Cinema Sunday: Clue

A favorite board game here at the Fortress of Ineptitude is Clue. We've played it for years, even going back to when our daughter was still in elementary school. 


It is the duty of responsible parents to imbue in their children a sense of their mortality, particularly with a mortality that may come to an end quickly and violently.  

Recently the family (myself, my wife Andrea, our daughter Randie and our dog Rosie) assembled ourselves on the sofa to experience the movie version of this beloved board game past time. 

June 9, 1954. 

It is a dark and stormy night at a secluded New England mansion. 
Wadsworth the butler and Yvette the maid greet six guests, each given a pseudonym: Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green, Professor Plum, and Miss Scarlet.



A seventh guest arrives, Mr. Boddy, a ne're do well who has been blackmailing the other guests. 
What ensues is a mishmash of chaos and deception with lots of running about and screaming as bodies start piling up, lives snuffed out by a variety of candlestick, dagger, lead pipe, revolver, rope, and wrench in various rooms all over the house. 

Yes, murder can be fun! 

Who did what to who and where? Well, there is an answer.

There are in fact three. 

There are some problematic tonal shifts in this movies. The movie tends towards farce more often than not but character motivations are shaded with a degree of solemnity that seems out of place.  An explanation of one character's involvement in these proceedings is attributed to that character's spouse committing suicide to escape naming friends who were socialists in response to Mr. Boddy's blackmail. It's a very somber moment in a narrative that is otherwise not taking itself seriously at all. There are other examples of real political themes circa 1954 that factor in the plot that are not congruent with the over farcical tone of the movie.

Clue works best when it stops trying to make sense and runs full speed into its more absurd themes. Yes, the alternative denouements of the murder mystery make a sort of sense if you're willing to suspend disbelief and just go with the flow.
Clue is a movie based on a board game. Don't take it too seriously and just enjoy the experience. 

Side bars: As perfect as Tim Curry is in the role of Wadsworth, he almost didn't get it. Leonard Rossiter was the first choice for the role but he died before filming began. Next on the list was Rowan Atkinson but that didn't work out. So Tim Curry was the producer's 3rd choice and got the role. 

The Cook was portrayed by Kellye Nakahara who was Nurse Kealani Kellye in 167 episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H. 

The Singing Telegram Girl was none other than Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's. 

The role of the The Evangelist who appears near the end of the movie is does not appear in the credits. He was played by Howard Hesseman. There was some confusion in our household in that Hesseman in 1985 looks and sounds like Michael McKean does today in 2020. At first I was wondering if McKean who was Mr. Green might be playing a duo role in old age make up.  

Reviews for Clue in 1985 were not kind. For example, Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the beginning "is the only part of the film that is remotely engaging. After that, it begins to drag." Which is the exact opposite reaction I had. I felt that once the parts of the movie were laboriously pulled together in the first part, the movie really starts engaging my attention. 

One of the things working against clue in 1985 was the three endings. Which ending you got depended on which showing you went to. It was a gimmick that did not go over very well. 
For home video, TV broadcasts, and streaming services, all three endings are shown sequentially, with the first two characterized as possible endings but the third being the true one.

Clue was fun in ways both clever and dumb.