Clue

Clue, releasing in 1985, starred Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn, Martin Mull, and others; and was pretty much a box office bomb. It grossed about $14.5 million on a $15 million budget to produce. I was too young when the film released to know or remember how people felt about a movie about a board game. But based on the box office number and complaints from moviegoers about the ending; I would have to assume that even those who saw it weren’t big fans. Fortunately it received cult status later on, and rightfully so.

For those unfamiliar with the actual background of the namesake, the board game was released in 1949 and is actually known as Cluedo worldwide and is only labeled as Clue in North America. I’ve seen “Cluedo” before, and being American, have always wondered which region it was for.

I don’t know when I first saw Clue. Probably circa 1990. It’s a film I’ve been meaning to go back and watch for years. Every time I see it pop up somewhere, I say “I need to rewatch this”, then just never did. There’s been times where I made an effort to, started the movie, then stopped it because something came up right at the beginning. Browsing for something to watch just last night, this showed up as Free on YouTube Premium. I decided it was about time and dove right into it.

If you’re even the slightest bit familiar with the game, you already pretty much know that you’re getting a murder mystery. No surprises there. But the movie also adds the benefit of being not just a comedy as well, but a damn good one at that. The dialogue is witty and smart. The premise itself is absurd. Even the physical comedy is pretty great. Some of the dialogue, character traits, and actions are all better left behind in the 80s however.

To make a long story short (too late), the movie is about a group of strangers all invited to a mysterious dinner party, all given pseudonyms to not use their real names. Those pseudonyms? Again, no surprise, the character names from the board game. With everyone locked inside the house, the group is determined to figure out why they’re there and which of them is the murderer before any more deaths happen. And I think this is one of the cooler parts of the film. While it’s not all shot in a single room, the entirety of the movie, outside of about 4 minutes, are all within the house.

I did mention previously issues with the ending. If you actually haven’t seen the film yet - the ending is absolutely fine. The issue was that on release there were actually three different endings. This lead to frustration as people didn’t know what the “true ending” was, nor was it possible to tell at release which ending you were getting. Theaters did eventually start advertising the ending though. But that’s also something I think is really unique. Imagine the water cooler discussion of “I was surprised when X was revealed to be the killer.” “Sure, but Y was the killer. Did you stop paying attention or something?” I’ve always wanted to see more multiple endings for movies. This is changed on streaming and presumably any physical media you can get it on to show you all three endings.

Overall though, I had a ton of fun watching this movie; at times actually pausing because I was laughing so hard. The cast is great and the banter is incredible. And with it clocking at just about an hour 40, definitely worth it when you’ve got a couple hours to spare. I was lucky that I last watched it so young. It meant I got to see it now with a fresh set of eyes, watching it again for the very first time. I hope that when I go back to it in another 30 or so years that I’ll have forgotten and can enjoy it in all its glory once more.

Score: 5 candlesticks in the study
What kind of score is even that?

Spoiler Review

This movie was legitimately hilarious. From lines like “Yup. Two corpses. Everything’s fine.” to “I was in the hall. I know because I was there.” Which I’m fairly certain is something I’ve actually said to someone before. Or the physical comedy like Mr Plum comparing his tiny matchstick to that of Ms Scarlet and Colonel Mustard, even though theirs were clearly full sized, or Wadsworth’s flailing as he’s miming out what has happened so far.

One of the things that did bother me, the only not even plot-hole I noticed - who cleaned up the glass? When Yvette (and to be clear, her name is NOT Evelyn) shot down the chandelier, glass crashed down everywhere from it. The characters are even running over the glass shortly after. But then towards the end of the film the only glass left is directly under it. Did Wadsworth clean it up at some point which we didn’t see? Was there another mystery person in the house?

And while I didn’t look it up - I do find the ending I suppose dubious in a sense. And what I mean is that they give you the cards to say “This is what could have happened” and “This is what really happened”. But to have a “really happened “ infers that 2/3 of screenings in theaters saw a “fake ending”. I guess it’s the sort of thing that is retconned so the ending doesn’t feel completely disjointed by showing three of them. I do think I prefer Ms Scarlet’s ending the best, if not only because the “1 + 2 + 1 + 1” back and forth is amazing but also because the “true ending” definitely felt to obvious. When I was watching it I immediately said “Wadsworth invited everyone, he’s the true host. Boddy is a decoy of some sort.” As a matter of fact, I felt it was so obvious I changed my answer to Yvette being the killer because they wouldn’t make it so obvious as to be Wadsworth. And while I do like that all three endings remain consistent that it was an FBI sting to capture some less than stellar individuals, I also prefer that Wadsworth is the mastermind orchestrating what’s going on as he’s the man on the inside. All of this skips over the Mrs Peacock ending and quite honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of that one. It didn’t make sense (her being so chatty when everyone sits down), and it felt very drawn out while Wadsworth was concluding it was her - to letting her walk out (although he knew the FBI was there to capture her). I will say though that the Mr Green line gave me one of the hardest laughs of the entire movie. “The Mountie always gets their man!” “Mrs Peacock was a man!?”

But aside from that, the film is shot mostly smartly. In the endings when they say “this person wasn’t present for this event” - it’s true. For example Mrs Peacock wasn’t there when the cook was killed.

All of that said, this movie definitely has instances where you see it and think to yourself that it’s certainly a product of its time, a different era. Such as Mr Plum being a bit too handsy with Ms White. Or Mr Green smacking Mrs Peacock. And I can’t detract from the score or my feelings of the film based on that, knowing that there was a time where this wasn’t considered wrong. To be clear, this is not me saying that either is right or appropriate. I’m simply saying that in the 80s people didn’t view these things in the problematic light that we rightfully do now.

Overall though, the physical and spoken comedy cannot be overstated. It was a pleasure to sit down and watch this again. At not point did I feel like the film was dragging along.

Tell me your thoughts. How do you feel about the film? Which ending was your favorite? Let me know in the comments below.