do? That was the outing. Yeah, that was me saying yes, I played the yellow face and I spoke in all the horrible broken English and was changing all of the elves to ours and ours to els and just really overdoing it. Wow, Mike, you you could have just left at it.

I did it. I did this and then I did this. I really committed to it for like six months. I didn't. I never dropped character.

I committed to that role. Man. I was really into drama club. I probably was no good whatsoever, but I really committed to those roles. I would like to know the Dayton Time so that when we invent a time machine, we can go back in time and be in the audience to see you doing yellow face would be great.

Yeah, I would like to go back and see, like I imagine, just like, oh that performance. Oh and then the racial stuff on top of it. God. Yeah. I saw this when I was young, but I didn't see it in the theater.

I saw it when it played on TV. I'm not sure if it was when Peter Sellers died, because I know that the TV stations played Pink Panther movies, the Mouse that, you know, just everything that they could get their hands on to capitalize on that. Of course, it might have been earlier. I know I had some recollection or some idea of who Alec Guinness was because of Star Wars, so it could have been shortly after that, sometime between when it was released and probably nineteen eighty and would try and catch it each time it played on TV because I know that I really enjoyed this movie from the first time. I feel like I've watched it more than I probably did, because it stuck with me.

Like the first time I watched it as an adult was probably some time in the last five years, but I remembered every beat of it, and a lot of the lines, a lot of the Peter Seller's lines, mostly because that probably appeals to a juvenile sense of humor more than some of the other stuff. But hadn't seen it for decades, sometime between, you know, probably the mid eighties to the mid two thousands, hadn't seen it, but I always remembered it fondly. Knew it would be problematic going back to it. Knew that when I showed it to my daughter and said, there's going to be something in here that wouldn't happen today. Most likely it would be handled a much different way.

And it was because we watched Clue. She had wanted to watch Clue because I think some of her friends had been talking about it. Watched Clue. I didn't care for Clue. We can go back and forth on that, Chris, which I totally also one get why you would not like Clue, understand, And I said, you want to watch a good one of these.

Let's it happened to be streaming somewhere at the time or I have maybe recordated when it played on TCM within the last year or so before that, And I can't say which one she likes more. But I know that she has watched it with me numerous times since then, and has watched it the two times that I watched for the show, so obviously she enjoys it well enough. We talked about it briefly, her and I on when she would visit the show from time to time, and she mentioned the yellow face and the issues with that, and I think it's definitely something that we'll talk about further. But like Hugh Mike, I think the dumb humor, the wordplay, the really mild double entendres and stuff, there's not I mean, this is a very chaste PG.

I mean like almost G a couple of lines. If they were out of this, it would probably be g rated. There's just a little bit of sexual innu window and gay baiting and homophobia and things like that. Well maybe so maybe it isn't so close to a G but it is pretty tame and probably didn't have to cut a whole lot for TV when they showed it. But it's just something that has always resonated with me for whatever reason.

And since we're knee deep in spoof territory right now, going through the Police Squad Show and make a gun. And because of that episode you mentioned Chris that you guys did, I know you talked about it a little bit on that episode, the spoof part this, and I didn't get any of this when I was a kid. I think the only familiar character would have been the Charlie Chan spoof. Yeah, I didn't know who anybody else was spoofing. I thought Peter Falk was spoofing Colombo.

I had no idea it was supposed to be Bogey characters, Marlowe or Sam Spade or whoever. It's a combination of all that stuff. Seeing it as an adult, I finally got oh, Dick and Dora Charleston or Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man. Sidney Wang is obviously Charlie Chan, Jessica Marble's is what is her first name? Missus Marble?

And Milo Perier is Eric Hull Ploreau and whom I'll leave it out here. That's pretty much it. I think that's everybody. Sam Diamond, Peter Falk play Sam Diamond, which is basically Sam Spade, so it's spoofing those characters. And the Old Dark I get the Old Dark House five from this A lot with inviting a group of characters that I'll have some connection to the owner of the house.

Then we also have this idea of a competition to see who can figure out who the murderer is. That's one of those things that was pretty prevalent back in the seventies and is still happening to this day now. I was getting a lot of Knives Out in Glass on the end while I was watching this, as well as as well as the clue stuff. Definitely clue Knives Out. I told my daughter, I said that old Lady.

If that old lady in the first Knives Out isn't pointing in the direction of the nurse in this, then I don't know that would be such a huge coincidence. But her just sitting there the whole time and knives out and never really saying anything. She just makes me think of a stelle Winwood. And this I wasn't the biggest fan of Knives Out. I would actually, you know what, as much as it may have, like you kind of mentioned, Mike, seemed like I didn't enjoy this movie.

I actually liked it more than Knives Out. I think the issue with Murder by Death is not the performances. It's that the plot tries to be too clever for its own good. And I think even if you enjoy this movie, you could like one like agree on that, because I think that's my biggest issue with the movie is I really don't like when movies kind of waggle their dick at you as it were, you know what I mean. It kind of feels like it's like, yeah, I'm so smart and you're so stupid, and it's like you can land that if you do it right, like I am.

The performances in this movie are fantastic. This is better than Murder Can Hurt You because the characters that they're playing, they have less characters in this movie than they do in that one, and in that one it becomes so crowded that they just become one liners as opposed to fully kind of formed characters. And in this movie, these for the most part, they're all pretty well done. James Koco, I think more or less steals the show throughout. But if we're talking kind of like this canon of these kinds of things, I think this is the best one of these kinds, even including more contemporary ones.

When you crowd these movies with like thirty different people in an ensemble cast. It doesn't give the movie enough time to give anybody anything to do. And I think this movie has the balance just right. I mean, this movie doesn't make any sense now through the actual sense of it. The whole idea of the gag though right right, exactly exactly.

Alec Ginness spoilers not being blind but playing all those scenes as a blind man, him and Nancy Walker, and Nancy Walker not even existing that she's supposed to be a mannequin. It doesn't make any sense, but it's funny. It's far enough away from when you see Nancy Walker, it's far enough away from him playing the blind man that it's like, oh, okay, and you kind of forget about that stuff, and then when you do remember, it's like, well, that's just funny because it doesn't really make any sense that he was doing that anyway. Do any of them exists? No?

No, does his face and yeah? So yes, exactly, yeah. And I really like that reveal scene where you can see an Alec and as body language, the way that he's changing, because they keep talking about these different characters that he's supposed to be. Oh, you're actually this and no, you're actually this. Person who killed this person.

No, you're actually this person who killed this person and this person, and that it just keeps changing his body language because he does and have a whole lot of minds during that as it's all of the detectives giving you know, the true story of who this character is. I think the best thing about that scene is all of the ways that they describe what happened are kind of hewing close to the expectations of how their stories normally play out. And then you have the Truman cap not Truman Capote character even needling them further about those specific you know, plot twists or ways that their stories end up, you know, like with Miss Marple, the whole your withholding clues thing, which is I mean, it is totally good, I will say, and I know that it's mentioned in doing some research about the movie.

I will say, Sherlock Holmes should have been in this in some capacity. Yeah, it's such a massive apparent spot that they're missing, and this would have been way beyond public domain, Like I know that there's a deleted scene and everything that should have been not a addition to it, should have been a primary part of this. Because if you're going to do a movie about these kinds of characters, you can't forget the character that started it all. I really wish that I would have been able to see those deleted scenes. I've never seen those.

