Clue (film)

This article is about the 1985 film. For other uses, see Clue.

Clue
Poster from the movie Clue
Directed by	Jonathan Lynn
Written by	John Landis (story) and Jonathan Lynn (story), Jonathan Lynn (screenplay)
Produced by	Debra Hill
Starring	Martin Mull Eileen Brennan Lesley Ann Warren Christopher Lloyd Michael McKean Madeline Kahn Lee Ving Tim Curry Colleen Camp Bill Henderson Jane Wiedlin Jeffrey Kramer Howard Hesseman Kellye Nakahara
Cinematography	Victor J. Kemper
Edited by	David Bretherton Richard Haines
Music by	John Morris
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (USA)
Release dates	December 13, 1985
Running time	94 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$15,000,000 (est.)
Box office	$14,643,997 (USA)

Clue is a 1985 Hollywood comedy film based on the board game 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 a mystery among six guests at a mansion: one of them has killed Mr. Boddy, their host, in a specific room with a particular 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 as well as the maid, the cook, a police officer, a motorist, a singing telegram girl, and the butler Wadsworth all find their lives at risk.

Cast

• Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard
• Eileen Brennan as Mrs. Peacock
• Lesley Ann Warren as Miss Scarlet
• Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum
• Michael McKean as Mr. Green
• Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White
• Lee Ving as Mr. Boddy
• Tim Curry as Wadsworth
• Colleen Camp as Yvette
• Bill Henderson as the Cop
• Jane Wiedlin as The Singing Telegram Girl
• Jeffrey Kramer as the Motorist
• Kellye Nakahara as the Cook
• Howard Hesseman as the Chief

The film was directed by Jonathan Lynn, who wrote the script with John Landis.

Initial failure and cult success

The film did not enjoy much success at the box office, but found new life on premium cable showings on HBO and Showtime as well as home video where it quickly became a cult film, and remains so today.

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.

It is interesting to note that both Clue and an earlier Tim Curry film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, at one point involve a man whose car broke down in a rainstorm and asks to use the phone in a nearby mansion inhabited by Tim Curry's character. In both movies the stranded man is essentially held captive.

Differences between the Movie and the Game

Almost all of the characters in the film differ from how they are traditionally portrayed in the board game's art:

• Col. Mustard is a middle-aged American, instead of the archetype of a stuffy British retired colonel.
• Mr. Green appears to be clumsy rather than a wiseguy, and is wearing a blue suit.
• Mrs. Peacock wears a garish multicolored dress rather than the conservative blue outfit of the board game character.
• Miss Scarlet's gown is a forest green as opposed to the usual red.
• Mrs. White is no longer the elderly servant but now a beautiful widow in what appears to be a black mourning ensemble.

In addition, the characters of the Butler, cook, stranded motorist, cop, and singing telegram girl do not appear in the original game, although an expanded version includes a police officer, Sgt. Gray. As Mrs. White is assumed to be Mr. Boddy's maid in the game, the character of Yvette does not appear in the game.

Character entanglements

Template:Spoiler The whole cast is connected by an intricate web of lies and blackmail revealed as the film progresses. Mr. Boddy has been blackmailing the main characters for some time, having discovered certain potentially devastating secrets about them:

• Miss Scarlet runs a call girl service (she is the one character who has no shame or denial about her behavior, at least among the group at the manor).
• Mrs. Peacock allegedly accepts bribes from foreign powers for her husband, a US senator.
• Mrs. White has had five husbands, all of whom she is suspected of having killed.
• Mr. Green is supposedly a closeted homosexual employed with the State Department.
• Colonel Mustard was a patron of Miss Scarlet's service, and is later revealed to have stolen and sold radio parts on the black market during World War II.
• Professor Plum has been practicing medicine despite having had his license revoked for taking advantage of one of his patients.
• Wadsworth's late wife had socialist connections.

In addition, each of the supporting characters was in some way connected to at least one of the leads, which gave Mr. Boddy further fodder for extortion:

• The police officer who stops in was bribed once a week to allow Miss Scarlet to carry on her business.
• The maid Yvette was a prostitute formerly employed by Miss Scarlet.
• During that time, she frequently had Colonel Mustard as a client.
• Mrs. White's husband was also involved with Yvette.
• The cook once worked for Mrs. Peacock.
• The stranded motorist was Colonel Mustard's driver during the war.
• The singing telegram girl was the patient with whom Professor Plum had had an affair.

The Weapons

Mr. Boddy hands each of the characters a black gift-wrapped box with dark purple bows, each box containing a weapon from the board game in the following order:

• Miss Scarlet receives a candlestick
• Mrs. White receives a rope tied in a hangman's noose
• Mr. Green receives a lead pipe
• Col. Mustard receives a heavy wrench
• Prof. Plum receives a revolver
• Mrs. Peacock receives a dagger

The Murders

Six murders occur in the film altogether:

• Mr. Boddy with the candlestick in the hall (after being unsuccessfully shot at with the revolver in the study)
• The cook with the knife in the kitchen
• The motorist with the wrench in the lounge
• Yvette with the rope in the billiard room
• The policeman with the lead pipe in the library
• The telegram girl with the revolver in the hall (more specifically, on the front porch, though not technically a room)

There are no murders in the dining room, the ballroom, the study, or the conservatory (although there is an attempted murder in the study). However, all of the weapons are used.

