Mon 5 Jan 2015
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID (1982).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[8] Comments
DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID. Universal Pictures, 1982. Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, Carl Reiner. Archive footage: Alan Ladd, Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Veronica Lake, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Kirk Douglas, Fred MacMurray, James Cagney, Joan Crawford, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price, William Conrad, Charles McGraw, Jeff Corey, John Miljan, Brian Donlevy, Norma Varden, Edmond O’Brien. Co-written and directed by Carl Reiner.
[The most disappointing film of the summer of 1982] for me has been Carl Reiner’s 1940s pastiche, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. I thought the opening, as Rachel Ward, looking smashing, faints on private eye Steve Martin’s office stoop, was a perfect beginning to what I fully expected to be a delightful ninety minutes, but expectations have seldom been as cruelly dashed as they were for me on that unhappy Wednesday afternoon.
After experiencing some momentary pleasure at the sometimes skillful blending of cuts from classic and not-so-classic forties film with the narrative, I began to feel hostility toward the tricksters who had hoked up some splendid film clips and was downright angry with Carl Reiner’s outrageously bad and unfunny Nazi impersonation that closes the film.
Or almost closes it. The end credits in which the familiar faces and films from the past were identified was fun and suggested to me that this might have been a good idea for a very short film but was a very bad idea for a feature-length one.
Both Martin and Ward were fetching, Miklos Rosza had written a good pastiche of his own style, and the black-and-white photography was refreshing.
I think that part of my dissatisfaction with Dead Men was the fact that within the last month I had seen a batch of films noir. I saw them under the best and worst of circumstances: with a small group of film people in a University Media Center screening room where we sat on what felt like stone seats.
I had either not seen many of the films or had not seen them in thirty years, and for several of the other viewers it was a first viewing of what is just a sampling from it very rich period, 1945-1955. I am not going to review all of the eight films in detail, but I want to list them and re-port on some of my impressions.
Editorial Comment: Coming Soon!
January 6th, 2015 at 4:49 am
Good points, Walter! The best use of this technique I ever saw was in Harry Hurwitz’s THE PROJECTIONIST (1971) which offered a touch of whimsey sadly lacking in DEAD MEN…
January 6th, 2015 at 2:26 pm
I remember seeing the trailer for DEAD MAN back in 1982 and telling myself there’s no way I’m going to pay money to see this.
I’m not a big fan of either Carl Reiner or Mel Brooks, although they do make me laugh. Can’t help it. But too much of their humor is too broad, too over the top, and (to me) too juvenile.
On the other hand, Vincent Canby of the NEW YORK TIMES liked the movie:
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990CEEDB143BF932A15756C0A964948260
saying in part: “… a genial, gently mocking, brilliantly executed spoof that may offend the purists but which should delight the buffs.”
I also don’t think the black-and-white photography works. To me (and I don’t the technical name for my objection) the lighting is off, and it looks like a color movie with the color turned off.
January 6th, 2015 at 4:41 pm
I don’t care for the films of Brooks or Reiner myself, but they’re always amusing on Talk Shows and the 2,000 Year Old Man is a classic
January 6th, 2015 at 5:47 pm
The problem for me is they should have played the story a little straighter without ruining everything by silly season. They could have done a MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE kind of film, or even one of Woody’s crime or mystery themed films and had fun, but they got ham handed and confused silly for creative. The same thing happened in Brooks HIGH ANXIETY.
Just because something is funny is not reason enough to derail a film and this one goes right off the tracks.
Comedy mystery actually requires some mystery to work.
January 6th, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Walter, Steve, Dan, Dave and others to reply next: I like this film! I always seem to keep it on when I’m surfing for movies to watch on cable. I think it’s very well done,(with lots of Bogie in it) and a terrific acting job by Steve Martin, who was never any kind of favorite of mine through the years, especially his solo comedy routines after SNL. That being said, he has grown on me as an actor over time.(Parenthood & The Spanish Prisoner especially). My favorite sight gag in the entire film is when Steve is making a pot of coffee. He just keeps pouring an endless supply of grounds into the pot! It seems like it goes on for five minutes! Also liked the kudos to Van Heflin, with the rolling of a coin on the knuckles routine. Very funny stuff. And Steve, in comment #2 you say you don’t really care for either Brooks or Reiner but they make you laugh? Well, for crying out loud, isn’t that the whole point of a comedy?? I’ll sit patiently by my computer waiting to get hammered by all of you!! LOL!!
(Walker, help me out here!!)
January 6th, 2015 at 10:23 pm
If anyone would like to see that scene that Paul just referred to, the one with the coffee grounds, it’s in the video clip I embedded in Walter’s review.
So far all I’ve seen of the movie is the trailer (some 33 years ago) and the scenes in that video, and even so, I think I’ve seen enough to stand by what I said in comment #2.
Comedy is a funny thing, though, I have to admit that. If the movie ever comes up on cable again, so I don’t have to pay money to see it, perhaps I will.
January 6th, 2015 at 11:26 pm
I wasn’t going to comment because humor and comedy are so very subjective. What I find to be hilarious and funny, the rest of you might think is not funny at all.
But I hate to see a fellow film noir lover get hammered, so I’ll back up Paul Herman in comment #5. My feeling is than any fan of the great classic film noirs has to see this movie. The jokes come so swift and fast that some of them are bound to fall flat but it’s a movie that you have to see and try to see when you are in a good frame of mind for laughs.
But like I said, it’s all subjective. I will point out that it got a 6.8 on IMDB which is fairly high and over 100 user comments, almost all of which praise the film as a comedy. Most of the comments on Amazon also praise the dvd.
So Paul has plenty of company.
January 6th, 2015 at 11:32 pm
Steve,
The interaction between Martin and the various scenes from other films is often very funny, and I thought beautifully done, but that and Ward’s perfect pitch not so fatale femme get ruined by too much business and silliness.
I like Reiner and Brooks, but both can get too silly for me and lose the narrative. What makes THE PRODUCERS, THE TWELVE CHAIRS, and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN great films is they never lose their footing, even the silly stuff is perfect. I can’t say that for Brooks later films.
But then I even think BLAZING SADDLES is harmed by that stupid ending.
This one might have been something if there was a story and not just a collection of gags.