Murder By Death (1976)

For all the fans of crime and noir movies, here comes one of the best satire's on the whole genre. Murder by Death is by far the funniest spoof on noir/mystery genre I have seen. Paying no respect to the stalwarts of the genre and taking the piss out of all and sundry, this movie should really rank up there in the noir-parody movies of all time. Made in 1976 by Robert Moore, in what could really be made into a sweet theatrical play, this is a forgotten classic.

Lionel Twain (played by Truman Capote no less), a bored/lonely/twisted oldman invites five of the world's top most private-eyes to dinner at his country mansion. One of the detectives will be murdered right after dinner but nobody who is being picked. The murder will occur before 12.00AM, and who ever solves the murder will be payed $1 million. But Twain does not show up at the dinner, preferring to talk through a taxidermy animal head trophy stuck on the wall. He keeps dropping hints and raising allegations, while giving his announcements, as the guests have their dinner. Naturally, all the guests are agitated but since they are the best detectives in the world, they rise up to the challenge of solving the mystery of who is going to be killer. As the night progresses, we are treated to high doses of hilarious dark humor. The only maids in the mansion are the blind butler (blind, why? since he was cheap to hire) and the deaf/dumb cook. Comedy of errors and comedy of terrors ensue as we get closer to midnight. Low, the butler is murdered, and Twain disappears. The ending will have you in splits, since its easily the most ludicrous parody of events.

Some of the finest acting is provided by Peter Sellers in his role as the "China-man" Sidney Wang, who strives hard to construct a sentence with an article, much to the chagrin of the well-bred Twain. Sidney Wang cracked me up when ever he opened his mouth. Also special mention to Pete Falk's Sam Diamond, a no-nonsense street smart, tough guy, who loves keeping naked pictures of musclemen in his closet, don't ask me why. This is truly a mad mad movie that will have you laugh all your worries away...2 thumbs up!