Versions & endings

The film featured three different conclusions, making it one of the few films to have true multiple endings. Cinemas approached this in a number of ways. Movie advertisements would list which theaters in an area would be showing what were called the "A", "B", or "C" endings. Sometimes theatregoers could vote to choose the ending at a particular showing, and at other times the final scene was chosen randomly.

During Wadsworth's frenzied recreation/explanation, he turns off the lights, blacking out the screen. It is here where the different endings were spliced onto the film for the theatrical versions. The black screen was convenient for seamless editing.

All three endings have certain elements in common; in each of the endings, it is stated that "communism was just a red herring" by Wadsworth or the killer. Additionally, in each of the endings an innocent party notes that the gun is missing, and therefore whoever has the gun has to be the killer of the singing telegram girl. The killer then pulls out the gun and intimidates the other guests with it. Finally, each ending ends with the "evangelist", actually an undercover police officer, and a group of cops entering, arresting the murderer(s), and congratulating the person who figured out who the murderer was on a job well done.

All three endings were included when the film was released on home format. The VHS version simply plays them one after another, separated by intertitles; the television version does this as well, but also includes filler scenes to compensate for runtime lost due to content edits.

The versatility of DVD proved useful for Clue: viewers have the option of watching all three final scenes, choosing a single one, or having one chosen at random, much like the original theatrical run.

The first ending

Yvette, the maid, killed Mr. Boddy and the cook. She was under orders from Miss Scarlet, who killed the motorist. Eventually, Miss Scarlet betrayed and killed her, along with the cop and the singing telegram girl. She reveals that her business is actually "secrets"--extortion--in which Yvette participated. 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 threatens to shoot him. Wadsworth retorts that the gun has no bullets left and the two argue over how many bullets had actually been fired. Distracted by the doorbell, Scarlet is subdued by Wadsworth and the police rush in. 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). This is the only ending that makes use of the clue surrounding Yvette's death, where her killer asks if any of them (the guests) recognized her, thus showing that the killer knew who Yvette was and implying that she was being employed by the killer. (There is a possibility that the other killers may have been pretending to be an employer, which explains Yvette's surprise at seeing her killer.)

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 an unplanned but convenient turn of events. This ending makes frequent errors with the plot. For example, according to the ending, she decided to turn off the lights at the top of cellar, run back down to back up against the heater for a comedic scene for the audience, and then run back upstairs to kill Yvette, the cop, and the singing messenger.

The third ending

The third ending is supposedly the real one, as the screen before it says, "This is what really happened." This was the original screenplay's ending before the studio insisted on multiple endings as a gimmick. No one person orchestrated all 6 murders; however, it is therefore much more complex than the rest. This ending features the most flashbacks; the first ending had two, and the second one had none. 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. By process of elimination the guests accuse Mr. Green of killing the singing telegram girl, although Mr. Green claims he is innocent. Wadsworth pulls the revolver from his coat, revealing that it was he who 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 actually the 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 suggests they stash the bodies in the cellar, leave quietly one at a time, and pretend the evening never happened. He also plans to continue blackmailing them. Mr. Green suddenly shoots and kills Mr. Boddy, then tells the others that he is an FBI agent, after which backup forces rush in. The police chief asks which is the guilty party; in a nod to the game, 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. Okay, Chief, take 'em away. I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife." The last sentence, the end of the film, suggests either that his homosexuality was only a fabrication for his undercover persona or that his secret homosexuality will remain a secret now that he's disposed of the blackmailer.

This ending is also backed up by a hidden clue early in the movie; in the dining room a portrait is briefly visible that depicts Mr. Boddy dressed as a butler.

This ending is also backed up by the missing characters in each scene. For instance after Yvette screams most of the cast runs to the billiard room to see what's happening, while Mrs. Peacock is seen trailing behind and then walking behind the crowd off screen toward the kitchen. When the cast returns to the study, Mrs. Peacock can be found sitting in the sofa already after having gone back through the secret passage.

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. [1] [2]

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 at 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

Clue, made in the 1980s, is set in the 1950s and makes frequent reference to the sociopolitical climate of the time. Nearly all the main characters are corrupt, and all are connected to the government. The film frequently derides and criticizes U.S. government behavior in the era of Cold War McCarthyism. During this time, the federal government purged itself of communist and homosexual employees and instituted the House Committee on Un-American Activities. This touched off a national campaign during which actual and suspected communists, socialists, and homosexuals were often harassed, ostracized, and blacklisted. In a further jab at McCarthyism, all three of the film's endings feature the line, "Communism was just a red herring." When the secrets Boddy was using for blackmail are revealed, Green asks why he didn't just report them if he felt that they were un-American. 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?"

Other government institutions are the subject of satire. Wadsworth suggests that the FBI in the habit of "cleaning up" murders, pointing out, "Why do you think it's run by a man called Hoover?" Later, Col. Mustard asks Wadsworth, "Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?" In response, Wadsworth says, "He's on everyone else's, why shouldn't he be on mine?", referring to the common practice of wiretapping in that era. Additionally referenced is the United Nations, which employs Professor Plum (who first refers to it and the World Health Organization with the pun "UNO WHO".) Wadsworth explains that Professor Plum used to work with "paranoid and homicidal 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 (and a subsequent role in her death) will sit well with the UN, but he suggests it may actually benefit his standing with the members.

See also

• Clue/Cluedo, the board game
• Cluedo characters
• Clue, the computer game
• Multiple endings

External links

• Clue at IMDb
• 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
• "Revisiting a Cinematic Masterpiece", a comedic essay on the film from Duct Tape & Rouge