The Big Picture

Decades before Kenneth Branagh brought Hercule Poirot back to the screen,
Murder by Death
hilariously skewered classic detective tropes.
The film parodies famous detectives like Poirot and Miss Marple while challenging traditional mystery endings.

Murder by Death
offers a unique twist by presenting unsolvable mysteries, keeping viewers on their toes with absurd conclusions.

Fans of detective fiction are always glad to see a new iteration of their favorite mysteries, and to this end, Kenneth Branagh’s recent Hercule Poirot series, based on the Agatha Christie character, is no exception. In addition to introducing new audiences to old favorites, mystery lovers have been offered a chance to rekindle their affair with Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and A Haunting in Venice. Yet, while we often view past romances through rose-colored lenses, Neil Simon’s Murder by Death breaks the spell by turning the tables on staples of detective fiction in a loving, and hilarious, way.

Murder by Death (1976) A parody of classic detective stories featuring a gathering of famous sleuths at the mansion of the enigmatic Lionel Twain. The detectives, each a caricature of well-known fictional investigators, are invited under the pretense of solving a murder that hasn’t happened yet. As the clock strikes midnight, they are plunged into a series of absurd and comedic situations. The story unfolds with twists and turns, poking fun at the conventions of the murder mystery genre and keeping the audience guessing until the end.Release Date June 23, 1976 Director Robert Moore Runtime 94 Minutes Main Genre Comedy

‘Murder by Death’ Includes the Staples of Classic Detective Fiction
Image via Columbia Pictures

Murder by Death is set in a generic, fog-laden mansion that’s somewhere in a dark, non-descript countryside: the perfect setting for a murder! Each of the film’s main characters, having received a mysterious invitation from Mr. Twain, is invited to a dinner party where someone may eventually be murdered. (Ambiguity is a major part of the satire.) In fact, after the characters are seated for dinner, a series of random events and clues are presented to them (and the audience) that are never actually explained. Among the dinner guests are Inspector Milo Perrier (James Coco), a sort of humorous twist on Hercule Poirot himself. Milo is obsessed with both food and letting everyone know he’s Belgian instead of French. We also have Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester), the ambulatory version of Miss Marple, who actually wheels her nurse around. Present as well are two wealthy socialites, Dick (David Niven) and Dora Charleston (Maggie Smith), a play on Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man series. Murder by Death also includes a pre-Columbo appearance by Peter Falk as Sam Diamond, the hard-nosed, streetwise counterpart to Sam Spade. And finally, there’s Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers), a parody of the lead character in the Charlie Chan series of books and films. Curiously, Murder by Death also includes a rare film appearance of Breakfast at Tiffany’s author, Truman Capote, as the film’s primary adversary, Lionel Twain.

The real showcase in Murder by Death is the interplay between the characters. With Wang’s constant and outlandish metaphors, Miss Marple’s maid getting fresh with Sam, and Monsieur Perrier’s constant demand for hot chocolate, any fan of detective fiction is sure to get a laugh. Of particular interest is the interplay between Diamond and Charleston, who are complete opposites in bedside manner. As stone-faced and expressionless as Sam Spade is always portrayed (this role may have been practice for Columbo), we see a hidden side of Falk in Diamond that fans always knew was there, proving that he’s as bizarre as he is tough. Charleston, while certainly better mannered and portraying an air of sophistication, is also hiding a secret that readers long suspected: he’s not actually wealthy. Along with the characters, genre supporters will also immediately recognize the most common tropes on display. For example, in any orthodox detective film, the atmosphere is mandatorily rainy. In Murder by Death, the characters quickly realize that to create the proper atmosphere, a sprinkler system has actually been installed on the windows. All the classic cliché plot elements are explored and skewered, including isolated settings, mysterious butlers, characters locked together, sordid histories, and blackmail.

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The Plot of ‘Murder by Death’ Doesn’t Make Sense, and It’s Not Supposed to
Images via Columbia Pictures

Murder by Death stands out from other murder-mystery comedies because it goes for broke. By design, the audience is presented with no rules in the film, the evidence doesn’t ultimately explain the solution, and the various plot twists don’t lead anywhere useful. In just about any other movie, this would be a fatal error for the plot, but Murder by Death skates the line skillfully.

To be fair, the conclusion, if one can call it that, has always been polarizing. Some viewers may adore the ending, while others will treat it with absolute disdain. (Honestly, either opinion is valid). The story itself is meant as a sort of literary revenge on mystery authors, including Agatha Christie, whose Poirot series has arguably retained greater popularity than the others. This is exemplified in the solution of A Haunting in Venice, which includes a ghost encounter that borders on a deus ex machina ending. However, the rest of the Poirot canon is based on the supernatural not being in play, with the exercise of extreme logic as its MacGuffin. As Lionel Twain protests at the end, “You’ve tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense!”

The Ending Parodies Those of Agatha Christie’s Stories
Images via Columbia Pictures

Not to be outdone, the quintessential example of what Murder by Death is satirizing is the ending of Murder on the Orient Express. The denouement of that story is that literally all of the characters killed the victim, which may be shocking, but it’s also unfair to the audience. While not universally considered Christie’s greatest twist ending, it is certainly one of her hallmarks that mystery fans will know. That said, the pronounced frustration of the explanation is that the audience, if they’re honest with themselves, could never have guessed it. Even in Death on the Nile, in order to surmise the identity of the murderer, the audience would need to be forensic experts to recognize the proper aging of blood stains. So too, the ending of Murder by Death isn’t just difficult, it is literally impossible; every character’s solution is both right and wrong, and the detectives never find out if a murder has even been committed. Every mystery reader has spent countless hours invested in a story, only to find that the ending is not only unsatisfying, but seems like an afterthought. In this way, audiences can easily identify with the film’s sentiment.

Of course, Murder by Death doesn’t single out Agatha Christie, since the same criticism is true of other authors. In Dashiel Hammet’s work The Maltese Falcon, which features Sam Spade, the titular statue turns out to be a fake all along (and may never have been real at all). While a mainstay of the genre, the ending of The Maltese Falcon elicits similar feelings as Murder on the Orient Express. So much so, it’s almost as if the characters in each story may as well have just stayed home, while the readers are left holding the bag. But in Murder by Death, it’s the detectives, not the viewers, that must endure through the story, only to meet an ending that is fatuously harebrained. Nothing is as satisfying to a scorned mystery reader as watching the greatest fictional detectives stumbling over bewildering hints, and taking a dose of their own medicine. The film even sums this up nicely when Sidney Wang’s son asks him if a murder occurred, to which he replies that the only thing killed was a “good weekend.” In the end, a diatribe by the villain serves as a sort of parabasis, as though the screenwriters were directly lecturing noteworthy crime authors for their liberties in their storytelling. Notwithstanding, Murder by Death is meant as a satire, as it strikes all the right nostalgic chords and stands as a love letter to classic mystery writers. (Sherlock Holmes even makes an appearance in a deleted scene.) Even though viewers that are familiar with the source material may get more out of it, Murder by Death is sure to delight even novice fans of the genre.

Murder by Death is available to buy or rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

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