Murder By Death

• Main
• All Subpages
  • Funny
  • Trivia
  • YMMV
• Create New

I've just got one last question...

A 1976 Mystery-Comedy film written by Neil Simon with a star studded cast parodying the Mystery Fiction Genre in the vein of Agatha Christie.

Five of the world's greatest detectives are invited to a dinner party by the enigmatic Lionel Twain to solve an impossible murder in order to keep their precious reputations and win one million dollars cash. Hilarity Ensues as each detective stumbles around trying to solve the case.

---

Tropes Used Include:

• Affair Hair (spoofed)
• Affectionate Parody
  • It's affectionate toward the genre and icons, in its own odd way, but Neil Simon said that he basically wrote the thing as his revenge against all those mystery stories that introduced new information or otherwise used impossible cheats in their solutions. He actually rather identified with Twain.
    • The affection varies. While Twain never gets around to a Take That against the plot in the Charlie Chan or Hardboiled Detective stories, unlike the others, he takes every opportunity to hang a lampshade on Sydney Wang's racist speech patterns (Wang is a brilliant detective who speaks in You No Take Candle style and has the Critical Research Failure of being a Chinese man who is unable to pronounce R's). Similarly, Sam Diamond is the only detective who comes close to really solving the mystery, but he's also depicted as a despicable racist and an Armored Closet Gay.
• All-Star Cast: Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Dame Maggie Smith, the first appearance of James Cromwell and a rare acting appearance by Truman Capote. Probably quite a case of Hey It's That Guy in some cases.
• Animal Assassin (A snake and a scorpion.)
• Armoured Closet Gay: Sam Diamond, although he never did anything to a man that he wouldn't do to a woman.
  • And he didn't kiss nobody, neither.
• Asian Speekee Engrish: Sidney Wang to a T. This is apparently Lionel Twain's Berserk Button:

Milo Perrier: What do you make of all of this, Wang? Sidney Wang: Is confusing. Lionel Twain: It! It is confusing! Say your goddamn pronouns!

• Beleaguered Assistant (Willie Wang, Marcel, and Miss Skeffington)
  • All of whom also qualify as Butt Monkey.
• Blind Mistake
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: All the detectives are extremely eccentric, being over-the-top parodies of characters who were eccentric to begin with. Doesn't stop them from being clever at their work.
• The Butler Did It (Parodied)
  • And subverted. While the man who introduced himself as Jamesir Bensonmum, the butler, appears responsible, all explanations past the first involve him clearly not being the butler, including the final one that none of the cast see. Since this is a Dead Unicorn Trope, the real joke is that Neil Simon has Shown Their Work.
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: Sam Diamond, fully two times. What a charmer.
• Captain Ersatz: Dick and Dora Charleston are Nick and Nora Charles, Sidney Wang is Charlie Chan, Milo Perrier is Hercule Poirot, Sam Diamond is Sam Spade, and Jessica Marbles is Miss Marple.
• Casting Gag: Peter Falk had started playing Columbo five years before.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Dick and Dora Charleston have an extremely nonchalant -- indeed emotionless -- conversation about the deadly scorpion on their bed which will force them to remain perfectly still, quite possibly for the rest of their perhaps short lives. Later, when the killer asks Dick how they escaped:

Dick Charleston: (breezily) We didn't; it stung Dora. The poison's in her system right now. We have fifteen minutes to get to a hospital. Cue hilarious ecstatic expression on killer's face Fortunately it proved to be a nonlethal type of scorpion.

• Deconstruction Crossover
• Deleted Scene: Some TV versions contain it, though. It is an endscene wherein a Sherlock Holmes Expy arrives late, after the whole thing is over.
  • This was one of several scenes that, typically for the era, were made especially for the film's network TV airing. All can be found on YouTube.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The title.
• Descending Ceiling: Used in an attempt to kill Perrier.
• Eek! A Mouse!: Dora screams when she sees a mouse in the bedroom. Dick assures her it's fake but finds that it is very real after he picks it up.
• Empty Piles of Clothing: At one point, the butler is found dead, sitting in the kitchen. Then he's missing but his outfit is still there. Then he's back, but his outfit is gone, leaving the detectives to puzzle over a naked dead Sir Alec Guiness.
• Everyone Is a Suspect
• Fake Nationality (British actor Peter Sellers as a Chinese detective. Likely a parody of how Charlie Chan had never been played by a Chinese actor.)
  • Played straight. Wang, as it turns out, was actually raised by Twain and is an American of Chinese birth. No explanation is given for his speech.
• Gainax Ending: Played for Laughs.
• Grammar Nazi (Twain) "Pronounce your goddamn pronouns!"
  • Also Sidney Wang himself:

(dog barks) Sidney Wang: Listen. Willie Wang: I don't hear nothing. What do you hear? Sidney Wang: Double negative, and dog.