I didn't even know they existed until this last time watching the movie and then going to IMDb and being like, really, oh, I never knew that these things existed. It says they're on the move and the TV edit, and I'm thinking, I know it's been decades since I last watched it on TV, but I don't remember any of it either. That doesn't mean I didn't see that version on TV. It seems like those were added back the pad the time. Yeah, I don't have any recollection of them either.

I don't know. The only thing that I think would bother me about the addition of Sherlock Holmes. It would be more of an anachronism because these are all thirties and forties characters. I don't know how old the that Christy characters are. But when I think about the movies with them, with Miss Marple or POI Row, and even though the movie is supposed to take place in a contemporary time period, it harkens back more to the thirties and forties than anything else, and I don't Sherlock Holmes, to me is quite earlier than that.

I think that could have been part of the jokes, though, I think that would have been the easy direction to go with the jokes is kind of, you know, playing into he doesn't understand any of this, right, right, I would be inclined to agree with you, but it's this is a movie about not characters from TV or film, about fucking literary characters. I get it, but like Sherlock Holmes is the literary detective period. Even if you like Miss Marble or POI Row or anybody else, they all come from that one spot. Even to leave the cameo out is weird. This is the one time anybody ever did anything like this.

Just leaving that out feels like a missed opportunity. But everybody else is so good that you kind of just don't care. It would be nice to see them pass him at the end. That would be a good end joke. Yeah, you know, let him go ahead and figure it out for himself.

Right. The stories of Sherlock Holmes were taking place, they were Victorian as far as I remember, but I thought that they were close to like the turn of the century, so not that they are, and yeah, not that far removed from some of these authors. And I mean a lot of people like your Philip Marlowe, like you, you're Sam Spade, like those are coming out of Black Mask, which was only like twenty years after that. Maybe, but it does feel like he's from a different well, he's from a different country, but from a different age, because I say, I think even Charlie Chan I mean, he's basically from Honolulu. But everybody else, Nick and Nora, they're more mid Atlantic.

They're like New york Ish. Spade is over on the coast in San Francisco or Los Angeles. I mean, all of these other detectives are well, I guess it's British in Belgian, right, Even with Miss Marple's and here qu Parrow, they feel more contemporary than at Holmes does for me anyway, it could just be the style of dress, and also that we still get these characters, especially with Kenneth Brenna and Man, I mean talk about not working and that death on the Nile version that I did, God, that was terrible. Wow. And I really liked Murder on the Orient Express.

I did not like Death on the Nile, especially compared to the euston Al version. Yeah, we watched that one night and I thought, m oh, that's right, there was one before this. Should we bother watch? Well that the Houston All version is good, but I'd say even better than that is the episode of the poiro TV show that they did, and we've been watching or watched. We started at the beginning and watch all of the POI row that's available on brit Box, so I always all of that.

Yeah, David Suchet is Poirot, like, he's really good. Geth Rono with that ridiculous mustache. Oh yeah, the story. Yes, yes, they should do a parody where every time they cut back to him, his mustaches gets larger and larger, to the point where he's just a mustache with arms and legs. He was six foot one mustache mustache.

That'll be in the new Zazz spoof on these is ever changing mustache. Well that's the thing I was wondering, like, could you do something like this now? I mean, are there ubiquitous enough literary characters that this is a thing? Like I think what's really fun about this movie is it came out at a time and place where you could do this, Like, now, what are you gonna do? Like get all the characters that have all their adaptations already, like most characters that are detectives.

I know that some people might take umbrage with this, but Jack Reacher's a detective. What's the other one? Harry Bosh is a detective. Like most of these characters are now detectives. It's just masquerading as something else.

So they all have their own shows, so there's not even a need to do this anymore. It's kind of I don't know, like you could do a parody, but I don't. I think what's fun is that these kind of all work together, even as they work separately. I don't think putting like Bosh and Jack Reacher in a room together to solve a mystery would really work. I mean maybe it would, you know one a Janet Ivanovich's characters, Like, I just don't.

I don't know if that would work. But these characters all kind of tonally work together. It would get into that area where a lot of the spoofs and parodies that fail, for me, go is too specific parodying a movie specifically. These characters are all very broadly drawn as parodies of the literary characters that they're spoofing. There's kind of a specific Casablanca reference, and here a couple of them lost my girlfriend when the French invaded or when the Germans invaded France, and that gets played out more in The Chief Detective.

That's part of one of the whole plotlines in that. Everybody else, if they're referring to specific cases, it's lost on me. I don't have a huge background in any of these characters stories, but it's just more you know, Miss Marble's is the genteel, elderly British woman. Dick and Dora Charleston are the snooty mid Atlantic people like you said, although they're both British and they have British accents, so that's yeah. They're playing them a lot different than Powell and Lay definitely, and they don't drink nearly as much.

I mean, that's the thing that I love, and that might not be in the books. I haven't read the story of the Thin Man, but the movie, I mean, you feel like an alcoholic just watching that movie. It's amazing. They usually have a martini in their hands throughout all of this. Niffers show up and almost get hit by the gargoyle.

She has a martini in her and somehow it's true. I think they even have them when they're on the side of the road when they first show up. And one thing that I really enjoy about this is the structure of the movie makes it easy for me to follow, because I can get lost when we've got an ensemble cast and lots of different things going on. We start with apparently Lionel Twain writing the name by the way, just like we get a shot of each of the envelopes with who's being invited. Vincent Mum comes in and stamps the envelopes.

That's always one of those things that bothered me, cinema sins, Well, how did they get the letters? Also get that out of the way right now. There's a lot of cinema sins stuff in this movie that goes towards the absurdity of the film, because I think it has that absurdity line. But I like how we're getting introduced to the characters and also intercutting that with the house being set up to be spoop. We have a gloved figure going through the house pulling one of the hands off of clock turning screws on the door so that it's squeaky as opposed to being not squeaky.

We see the characters as they're driving up to the mansion and trying to guess why they're being invited to this mansion at two two twain or to too low a lane actually, but the placard says to two twain. And that's one of the jokes that when I would watch this with my dad would just absolutely bust him up. That whole Lionel Twain, which is of course a gag with the Lionel train sets that they made, and then two two twain, you say it, say it enough times you'll get it so fucking stupid, but it makes you laugh. It's like the daddiest dad joke of all dad jokes. Like they keep doing it.

They do appreciate that they keep doing it. And that Truman Capode is Lionel Twain of all the people to get for your goddamn movie. Yea Truman Capodi, all right. He was one of those guys that was like Andy Warhol back then, who you heard about it knew about even as a kid like my age, had no idea like why he was famous but you heard the name all the time, or he was on the love Boat or whatever. Andy Warhol was more like that.

But yeah, he was all over talk shows too, Yeah, like on the Mike Douglas Show and MERV Griffith and all these guys. Yeah, personality right, personality right, Well, in his voice is not nearly as bad as Philip Seymour Hoffman was making his voice right. Oh my god, thank you. Check out the other Campodi movie with Toby Jones. I think that's much better Seymour Hoffman's na Yeah, Like I can hear Philip symoreh Hofman doing his voice in my head.

