Clue

By VARIETY STAFF

Paramount. Director Jonathan Lynn; Producer Debra Hill; Screenplay Jonathan Lynn; Camera Victor J. Kemper; Editor David Bretherton, Richard Haines; Music John Morris;; Art Director John Lloyd
 
Eileen Brennan
Tim Curry
Madeline Kahn
Christopher Lloyd
Lesley Ann Warren
Colleen Camp
 

Clue is campy, high-styled escapism. In a short 87 minutes that just zip by, the well-known board game's one-dimensional card figures like Professor Plum and others become multi-dimensional personalities with enough wit, neuroses and motives to intrigue even the most adept whodunnit solver. [Screen story by co-executive producer John Landis and director Jonathan Lynn.] Film is released with three endings.

Tim Curry plays the loquacious organizer of the evening's murder game, which takes place in a Gothic hilltop mansion in New England in 1954 during a storm (of course).

He sends six individuals a letter providing the incentive to attend dinner at the mansion and when each arrives, assigns them a pseudonym - Professor Plum, Mr Green, Mrs White and so on.

The unlikely assemblage of characters is mostly portrayed by well-known actors and comedians of which Lesley Ann Warren's Miss Scarlet, Martin Mull's Colonel Mustard and Eileen Brennan's Mrs Peacock performances stand out.

Terrific performances also are given by relative unknowns: Michael McKean as Mr Green and Colleen Camp as the French maid, Yvette.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1985. Running time: 87 MIN.