Clue (film)
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Clue is a 1985 U.S. comedy film based on the boardgame Clue (also known as Cluedo). The film uses the characters and murder mystery premise of the boardgame as the basis for a quickfire farce.
Overview
The basic premise of the board game is that of six guests, one has killed their host Mr. Boddy in a specific room of the mansion and with a specific weapon. The film expanded on this by making the six central characters victims of Boddy's blackmail, and they join him at his mansion for dinner one evening. When he is killed, a madcap riot begins in which the blackmail victims along with the maid, the cook, a police officer, a motorist, a singing telegram girl, and Wadsworth the butler all find their lives at risk.
The six central characters and the supporting cast are all part of an intricate web of lies and blackmail that Mr. Boddy has created. Miss Scarlet runs a prostitution service, Mrs. Peacock accepts bribes from foreign powers for her husband, a US senator, and Mrs. White has had five husbands, all of whom she has allegedly killed. Mr. Green is supposedly a homosexual employee of the State Department, Colonel Mustard stole and sold radio parts on the black market during World War II (although this is only revealed near the end, with the original revelation that he used Miss Scarlet's service being the primary secret used against him for most of the film), Professor Plum has been practicing medicine after his license was revoked for taking advantage of one of his patients, and Wadsworth's late wife had socialist connections.
The supporting cast were each connected to at least one of the main cast members somehow and gave Mr. Boddy the information he needed to blackmail them. The maid Yvette was a prostitute under Miss Scarlet, frequently had Colonel Mustard as a client, and had an affair with Mrs. White's husband. The cook cooked for Mrs. Peacock, the random motorist was Colonel Mustard's driver, the police officer was bribed once a week to allow Miss Scarlet to carry on her business, and the singing telegram girl was the patient Professor Plum slept with.
An interesting note is that the names of the guests are aliases. The only connection between the aliases and the guests is their cars: each guest drives a car matching their alias. So Professor Plum drives a purple car, Mrs. White drives a white car, etc.
Cast
- Tim Curry as Wadsworth, the butler
- Eileen Brennan as Mrs. Peacock (wife of a corrupt senator)
- Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White (widow of a deceased nuclear physicist)
- Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum (employee of U.N.O. W.H.O., United Nations Organization World Health Organization)
- Michael McKean as Mr. Green (a state department employee who may or may not be homosexual)
- Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard (a war profiteer)
- Lesley Ann Warren as Miss Scarlet (a prostitute and madam)
- Colleen Camp as Yvette, the maid
- Bill Henderson as the Cop
- Lee Ving as Mr. Boddy
- Jane Wiedlin as The Singing Telegram Girl
- Jeffrey Kramer as the Motorist
- Kellye Nakahara as the Cook
- Howard Hesseman as the Chief (uncredited)
From the box office to becoming a cult classic
The film did not enjoy much success at the box office, but found new life on home video where it quickly became a cult film, and remains so today. Among the cult's adherents are college students, who earn a badge of honor by being able to quote the movie as it plays along (a result of endless repeated viewings). On the Brigham Young University campus, a live action version of the film is acted out by students on a semi-annual basis.The Los Angeles acting troupe Sins O' the Flesh, which performs a weekly "shadowcast" (acting on a proscenium stage in sync with the movie projected behind the actors) of another Tim Curry film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, also annually performs a shadowcast of Clue, which has in years past been attended by director and writer Jonathan Lynn as well as Colleen Camp, who plays Yvette in the film.
The three endings
The film featured three different endings, making it one of the few films to have true multiple endings. In its cinematic release, movie advertisements would list which theaters in an area would be showing what were called the "A", "B", or "C" endings. All three endings were all depicted on the VHS release of the film, as well as on the DVD, which also included a feature in which an ending would be randomly selected. The three endings are listed below in the order in which they were depicted on the VHS release. All the endings have the same line. "Communism is just a red herring."