• Hammerspace: Where Dick and Dora seem to get their martinis from.
• Hardboiled Detective: Sam Diamond
• Hey It's That Guy: Ben Kenobi is the butler.
  • Inspector Jacques Clouseau is a Charlie Chan Expy and Dr. Zefram Cochrane is a valet to a Hercule Poirot Expy
• Ice Cream Koan: Many from Sidney Wang.
  • He never does finish his "dangerous road like fresh mushroom" one, though, at least audibly and onscreen. Perhaps it was something like "must always be careful which to pick since even ordinary-looking ones can be deadly"?
    • Jessica Marbles has one too, and it sounds really neat and literary: "The chain is stronger if the links are unbroken." (Yeah, well, that's rather the point of the thing, isn't it?)
• Insane Troll Logic: Somehow Sam links a girl walking off with his money in 1940 Paris with the German invasion of France that by chance occurred two hours later.
• If You Know What I Mean

"What does he mean, Miss Skeffington?" "I'll tell you later. It's disgusting."

• Insult Misfire: When called on his racism toward Sydney Wang, Sam Diamond apologizes by way of saying, "Sorry, slanty."
• Latex Perfection: The maid, wearing a mask of the butler's face over a mask of Lionel Twain's face
• Little Old Lady Investigates: Jessica Marbles.
• Load-Bearing Hero: Marcel saves Perrier from the Descending Ceiling, "being one of the world's strongest men".
• Mistaken Identity: Jessica Marbles and her nurse are initially mistaken for each other.
• Money, Dear Boy: Peter Sellers was very negative about the film - he was sure that the film would be a major flop. To his shock, it was a box office smash.
• Old Dark House
• Playing Against Type: Sir Alec Guiness as a strange butler may surprise people, as well as Peter Falk playing a Humphrey Bogart-style hard-boiled detective instead of his usual Columbo.
  • The trench coat that Peter Falk wears in several scenes is the same one he wore on Columbo.
• Poison Is Corrosive
• Portrait Painting Peephole: Surprisingly noticeable.
  • Also Stuffed Animal Head Peephole:

Wang: Shhh ... voice come from cow on wall. Twain: Moose! Moose, you imbecile!

• Precision F-Strike: "Jesus H. Christ."
  • Itself a Lampshade of Mssr. Perrier's previous line, which has the same meaning but sounds polite because it's in French.
• Punny Name: Lionel Twain's is a reference to the famous toy train manufacturer Lionel--and on top of that his address is "22 (Two-Two) Twain".
• Right for The Wrong Reasons. Towards the end, each detective team claims to have solved the case, and each one makes a series of deductions which are plausible on their face (and the villian plays along too), but all are subsequently proven wrong.
• Rube Goldberg Device: The mansion, and it's implied that the maid is, too. Despite both of these, however, the suggestion that the murder weapon may be one is derided as stupid.
• Running Gag: The French phrase "N'est-ce pas?" being mistaken for "Nestle". As in the following exchange:

Perrier: Hot chocolate, n'est-ce pas? Butler: I'm sorry, we have only Hershey's.

• Shaped Like Itself (the title)
• Sherlock Scan (parodied)
• Shocking Swerve: Played for laughs.
• Someones Touching My Butt
• Stock Scream: The doorbell. The scream is actually Fay Wray's from King Kong.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: Done multiple times in a row, just to debunk the trope in general.
• Summation Gathering (Parodied)
• Talking to Himself: A deleted scene featured Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers) giving a Sherlock Holmes stand-in (also Peter Sellers) directions to the house.
• Ten Little Murder Victims
• The Ending Changes Everything (And how!)

"I don't get it, Pop: was there a murder, or wasn't there?" "Yes. Killed good weekend."

• The Reveal: Parodied to hell and back, to the point where it becomes The Un-Reveal.
• Weather Control Machine: Creates an isolating thunderstorm.
• Who's On First?: The Butler's name is Jamesir Bensonmum. Cue the confusion-based exchanges.

Dick:How odd. Jamesir:My father's name, sir. Dick: What was your father's name? Jamesir: Howodd. Howodd Bensonmum.