Someone who spent a lot of the last year reading and kind of just throwing myself into books. An author I started reading recently who also has a weird affectation is William S. Burrows, and I hope to god they don't make a movie about his life, because the person who will have to do his voice will either do what Philip Seymour Hoffman did, which is like overdo it beyond words and make Truman Capote like apparently the most gay man known to man, Like, I don't know what Phillip symour Hoffin's thing. He was doing in that movie. Was Truman Capote is so good in this doing a role that is very not exciting.

Yes, thanks, yeah, very much. So it's just an odd choice to have him be the guy. I loved him, miss um, the way that he was correcting all of the Charlie Chant things and yes, just positions pronouns us pronounce. So, uh, should we in the room now that we've opened this box, as they would say, should we talk a little bit about Peter Sellers as a Charlie Chant in nineteen seventy six. This was not a big deal.

I don't think gave a rip about it. Tony Randall, Christopher Lee, I mean this was quite a thing. Man, White people playing yellow face six to the big candles man, I mean that's I mean, you know that's sixteen. It was not yellow face. I was big, facetious.

I'm talking more about the way that Asians are used in media. Pere oh boy, yeah. I mean again, like the yellow face is bad, but it's not just a yellow face, right, it's I mean that the yellow face is engerish. It's yeah, it's the everything. Like he's playing him exactly the way that he was played.

I mean, maybe a little bit more than the various versions of Charlie Chan that had been played over years. But even those Charlie Chans were it was the same fucking thing. It's like you get an Asian person as the Sun and then you can't take this white actor and you put him in yellow face or you know, it's black and white most of the time, so who cares. And they were always like British actors that were doing this, so it's just they're in a long tradition. I mean, it's not as bad as Peter Laurie when he played Mister Moto.

But the thing that really got me was that they can't decide if Charlie Chan is Chinese or Japanese because they keep fascinating between the two. I mean, this is not nearly as bad as speaking of Truman Capote, Yeah, Mickey Rooney, Mickey Rooney and breakfast Atiphanies. I mean, obviously, Mike, like you said, this is the character. I think it could have worked, and I think it would be more. You know, again, this is how you would do it now like they did in Tropic thunder right, where it's like we're sending up the people who do this less what it is.

It's more about the people who think that they are so in tune with things that they can do this and it's somehow okay, that's the right way of doing it. This is a different, completely different way of looking at it. At the same time, the fact that he's more or less playing it's straight, I think does kind of work. It is offensive, but he is more or less a white like you said, a white man in yellow makeup, which is what it was like. That's that's what it was when they were doing it anyways.

So by the way, I have to apologize. The two actors that I know the most for being Charlie Chan were Warner Oland and Sydney Toller, and they're both Americans. Are not British, though I think Peter Ustinoff also played him, and Ross Martin our friend from Suitable for Framing from Colombo. All famous Asian actors, Yes, all the famous Asian people. To my point and to your point, he was never played by an Asian actor, So I take it as that's not the joke here.

But that's what they're going for, right. They knew they're not fucking stupid, they knew that that was the only time he was actually played by an Asian person. Up to this point was Key Luke actually doing his voice for the Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan and a Barbara Carto. Hey, at least they had the sense to have an Asian actor to the voice. I was thinking about this earlier because I knew it would come up.

There are a couple different ways to go around this, and one of them could have been he's in makeup playing this character and when like he and his adopted son are in their room together, he's out of character. That'd be nice, yea. Or even have an Asian American actor James Hong was working at this time, have him play the character with the broken English in front of the other people and in his room with his son, adopted son number three. Be like, Dad, why do you do that? That's what they expect of me.

Nobody's going to hire an Asian guy that's smarter than them, that I think is smarter than them. Oh God, damn it. I want this now so badly, you son of a bitch. How could you do this to us? You made this movie lacking so hard now because it would have been so much better.

Does that little turn, just that little turn either one of those would have been pretty easy to do. And I, of course, if someone turns this on after listening to this episode or whatever, you know, I always post it when I watch it. If someone decides, oh, I'll give this a chance and they stop it five minutes into the movie because they see Peter Sellers in that makeup and with the teeth and the eyes and the yellow makeup and the broken English. I wouldn't fault them. But it's like the other actors that you've mentioned that have played this, And do we stop watching all these movies because of that or do we have a conversation about it and full well knowing that it wouldn't happen today unless it was.

That's the other thing I have in my head when I watched this is the Tropical thunder bit with Robert Downey Jr. Not that that's what they're doing here. I see it as they're taking that history of the character and playing with it here. He's not the butt of any jokes. I mean, Sam Diamonds says offensive things to him, because that would be his character to be insensitive to ethnic groups, right, calls Poirot frenchie at one point, calls him frenchie, says Belie.

She goes backwards on a couple of times in the text of the movie. He's just as smart as everybody else there, and they lambass the broken English. You know, use your goddamn prepositions, use your articles, use your pronouns, Truman Capote, don't try to tell me to use pronouns. He just never used pronouns. Yeah, my pronouns are he because I'll never be him.

What was that what I heard the other day was my pronouns are like chocolate their Hershey, okay, oh sure, is that what you're calling uncomfortable silence? I don't know what you call that? Yeah, Like, how dare you bring your agenda into this show? I know my woke agenda, like I mentioned earlier. Not beside this, we have a little bit of gay baiting.

We have some oh my god, homophobia, Sam Diamond, Like the gay baiting was worse. Like I feel like the gay baiting was just like came out of nowhere all of a sudden. It's like, oh, and then you were gay, Like wait what like wait, wow? I mean you've got Truman cap as the bad guy and then also like yeah, all the gay stuff when it comes to the wall Lionel Twain or ye whoever the murderer as Spencon Mom. Yeah, and then all the stuff with Sam Diamond, you know how to Oh yeah, Twain picked him up in a gay bar.

I was working straight. Sam. We got to talk about all those bodybuilder magazines suspects. I felt like that was more egregious. Yeah, I think it's just age if it's egregious at all.

Frankly, like, I don't know, taking the piss out of a tough guy model. That's what I felt to Sam Speed and Philip Marlowe characters, which I think if you read those books and watch those films, you're going to get a lot of those tough guys. What are they covering up for? Why are they acting so tough instead of being hard boiled, They're a little soft boiled, if you don't. They played with it a little bit in The Cheap Detective Too well, they definitely played just with homosexuality overall.

I mean with Joel Cairo speaking of Peter, Laurie Wilmer and Gutman inside of Maltese Falcon, all three of them are gay characters, right, folks. Good in this though he's good. Speaking of gay characters, it really is kind of a fight between him and Coco as to who is the stronger character. Every time I watch it, I picked somebody new. I like Dick and Dora.

I love a lot of her lines. She well, and she's right. I think she solves a mystery pretty she and uh is it perry A. I think we're both correct on it before anybody else. And man, Maggie Smith is so good.

She is very funny at this. Yeah, what a surprise as someone who is a fan of Harry Potter, I know, seeing her later in her career and then Downtown Abbey. She's great here. She has really good comedic timing too, Yes, which is not something at people my age would necessarily know her for. It's really said to me because I love Elsa Lancaster and I don't think that she gets enough here, and I really wanted her to have more to this.

