steven@ism70.UUCP (12/16/85)
CLUE Starring Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Anne Warren. Also starring Colleen Camp and Lee Ving. Directed by Jonathan Lynn. Written by Jonathan Lynn. Story by Jonathan Lynn and John Landis. Based on the board game from Parker Brothers. Produced by Debra Hill. Photographed by Victor J. Kemper. Production Designed by John Lloyd. Edited by David Bretherton and Richard Haines. Music by John Morris. From Paramount Pictures (1985). Stupid, but fun. Six people are being blackmailed by Mr. Boddy. They all arrive at the incredibly gothic Hill House in the middle of a driving rainstorm and are assigned aliases by The Butler: Mr. Green, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet and Mrs. White. Suddenly, someone gets killed. Whodunnit??? Where??? And with what??? It made a great board game, but could it make a worthwhile movie? Well, sort of. A super cast of character actors and actresses has a field day in this combined whodunnit and murder mystery spoof. Writer/director Jonathan Lynn tries for a mixture of slapstick humor and wordplay that comes off more often than not (though his direction is a little rough around the edges). The beginning is kind of slow and labored, but it does pick up in the middle and gets enough momentum going towards the final reels to make the merely amusing funny and the funny hilarious. Everyone seems to enjoy themselves and hit their marks with the proper silly spirit. As for the mystery, well, who knows? There was so much going on that I didn't have the time to sort out the solution and figure out whether or not it made sense. "Clue" is in release with three endings; I saw ending A. (Jonathan Lynn reportedly wrote nine endings and filmed five of them. The ubiquitous novelization has four different endings.) It would seem to me that endings B and C would have to be considerably different than A. I liked the movie enough that I may just see it again to find out. Two and a half stars out of four.
steven@ism70.UUCP (12/17/85)
An addendum on various endings for "Clue": Got a peek at a copy of Jonathan Lynn's screenplay. It contains four endings, so one can assume that four endings were actually filmed. (Ending A, which I saw, is ending B in the script, for what it's worth). The videocassette version of "Clue" will contain all three endings in succession. Source: Army Archerd's column in Variety.
urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike Urban) (12/19/85)
In article <13100160@ism70.UUCP> steven@ism70.UUCP writes: > > The videocassette version of "Clue" will contain all three endings > in succession. Source: Army Archerd's column in Variety. The LA Times critic who reviewed the film said that the version with all three endings is the one which was shown at press screenings, and suggested that it was probably better that way, as a more amusing parody of the whodunit genre. Looking at the movie listings for Clue, I notice that ending "C" is showing in Los Angeles in fewer, and more obscure, theatres than "A" and "B". It's a clever gimmick, but I gather that the film is only so-so, which seems a pity. -- Mike Urban {ucbvax|decvax}!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban "You're in a maze of twisty UUCP connections, all alike"