Today's movie post is a very strange and weird murder mystery from 1973 co-written by Stephen Sondheim. (Yes, THAT Stephen Sondheim.)
Directed by Herbert Ross, this is The Last of Sheila.
Our story begins with death, a hit-and-run accident that kills gossip columnist Sheila Greene.
In the Mediterranean on his yacht, Clinton gathers everyone who was at his home the night Sheila died.
- actress Alice Wood
- her talent-manager husband Anthony Wood
- secretary turned talent agent Christine
- screenwriter Tom Parkman and his wife Lee
- and film director Philip Dexter.
Clinton Greene informs everyone that the week's entertainment will consist of "The Sheila Greene Memorial Gossip Game."
The six guests are each assigned an index card containing a secret that must be kept hidden from the others.
The object of the game is to discover everyone else's secret while protecting one's own.
Each night, the yacht anchors at a different Mediterranean port city, where one of the six secrets is disclosed to the entire group.
The guests are given a clue, then sent ashore to find the proof of who holds the card bearing that secret.
The game for that night ends when the actual holder discovers the proof.
The secrets on the cards are not made up for the game but are in fact real secrets about this group. And designed to uncover who was the driver who hit and killed Sheila Greene.
The game runs into problems on the 2nd day when someone in our cast turns up dead: Clinton Greene, the game master himself.
Yet everyone is compelled to keep playing the game.
Who killed Clinton?
Who killed Sheila?
What follows is a twisted mystery that unfolds as secrets are exposed but leading only to more questions. None of these people are especially likeable and none can be trusted at all.
Director Rian Johnson cited The Last of Sheila as an inspiration for his films Knives Out and Glass Onion, which includes Sondheim's last film appearance.
The story behind the movie makes for it's own compelling narrative.
A movie set had to be built at the last minute when filming on the yacht was deemed untenable.
Then the yacht sank.
The first cameraman was fired.
And then there was whatever drama was going down between director Herbert Ross and actress Raquel Welch. Welch was notorious for her bad behavior on the set which she blamed on stress from where Ross allegedly assaulted her in her dressing room.
The studio sided with Ross (it was the 1970's so... duh!) and co-star George Mason described Welch as "the most selfish, ill-mannered, inconsiderate actress that I've ever had the displeasure of working with". (Which sounds exactly like the sort of thing George Mason would say.)
Future film director Joel Schumacher worked on the film as costume designer.
The Last of Sheila was described by film critic Roger Ebert as "the kind of movie that wraps you up in itself, and absorbs you at the very time you're being impressed by its cleverness. And it leaves you thinking maybe Sheila got off easy, after all."
I first saw The Last of Sheila about a year ago and it's airing again tonight at 8 PM Eastern on TCM.
It is a clever whodunit murder mystery that I enjoyed more than I expected I would.