I agree. I mean, same with James Cromwell. Frankly, I mean, I know it's his first role, but like James Cromwell's amazing and everything everything my bottomwell goes on to be Yeah, that whole thing is amazing, But didn't Cromwell go On to be in The Cheap Detective as well. Yeah, he's in there too, so Lane Brennan, Peter Falk, of course, Cromwell, and I think Cocoa might have also James j Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had never actually seen that before until watching this, and then I was like, oh, okay, and yeah, I was kind of thinking, is it a sequel? But no, definitely not.

Yeah, I had read a couple of years ago, just looking up the movie and then seeing that down below and assuming it was a sequel written by Simon, directed by Robert Morrigan's four or five people from the movie are in there, But no, it's it's more of a real spoof on those Marlowe Boguard actually, I should say, because it's Casablanca on the Maltese Falcon. The madelan Con character Miss Mountenegro, how every time she shows up she has different names and it just keeps lying and lying and lying. And that was a good bit. I mean that really, you know, was very Merry asked, Yeah, I liked talking about bow Art and murdered by death the whole like, you know, you know how to whistle, don't you? And she's like, yeah, of course I do.

You just ruined it. Now you ruined a bit. You know how to whistle, don't you? Baby? Forget it?

You ruined it. Like we were talking about with Maggie Smith her what does she say? And they're talking about who would want to steal a dead body? And then he leans in and tells, Oh, gosh, that's tacky. That's really tacky.

I just love her delivery of that. That's tacky, that's really tacky. There are so many good performances in this and that's what I can't say. It saves it for me because I like the tomfoolery of the script. I love the nonsensicalness of it.

I just enjoy this movie from top to bottom. I don't have an issue with that ending because I believe that's what they're building up to the whole time. I guess I don't have an issue with it. The more we sit here and talk about it, it more. It just it really feels like the movie is.

It's it's cute, ce right. We all have to agree it's cute, Cie. What they're doing. It's like it's silly. Yeah, I mean right, and yeah, I guess for me, it's just I don't know.

I get it. I actually get it, Like I get the appeal. It's just it's just a little it's maybe a little too silly for me. Maybe that's it, which again, like y'all totally get I'm sure, so oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. I think that maybe the part that kind of bugs me is when they show the Nancy Walker character at the end with the mask, because then it's just like what it was, so nothing mattered then, right, Okay, it's like a head scratcher, right, And so like maybe that for me, it's just like the movie is just like nothing matters.

So the second time I watched it, I kind of got that more. I understood it more. But again, I think the ending of this and Clue are very similar. I think this just kind of goes in a more absurd angle. Clue wants to give you an answer to that question.

This movie is not really interested in in solving the murder because, like you mentioned with your quote at the beginning, Mike, there isn't one unless he's killing himself, which is what they I guess they kind of even say that at one point, they're like, oh, you could have killed himself, and it's like, well, I guess kind of did Part of it is what age were you when you saw Clue? Chris the first time? Twelve see and I was seeing this when I was young. I didn't see Clue until just a few years ago. I remember when it came out, and I probably would have been about the same age as you when you first saw it.

But I just remember the whole controversy quote unquote as far as if you go to see it at a movie theater, you might see this ending or this ending or the ending that weird gimmick that they were doing. And it wasn't until it hit the whole video that they put all the endings on, and I was just like, I don't want to go to a movie theater. And I don't know if that's even true if they did have different versions at different leaders, okay, And I was just like, that's real. I was offended as even as a kid. I was just like, well, I don't want to go to a movie theater and see one ending and then I have to go rewatch the entire film to see a different ending.

I'm trying to think of another gimmicky type of thing that they've done like that recently, and I'm just like, yeah, no, I'll wait. And it was before home video was really even a thing. And then I just waited forever, and I kept seeing those gifts of Madlin Khan, just fire flames all that. I'm just like, I have to see this movie now. And then that cast I was just like, oh my god, why didn't I ever see this before?

I mean god, I mean Tim Curry as freaking amazing and then Colin Camp Holy shit. As a twelve year old boy, I really would have liked that movie. Yes, And that's the thing. I mean, you know, you beat me to it. You're You're completely right, you know if I think, I think if I had seen this first, I would feel probably the way you feel about Clue.

I would feel the same way I saw it. I mean, I like the Clue a lot when I saw it, but yeah, I get it though my first love. Yeah right, And to be fair, I mean the whole thing with the ending, like I think maybe it's taking the gimmick a little too far, but at the same time, like it's kind of dumb. It's like William Castle level of dumb. Like that's that's like, you know, like the Tangler.

It'll get you in your seat, like there's a different ending at three different movie theaters, Like okay, it's kind of dumb. Well, it's kind of ingenious. Nobody else has done it since that's an infuriating cheat to me, This movie cheats at the end, but that at least it's one you're seeing the only But there is like one ending at the end of Clue, like there is the one. I mean, if you watch it now at in any release, there is a ending that is the ending. I yeah, I mean, I I yeah, I mean no version of the movie you would have watched in the theater would be the version you get on the home release.

So I don't Clue's weird. I think it has been reappraised a lot recently. I see a lot of love for it out there. Yeah, I think this movie deserves some of it too. I think it's just, you know, the whole yellow face thing is probably what's keeping that because these characters are still relevant.

These characters are a literary relevant characters. Jesus Christ. People are more into Agathy Christie now than they probably ever have been because so many people are doing these like Agatha Christie riffs like Lucy Lucy Foley's the guest list like a couple years ago, which is essentially just then then there were none but in like two thousand and twenty. So I feel like this movie if people could get past the yellow face, which again not asking people too, because I get it. I think there's an audience for this movie.

I think Keino or somebody would probably find an audience with this movie. I think, yeah, it's just unfortunate that yellow face is not a good look. Ever, when people talk about the New Knives out, or when they talked about it in the past, this is my suggestion for this kind kind of old dark house set up, locked room murder, right. I mean that was the Sherlock Holmes thing. Man, that's you know, how did this happen in this house or on this island?

That's what A portion of the second act of this movie is them trying to stay in that one room so that they can avoid one of them getting killed, and then they keep getting pulled out, and of course that's when the murder happens. I do love the silliness of it. It's my kind of silly. It does hit on some of the same silliness as airplane or police squad and with wordplay, or a lot of that is due to the accents of either Poi, Row or Wang. The absurdities of having all this amazing electronic equipment in the house that can move a whole room so that you get a room filled with empty people, which is one of my favorite lines from the film, room with empty people.

And they have a the weather machine too, the weather machine. I love all the eyeballs poking out of paintings and the moosehead and that stuff, just for whatever reason. And if it's nostalgia, that's fine. But I have seen movies that I saw when I was a kid that don't work for me anymore. This one still works.

I like the jokes of this I think the jokes land more than they don't. Other than the frustrating ending, it's still really fun to watch. Cheap Detective. I don't know that I'll go back to that. It had a lot of the same kind of humor, but it was a little too specific and had a lot of different story threads, too many story threads.