The first ending
Yvette, the maid, killed Mr. Boddy and the cook. She was under orders from Miss Scarlet. Eventually, Scarlet betrayed her and killed her, along with the 'cop' and the singing telegram girl. She reveals that her real business is 'secrets', which was Yvette's real job. Scarlet plans to use the information gathered that night to blackmail each of the other guests. But instead of blackmailing for money, she plans to blackmail for top-secret government information that she will then sell to others. However, as a butler, Wadsworth has no government information, and she attempts to shoot him. Distracted by the doorbell, Scarlet is subdued by Wadsworth as the police arrive. Pleading with Wadsworth for him to forgive her attempting shooting, Wadsworth holds the gun up and claims that he had tried to tell her before that there were no bullets left in the gun. Just after he says this, the gun fires. Scarlet smirks silently as Wadsworth counts off the bullets fired aloud. The bullet hits the lamp, which crashes behind a surprised Col. Mustard (this is the second time this has happened in the film). While this ending is not as believable as the third ending, it is also the one with the fewest inconsistencies in regards to the rest of the plot (most prominently the scene in which Yvette was killed, which involved a short conversation that does not make sense when placed in any of the other endings).The second ending
The second ending has Mrs. Peacock as the unlikely murderer of all the victims. Upon attempting to escape, she is arrested. Wadsworth reveals he is an FBI agent who set up the entire meeting as a sting operation on Mrs. Peacock, with Mr. Boddy's murder a convenient extra. Wadsworth says "We're like the mounties. We always catch our man". Mr. Green asks if Mrs. Peacock was a man and gets slapped in the face twice, by Wadsworth and Col. Mustard. Wadsworth then asks, "Would anyone care for fruit or dessert?"The third ending
The third ending is supposedly the real one, as the screen before it says "This is what really happened." It is also the most believable ending as no one person orchestrated all 6 murders. The third ending is much more complex than the rest. Mrs. White killed Yvette, Colonel Mustard killed the motorist, Professor Plum killed 'Mr. Boddy', Miss Scarlet killed the cop, and Mrs. Peacock killed the cook. The guests accuse Mr. Green of killing the singing telegram girl, claiming 'there's no one else left', although Mr. Green claims he is innocent. Wadsworth pulls the revolver from his coat, revealing that HE shot the girl, and holds the guests at gunpoint. He then reveals the shocking secret that he is in fact, the REAL Mr. Boddy; the Mr. Boddy Plum killed was Mr. Boddy's butler, set up to take the fall. Mr. Boddy thanks the guests for getting rid of his spies, and in doing so, all the evidence against him. He tells them they will leave quietly, stack the bodies in the cellar, and pretend the incident never happened; he will continue blackmailing them. Mr. Green then suddenly shoots and kills Mr. Boddy, then tells the guests that he is an FBI agent. This ending also features the closest thing to the infamous accusation phrase. Upon the chief of police asking the classic question 'whodunit?', Mr. Green replies "They all did it. But if you want to know who killed Mr. Boddy, I did. In the Hall, with the Revolver." Thus, if this is the true ending, the answer to the question 'whodunit' is: Mr Green in the Hall with the Revolver. The movie then ends with Mr. Green saying, "Okay, Chief--take 'em away. I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife", thus revealing his homosexuality was merely part of his undercover identity or revealing that his FBI colleagues will remain oblivious to his real homosexuality since he's killed the blackmailer.The fourth ending
A fourth ending was also shot for the film, but was never released. It was included in the film's novelization, and a picture is featured in the movie storybook.
The fourth ending features Wadsworth killing Boddy, and then revealing to the guests that he has poisoned them all so that there will be no witnesses and he will have committed the perfect crime. As he runs through the house to disable the phones to prevent the guests from calling a hospital and locking the doors, the evangelist from earlier returns, followed by the police, who disarm Wadsworth. Wadsworth then repeats the confession he had given earlier to the guests, and entrances them all with his story. When he arrives as the part about meeting Colonel Mustard at the door, he steps through the door, closes it, and locks it, leaving all the guests trapped inside. The police and guests escape through a window, while Wadsworth attempts to make a getaway in a car, only to hear the growling of a German Shepherd from the back of the car (who presumably kills him).
Social commentary
The film is set in 1950s America during the era of Cold War McCarthyism where the federal government purged members of the Communist Party, and homosexuals from employment and touched off a national campaign where supposed communists (often merely people with left-wing views) were often harassed, blacklisted and became social outcasts. The film makes reference to the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities and the fact that McCarthyism treated homosexuals and other "sexual perverts" as akin to communists, or socialists. In another jab at McCarthyism, all three of the film's endings feature the line, "Communism was just a red herring."Despite the film's satire of McCarthyism, gay film critics often pointed out that the homosexuality of the neurotic character Mr. Green is the subject of various physical comedic jokes that go from mere absurdity to mean-spiritedness[[Citing sources citation needed]]. The official novel of the film mentions that among the destroyed photographs was a picture of Mr. Green holding hands with another man, something not shown in the film. One of the film's endings reveals that Mr. Green is both an undercover FBI agent and a claimed heterosexual (the final line of the movie is his: "I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife." although this could be viewed as a cover).
The movie also even pokes fun at traditional U.S. institutions as well. Upon being told Mr. Boddy's reason for blackmail (un-American, etc.), Mr. Green asks why Boddy didn't just report them if he felt that they were wrong. Wadsworth replies, "He decided to put his information to good use, and make a little money out of it. What could be more American than that?". Additionally, the FBI is mocked when Wadsworth suggests that it is in the habit of 'cleaning up' murders, what with being run by J. Edgar Hoover, as well as the line, 'Colonel Mustard: Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone? Wadsworth: I don't know. He's on everyone else's, why shouldn't he be on mine?' The UN is also mocked; Wadsworth explains that Professor Plum used to treat "homicidal and suicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur," and that since beginning his work at the UN, his work has not changed. Miss Scarlet tells Professor Plum that she doubts the news of his infidelity with a patient (as well as a role in her death), will help Plum with the UN. To this, he replies that with the sort of people they have at the UN, he may actually become more popular--or, in his own words, that he may "go up in their estimation." In an earlier conversation, Professor Plum states that he actually works for a division of the United Nations Organization, the World Health Organization: UNO WHO ("you know who").
Television version
The television version has some scenes that ran longer than the theatrical version to make up for the cuts made for content.DVD version
The film is available on DVD, and includes all three multiple endings.See also
External links
- [TheArtofMurder.com] – Extensive clue collection and fan discussion forums
- [The script of the film]
- [Details of the Fourth Ending]
- [Sins O' the Flesh, Los Angeles acting troupe which performs an annual Clue shadowcast]
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