2011/12/20

Movie review of "Murder by Death"

It is time for another movie review this time a flick from 1976 called "Murder by Death". It has an all star cast but it was Peter Falk that made me watch it but it also has Peter Sellers, Truman Capote, James Coco and Alec Guinness to name a few. It is basically Clue before Clue came out in 85.

The plot is that the worlds greatest detectives are brought to this mansion for "Dinner and a murder". They are then informed by their host (Capote) that a murder will take place a midnight and they are to solve it and if they do they get 1 Million Dollars.

From there the fun takes place. It is an old premise but for '76 it may have been new I don't know. Each character has some quirk that is enjoyable. Falk is the a gritty streetwise detective with the 50's lingo. Sellers is of course a character nothing like him as he is Chinese and talks almost always in fortune cookie type responses.

I found it enjoyable but not laugh out loud funny. It could have been back then but now we've seen the bits several times over. I still enjoyed it and its a good way to kill 90 minutes. I would say 3 out 5. Its gets slight above average because Columbo was in it!