It seemed like a lot of it wasn't flushed out. But I know that I will return to this movie annually, if not more. It still works for me. I don't know if I just give Peter Sellers to pass, because he was always doing makeup things and just his whole he's a pretty subversive comedian, like he was not playing what everybody else expected all the time, like this is in his realhouse right well, and he was very difficult to work with from everything that I've heard as well, his whole thing of like, oh, I'm going to play this French inspector and just as the most the frenchest French inspector ever, to the point where I think, even like the other French people like Herbert Laham, I think is supposed to be French as well.

He can't even understand them sometimes putting out makeup, doing different roles, all this kind of stuff. I'm surprised that it wasn't him doing every single detective role. It was kind of a coup having him and Alec Guinness in the same movie, since they were kind of known for the same thing. Between what was at the Lavender Hill Mob where Guinness played like seven or eight characters, and like you get Doctor Strange Love, where he's playing at least three characters. Peter Seller said, is and I think he would play multiple characters in multiple things.

I think the only person that was missing was Jerry Lewis and now Eddie Murphy who also really loves that stuff. Peter Sellers gets to work with Alan Guinness again and who was his idol apparently, and like you said, I think it was kind Hearts and Cornetts, where it's the nine characters that Guinness plays. Thank you tally with that one. He gets to do a little bit of that at the end here and having you know, talked about the man in the white suit and not really realizing that Guinness did that before Sellers and then Sellers has done that and it doesn't really play different characters in Lolita, but he acts like different people in that and then of course Strange Love and and it's also not the first time that he's played a non white about to say, his last movie he plays doctor Fu Manchu and his last movie too well, and he does an Indian character in the Party that's right and very much is almost tight.

Yeah, yeah, it would make a pooh go oh, that's just too much, my friend. Yeah, And it's not something that they gave much thought to back then. I mean, to be fair, they do now, but barely right, only when they get in trouble for it, because they still don't cast actors that are Middle Eastern. In a lot of movies like Black Adam, Looking Naked, Gun thirty three and a third that we just watched, there's still that low level racism throughout the film. Rights.

Yeah, it hasn't gone away. It's just you. You can't be as overt as he used to be. That's kind of all. It really feels like.

I walked away from this movie wondering was the Peter Sellers performance the only thing keeping this movie from being clue level loved. I don't think there's anything else, because this movie is more or less even with it being a little too silly for my taste, it's still still a fun movie, would have an audience and deserves an audience, a more contemporary audience. I think maybe the Peter Sellers thing just it's got to be too much for some people. I guess it has to be. Oh, I'm sure it is.

That's a shame. It really is a shame, because he's not bad. It's just problematic, as we might say today. Yeah, and I see that when it comes up on Twitter or other places. I see that other than the yellow face in the film, which is very disturbing, it's the laugh you know, Yeah, people recognize it and still watch it, or maybe you know a lot of people don't because of that.

It's too bad because these actors all together pretty good, pretty funny, have a lot of really good chemistry, and they're kind of small interactions together, like James Cromwell and James Coco, but even in kind of the broader interactions, they're all really funny because it's i mean, it's those scenes where they're all in the room together where this movie is make it or break it, right, I mean, that's what makes Clue so good, are those couple of scenes where they're all in these rooms together kind of having these ping pong pinball dialogue, words like thin bing bing binging, just constantly interacting with each other in an interesting and kind of entertaining way. And this movie does it. I mean, even with Peter Sellers sitting there in the grossest looking yellow face, because he's like dried out corn husk of a man, like even that, he still funny, Like it's still funny and you laugh at what he's saying, not at him in yellow face.

Yeah, it's it's a shame, but it's it's a This is a fun movie, and if you're a fan of these characters in their literary forms, you definitely owe it to yourself to check this movie out. We're going to take a break and play some messages and we will be back after that to finish up our discussion of Murder by Death and films like it, some of which we've already talked about. All Right, we are back and still talking about Murder by Death, and so what are some other murder mystery spoofs? Mike, we both watched The Chief Detective. I don't know if Chris did.

Yeah, it was okay, it was okay. Yeah, that was all right, And it's not so much a murder mystery spoof. It's just more of a noir spoof. I was kind of surprised when an open up that it was widescreen and it had a little bit bigger budget. Maybe so, I don't know if how well Murder by Death did in the theater, but it seems like well enough to get half the cast back and continue with the same kind of Sam Spade Philip Marlowe character, with Peter Falk returning and Whenever I watch this, I think of the Last of Sheila.

I know that Knives Out films aren't a spoof, but I feel like they're playing with those tropes like this does in a different way, and also calling back specifically to this movie. The new movie has Angela Lansbury. Angela Lansbury, Oh yeah, she's basically Miss Marple for the eighties and right, and it has a little Stephen Sondheim in there too, who helped co write that right right. I think that would be fun to do a movie with literary characters and like Columbo, because that's the thing we talked to you, Like we mentioned with Murder Can Hurt You. It's kind of funny that Peter Folk is in this movie doing the Sam Spade thing, and then a movie that is kind of like this movie comes along that is paroding his character from something else that he's in.

While he's doing this, he's doing his own thing as Colombo. So Bert Young doing the Colombo thing. I think we talked about it then we did that episode. He like steals the show in that movie almost to the same way Peter Folk steals the show here. But I think it would be interesting to do a thing now where it's literary and film or TV characters kind of all together, because I think that's if someone was to do this now, they would probably do it in that way, so you could kind of cover all the bases, because now with everything being adapted it it's kind of the lines are blurred.

But I don't know. I guess Glass Onion, this Knives Out Ryan Johnson thing is the closest nobody. It's not that nobody's doing this, but people are still reading these books. It's not just that these movies are probably going to have a resurgence now given that Glass Onion Knives Out are more popular than ever. We're going to see more of this stuff.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Sherlock comes back and stuff. I'm expecting a kind of resurgence and murder mysteries and the literary world has kind of been reflecting it, and now I think the movies and stuff are really We're going to see a resurgence in this kind of stuff. I really think so, which I'm honestly all here for really funny. You know, we talked on The Shabby Detective about who would make a good Colombo these days and I brought up Natasha Leone and she's going to be in the next Ryan Johnson project, which is she's able to tell when people can are lying to her. It's called poker Face and it's a new mystery series, so maybe it'll be a little Colombo esque.

But then you get that weird supernatural thing, which I'm not a big fan of. I guess speaking of supernatural and faking and that kind of stuff, psych might have been as close to a parody detective type of thing these days, as opposed to like the nineteen seventies which we're talking about with the cheap detective and murdered by death. Nineteen seventies were ripe with this kind of stuff, this whole idea of like high anxiety, which was parodying all of the Hitchcock movies, The Blackbird with George Siegel, there was I thought there was one with Whichard Dreyfust. I'm not sure if that was a parody or not. I just remember remember the video box cover which made it look like it was.

And then even like foul Play. You know, I know you're a big Fletch fan, Chris, But when I think it was right after the break was Saturday Night Live, Chevy Chase was doing memory service and remind me Mark. I think he did two or three movies with Goldie Hawn. Yeah, at least one of those, and I can't remember foul Play or another one was kind of a parody again of Hitchcock stuff because I remember the whole symbol crash. Okay.

Yeah, it's one of my favorite movies again from around this time, little later, but it's on my list, like I've heard having gotten into these murder mystery novels, like I want to watch it. It's great. Is that the one too with Dudley Moore? Yes, Oh my god. The Dudley Moore scene is amazing.

I think when I was younger, I got more of a kick out of it than I do now. It's a little dated as far as the sexuality of it and what he's trying to do with Goldie Hawn and all that. It's an understated Chevy Chase role, so it's not all the slapstick and I'm an idiot and all that stuff. It's one of my favorite Chevy Chase films, and it is one that I showed my daughter and she enjoyed because of we were trying to watch all these murder mysteries and clues in there, as well as boofing that, and but yeah, I'll play is maybe we'll have to do that because I love that movie. I haven't seen it, and forever I would not be opposed to rewatching that.

I have never seen. It seems like Old Times is the only other one I remember, But if I feel there was another one, maybe that was the only two that they did. But I think foul Play was his first after leaving. It was Goldie Haunt in the movie with the Dog where Chevy Chase becomes the dog. Oh Heavenly Dog.

I don't think she in that one. I don't think. Don't think so either. I keep bringing that movie up. I've never seen it.

It sounds like I never really enjoyed it, Okay, I just those Chevy Chase movies are so hit or miss. Like I was a big fan of all the Benji movies personally. I mean they got a little long in the tooth as they went along. But Oh Heavenly Dog, I remember really liking. You know, the other one I just thought of that might fit in this whole detective parity thing is so I married an Axe Murderer because that ends up being pretty much a detective movie as they go along.

But that's more like the modern detective where it's somebody who's not a detective who gets kind of thrust into that. I mean, it's it's the Hitchcock stuff though. Yeah, what we talked about with like film Laar and stuff, there's always the reluctant detective character, right, yeah, well that and that's this is what I was saying, Like Jack Reacher is is a detective like he is. It's you don't want to call him that because maybe it sounds a little pastoral and a little pastiche but whatever, he's a detective, just like Sherlock Holmes was. And I, like I said, I've spent so much last year.

I probably spent half of the year reading these kinds of books. And it's just I wish there was more of this stuff in cinema because it does really feel TV is where a lot of it is. To cinema needs more serialized murder mysteries outside because again, like I know why it's popular on TV because it's so easy. But maybe I'm complaining in Knives Out exists, So that's on me and it's my problem that I don't like the thing that it is. So that Holmes and Watson movie great example of a perfect it's perfect.

The fact that Will Farrell is playing Sherlock Holmes, Oh my god, stroke of casting genius. I didn't have the guts to watch that one. I can't even tell if you're lying or not. I saw it in theaters. Wow, and you actually like that.

I don't remember anything about it. There's one good joke right at the end of the movie that I did laugh at. It's kind of like what they're trying to do here. They're trying to take some characters that everybody knows and do something funny with them. But the people who made it don't understand the source material.

And that's one of the things you've got to be able to do, is understand the source material. And I think Neil Simon understands it here. And I think that that's why it's such a shame that this movie doesn't get talked about more. And like why you ask, Mark, are there other ones? Because this one deserves to be mentioned along with all these other ones that we're talking about.

It just really doesn't you mentioned High Anxiety and that's a direct Hitchcole's Woe with very direct pulls from numerous films of his, and I enjoy that film for what it is, but yeah, I had to choose between that kind of parody and this kind this broader, less specific. I'm always going to choose the broader ones, which I think is again why I prefer Airplane to the Naked Gun films, and even the episodes of Police Squad that we've talked about to the Naked Gun films. Third one that we're going to talk about in a few days here, that opening is a direct spoof of a seven year old movie spoofing The Untouchables, and that instead of just a broad spoof of cop shows or cop movies. I just like it when it's broader and I can kind of fill in the blanks and say, okay, this is that, this is Agatha Christie characters, got it.

I don't need to know necessarily anything about a specific story. Just kind of roll my eyes when I see that done shot for shot of something that I already know, but with a fart joke in it or something. I and Mark Begley just wrote epic movie Ladies and Jenna that's The issue, I think, at least that I have with most of these kinds of parodies is just I watched Spaceballs last week and that movie almost doesn't work for me because it's two goddamn Star Wars, Like I wanted more Star Trek. Like the stuff that they do in there that's not Star Wars specifically is the funniest stuff, like when will then be? Now?

All the things about Spaceballs, the movie Spaceballs, the merchandise, like, there's so much good stuff in there, but when they do like the specific Star Wars stuff, it's just like, oh my god, I want to just I want to watch anything else but this. That's exactly how I feel. That's one of my lesser viewed mel Brooks films because it is I mean, I love Young Frankenstein. We've talked about. I mentioned Airplane, I think is the best parody probably overspoken that Young Frankenstein probably holds that spot, and we know what it's riffing as far as at least the first two Universal Frankenstein films, but the rest of it is so broad well, I think it's also telling someone like Spencer Parsons, who's been on your show plenty.

Mike and was recently on the Culture Cast talking about Frankenstein Unbound. He loves Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein is his favorite version of Frankenstein. And I think that's telling of what that is, right, that it can be someone's favorite version of a story, but yet also is the parody version of it that I think most people would go to as the singular parody version of Frankenstein. Well, it tells such a story, you know, and it tells a story that isn't told in the Frankenstein story. This whole thing of this man who's been haunted by his past, haunted by the Frankenstein name so much that he changes at the Frankenstein and all this and just it really takes you through this whole thing, and it's very solid, like even if it wasn't funny, it would be a solid script.

And then that it's funny and hilarious on top of it. I mean, oh my god, the Gene Hackman scene alone so good, and it's even funnier because of Gene Hackman, and it's Gene Hackman in what nineteen seventy six or whatever it is, and it's just like this is even better that this is in this movie. I went to see Brighter Frankenstein and I'm cracking up. It's kind of like trying to watch you are right, I'm watching Brighter Frankenstein, and as soon as the old man comes on screen, I'm just like, oh my god, oh friend, friend, Oh yes, we'll have a smoke. And I'm just like waiting for him to like lightest thumb on fire, you know, wait where are you going?

I was gonna make a spreads. I didn't know for years that was Gene Hackman, and that oh god for zero good. Even though I saw his name in the credits, I'm like, who does he play? Couldn't recognize him, didn't even recognize his voice. I didn't know he was in that movie.

And I've only seen that movie once, So I think I should be changing that. Yeah. Yeah, Kenneth Mars as that inspector with the fake arm and all that, you know, and especially when he's like cheating at darts. SAT's all in those movies. He is a character in I think Bright Again.

Yeah, it's done so broadly, and it goes to that absurd level with that his arm getting stuck and putting his darts in there and all that and being used as a battering ram, it elevates itself above the original material, more so than something like high anxiety, which is like birds sitting on me. Yeah, the birds scene is what really gets to me. I really just didn't enjoy that very much at all. There were a couple of things like the whole like and this wasn't even a Hitchcock thing. It was a pair of you a blow up, and how he's like looking at that photo and the photos keep getting bigger and bigger until it's like even larger than life.

A thing. Oh that looks I mean, like, I mean, Ron Carrey kind of saves that movie for me with this fool carrying the luggage. You know, I got it, I got it, I got it. I don't got it? Ron carry?

Huh yeah, Ron Carry? Who's he's in my favorite I'm one of those weirdos that likes History of the World Part one, which is getting Love Now. I didn't even know was a thing. I saw like the thing it was like History of the World part two, and I was like, wait what now? But again, like that's broad too, like that could have been these weird like specific things, and it's just it's the fact that if you know what you want to tell, like your story about it's less of a deal to make it funny than when you're doing this thing that this like murder by Death makes a case for a successful this kind of movie that's very unsuccessful most of the time.

Take these characters and just putting them all in a room together. We have not seen very many of these movies be successful because the other ones that I've seen aren't. This one happens to be. Most of the time. It's just a like go as fast as you can through as many jokes, which is essentially most of these other movies we've been talking about.

Most of them aren't doing like ten of the characters in a room together, all of them kind of their own parody in and of themselves. Does that make sense, Like they're all parodies of something in a parody movie. Most of the movies are just a parody movie with characters in them. So Murder by Death is I think a little bit more impressive. But there's only like one or two of these movies that really exist.

Most of the other ones are these big broad like mel Brooksie and things where you've got eight million different jokes that you're telling and you're trying to find a way to make them work with a plot that's spaceballs or blazing saddles. Yea, this definitely has a plot. I mean it has Yeah, it's a trophy plot. I mean it's the old Dark House or then there were none. Right, A lot of it has to do with characters being solid and the actors portraying them being solid as well.

And from what I've read all of their rehearse you know, they should have recorded their rehearsals because it was such a laugh fest. Oh yeah, it's apparent that they had at least a decent amount of time to rehearse because the timing and this, and part of that is the editing of the film, But the timing is just spot on. They all feel like fully fleshed out characters, which is just the most impressive thing is that they're all fully fleshed out characters that all work really well together. But again, because one of those characters is who they are, that's the ultimate downfall of the movie. That's talking about the nerve.

I can't help it, man, I can't help it. I can't help talking about the old lady people. Yeah, right, man, one of the better jokes in the movie that they just kind of use right out of the gate with the onale Mists marvels like, oh my god, Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, definitely got me the first time I watched it as a kid, and I think it even got me on I repeat viewing five or so years ago and she's really old. Oh wait, it's not her.

Honestly, the fact that they have those jokes with Truman Capote constantly correcting Peter Sellers, it's kind of surprising that, like you mentioned, Mark, they didn't just have the whole broken English thing is an act. It is. It almost feels like they're right there. They're right there that entire time. It may have been a consideration, who knows, you know, I, like I said, and I have thought about this because of this problematic aspect of it is there is definitely an easy way to have done it differently either with him.

Yeah, I mean, he actually didn't need to be in makeup at all for one thing, which could have been the gag could have been an actual Asian American actor. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. You could even flip it and have Charlie Chan be Asian, an actual Asian person playing and have a white guy be his son, and then and even make the white guy you could have him speaking broke in English or just like, we don't understand how this worked, or maybe your mom was stepping out on me kind of thing. Man not mentioned it as adopted in any way, exactly like that whole weird thing they did on the Louis c k Show where he had a black wife and white kids, and they never discussed it could be like that, but better and not as problematic.

I don't know, Louiske's pretty problematic. Speaking of the most problematic thing brought up on this episode, Peter Sellers looks tame compared to that. Oh boy, yeah, though I don't know him whipping it out in front of some of his female co workers might have been his style. In front of Eileen Brennan, Oh boy. We have mentioned her a couple of times, but she's also in clue yes, and she's great in this I love I mean interstankless role.

That the totally most, the most thankless role in the entire She's great. Yeah, Oh god, yeah, well that that joke. It got even longer in the TV cut. This whole thing of like Nick and Nora stop and ask her, like what's going on? And then they just drive off without her, Like Okay, that's great.

What does she say, I'm scared? Right, So it was he's I could go fall in love with the Japanese boy or something alone, leave me alone. Gosh, she is good in this and I that was another reason to watch Murder of My Death. After we watched Clue, I was like, well, she's in both the rights. I think she's better in this one.

But oh well, she's given more to do in this. Yeah, the other movie, she's just she's one of the least used characters in the other movie. She's good here. I mean again, she is good playing just such a downtrodden character, can't help but feel sorry for taking his abuse the whole time. And yeah, well Jay, I mean James Cromwell and her yep, even the nurse kind of so good.

Yeah, and Richard Narrita all played these like characters that are getting mercilessly belittled by their masters. Can reminds me. There was a great episode of Mystery Inc. The Redo of a reboot of Scooby Doo, one of the incarnations, where it was all the sidekicks, Like you remember how all the Hannah Barbara characters were drawn the exact same and there were so many that were modeled off of Scooby Doo. So there was like a guy that looked like Shaggy and so many different cartoons and they would have like jabber Jaw, and there was one like the Centennial something or other.

There was a ghost that was going around. There was Captain Caveman. Just all of these different groups and all of the sidekicks had got separated from the rest of the group and they had to save the gangs that they worked with. And it was really smart. I almost to that point.

It would have been interesting had because all of these sidekicks are really solid actors said they just had them like have to if all of the detectives were getting knocked off and it was more of a ten little Indians or ten little n words as the original title was, all right, hold on, so now the strike of the column goes to most problematic thing. Mike, You've got it now, Yeah, so christ there, but it like had all of those guys been getting knocked off and it was up to the sidekicks to solve the mystery. And then like in Scooby Doo you find out that they're all actually tied up in a room someplace. Y're not getting murdered kind of thing. You should just write this story, I know, why aren't we the story that says like, you've got the story right there, all you gotta do is figure And then it turns out at the end that one of the good guys is actually the bad guy.

Sure. That's another deleted scene in this though, is Richard Narita finds a note in that sinal Twain's hand says something like I beat all you, I've solved it or whatever, and then he opens it up and it's another receipt or something. Right. I just love how he is so just southern California college student kid. Holy shang, hi, Yeah, someone's getting murdered in their pap.

Oh he's so good. I like him and everything. I see that guy in Oh my God. He was a staple of seventies and eighties. Teen He must have been like every single show.

I wonder how many times he was on mash because they would find like a handful of Asian people and they would just be like, oh, we have to use this guy constantly. I know, he was on at least once, at the very least once between Mash and Kung Fu. It was like Asian actors just had it like for a little bit. They're like, well, I can do every once in a while, like Quincy might call kind of things. So had their one.

So yeah, exactly. Oh, just so you know, while you guys were talking, I looked up and Goldenhaun and Chevy Chase were only in two movies together. I kept thinking, there's three. Oh Heavenly Dog was Jane Seymour and that was actually Oh Henley Dog was Benchie's third project he had done for the love of Benji, Benji's Very Own Christmas Story, which is a TV movie, and then Oh Heavenly Dog, And then he had several things afterwards, including an uncredited walk on role in Training Places twenty twenty three's Benji Cast. Coming to you from the weirding Way media folks, because hey, we don't have enough to do as it is, as if we can't get more niche.

Yeah, how are we going to bring our woke agenda to Benji? You know what we should do. We should create a podcast. This is so fucking stupid. The Gary Sniche Podcast we would have, So we just talk about all those Gary Sinies movies You've always wanted to hear people talk about.

You know what movie hasn't come up that. I'm surprised you haven't talked about Chris's TRANSLVINGI six five thousand. I mean that's kind of a parody of Ye, so many of these things. I mean it kind of dark house. Yeah, isn't it definitely with monsters though, Am I getting that right?

I still haven't seen it. No, no real monsters. We're just gonna bring it up and move on. That movie has its defenders. And if you're listening right now, you know who you are, and just leave it, give it a rest.

You're wrong. I've fallen down to James cromwell comedy rabbit Hole. By the way. I'm just seeing him in so many things, like he was in a seventy six TV special, sorry, seventy eight TV special called Peeping Times, where he played a character named Bernard Manti mel Brooks, was Adolph Hitler, Ron Carey as Angelo Brittonelli, and David Letterman as Dan Cochrane, among other people. And I'm just like, I didn't realize how many funny things James Cromwell.

Did I love James Cromwell. He's so good and he's great in this oh him and La Confidential. Yeah, he's amazing in that he gets very little to do in the Chief Detective. He's unamused in that, almost as little as said Caesar, who doesn't even get to speak for a long time. They were trying to do again that specificity thing by yeah, spoofing these particular scenes.

They should have stuck to like one or two of those movies. Yeah, because you've got the Nazis come and go. Yeah, that whole thing was said Caesar is just tacked on at the end. Jonathan Banks though, as the Cabby towards the end there shows up. That was amazing.

Yes, he was so young, had all of his hair. It just was too spread out, spread, too thin, like too little bits for something. They would say. I was well, God, yeah, you know what though, I'm glad we watched this movie. This is a good one, and I think that the Glass Onion Murder and Murder Out Knives Out crowd would definitely be into a movie like this, even with some of the more quote problematic unquote things that it does have.

I think this movie would still really be a lot of fun for a certain group of people that are still getting into these things. I mean, Colombo is super popular now, so if this something like this couldn't be right in their wheelhouse, I don't know what would be. But people are really into murder mysteries again, so I'm pretty positive. He says, it's one of the inspirations, at least for the first film. I'm sure quite a few people saw it when that one came out, and now that the new one's out.

Yeah, I'm trying to get the word out myself. Ryan Johnson can't make a Star Wars movie to save his fucking life, but he can make a murder mystery movie that a lot of people really liked. Oh yeah, I like the first one. I like the first one as well. I mean I really like stuff like Brick.

Right, you were gonna say don't forget. I was like, he's gonna mention Brick. Oh yeah, no, Brick is fucking fantastic. For the longest time, that was like the street Cred movie thing, like you would get like Street Cred among a certain group of movie fans by being like, hey, you guys, seem brick. It was like the high school film noir movie of your like indie film dreams of the mid two thousands.

When people would say who the fuck is Ryan Johnson? I would say, Brick is an amazing movie. I just don't know why they hired him to make a Star Wars movie, because he had the wrong kind of person to make the wrong kind of movie. I get his heart was probably in the right place whatever, but if he's a fan of this kind of stuff, which he clearly is given what he cut his teeth on, should be making more stuff like this again. Knives Out was whatever.

I'm glad people like it because hopefully the new one is better than the last one, and I'll like the new one more. I'm fine if he wants to make more movies like Looper as well. I really enjoyed the a lout of that one. Ryan Johnson is better suited to stuff like this, where the expectation is to subvert your expectations. Like Murdered by Death, the ending of the movie subverts your expectations for what the movie's trying to do, which is why the ending didn't really work for me and Ryan Johnson.

In a murder mystery, you have to constantly be subverting your expectations in the twists are right? Oh boy, oh boy. I mean that whole melt down about glass Onion that Ben Shapiro had where he just doesn't understand what mysteries are. That was just the best thing. I'm just like, Wow, you just don't know how this.

You would like this one? You like this one? He would not like a you got mad about glass Onion? Yeah, yeah, because because the first half because oh okay, so, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell a mystery, right, he would probably. I mean, has he ever seen Psycho?

He's like, we spent so much time with this Marrion Crane character. She never comes back and scream Psycho. These movies you would not like them. The beginning character dies within the first ten to fifteen minutes of the movie. It's like, what do you have you heard of a narrative storytelling here?

Like oh god, Game of Thrones that, oh my god, can you watch that first season that at the end. There's so many movies that it wouldn't work. You know what they're do you know that Bruce Willis was dead the entire time? Oh my god, ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell you something. Rosebud was the name of a sled the entire time.

It was a slid, not a creature, not a human. Like what you're just grasping at this point. If you want to get offended, there's plenty to get offended about when Peter Sellers has yellow face on. But don't get mad that there's a fake out in a movie because don't watch Saint Elsewhere then Boyau of Gods the most egregious example. You want to get mad about gay baiting and everything else, fine, but like you want, don't getting mad about people's narrative choices.

Just god whatever, man already anything else about murder Bite check it out, Keno, or somebody take a chance on it. I want to say it got a release in the last couple of years, but I could be wrong. I didn't bother to look that up. But I want to say either it did or is going to. Well, they haven't asked me to do the commentary, so I don't care.

Mike White, who, Well, they might now know that you've done self professed yellow face. They might yeah, shout and select, which also had a conversation with Neil Simon. New audio commentary by Lee Gambon friend of the projection booth. Theatrical trailer photo gallery does not say the deleted scenes or scenes for television. Unfortunately.

I would like to see that there's no alternate cut either. Now those scenes are out on YouTube. I actually put one in the chat so that, Yeah, I'm going to check this out. I should have found that earlier. I always forget to do that.

I forget as well well, because you know it's piracy. I want to support the proper disc companies. And yes, it is very true, very true. That is a good point, right, Yes, we work within the system here. Yes, yes, breeding weight media.

I did not watch this movie on a uh never mind, just just out ourselves. So when I always have to cut comments about my route, so I'm going to force you to do it now. Oh boy, everybody always brings it up all the I always have to cut that shit out of my show. So here you go, Mark, you get to cut this out. Remind me to tell you about the other day after we'd talking.

I can't wait for future, Mark. This is where you can stop cutting all this in. So when you're not talking about murder mysteries that can found you, Chris. Where can people find you. You can find me along with a whole raft of things over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

That is the podcast network that well, this lovely gentleman here Mike White and I created to uh, well, how's all the stuff that we work on, including this show right here that you're listening to, right mister Bagley? What yes? I like how Mike wave to the audience there. Well, but when Chris is like this gentleman, I'm like, I pointed at Bagley, this guy right here. I don't know who's situated where because Mike's down here and you're over here.

AnyWho, how about you, mister Mike White. I'm on that raft, that raft that Chris was talking about of shows. I'm there. I'm riding the raft down the rapids and rapidly coming out in new episodes of the Projection Booth every single darn week. So catch me out wading Waymedia dot com or Rejection Booth podcast dot com.

And you can find wicka Hippie on the weird Way Media dot com website as well wake Up Heavy dot com. You can find me at wake Up Heavy on all those social media sites. Speaking of shows on Weirdingwaymedia dot com You can check out our new ten week limited series show on Police Squad, which is available now and will come out weekly for the next later nine weeks after this. Thank you everyone for listening, and have a good night. You need a catchphrase, You need a catchphrase?

Well, I forgot, don't forget, they don't forget to wake up heavy? I wait, I already told you are ready to go fuck your mother and there you go. Bang. I wish I was big just once and re saw him. You tell them now, you said, Bunny, anything can happen when you wake up heavy off before before they