Review: Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid

Steve Martin stars as P.I. Rigby Reardon, contacted by the mysterious and sultry Juliet (Rachel Ward) to look into the mysterious death of her father. What follows is a criminal conspiracy through clips of 40s and 50s crime/noir cinema and some of the most famous movie stars of all-time.

Steve Martin has always been a favourite of mine, but for me his career in film didn’t truly take off until 1986’s underrated “Three Amigos!”. Some of you will disagree with me on that, and even more of you will likely disagree with me that this 1982 Carl Reiner (“The Jerk”, “The Man With Two Brains”, “All of Me”, “Sibling Rivalry”, “Fatal Instinct”) spoof of film noir/detective films is the best of Martin’s early films. To the latter all I can say is I’m not entirely sold on “The Jerk”, don’t like “The Man With Two Brains” at all, and from memory, neither “All of Me” or “The Lonely Guy” were that much better than “The Jerk”. This is a one-joke spoof idea, but done pretty well, and film buffs like myself will definitely want to see it at least once in their life.

Steve Martin does a fine sardonic narration and his character’s aversion to cleaning ladies is probably the film’s comic highlight. The bit where he pours a seemingly never-ending cascade of coffee grinds is one of those jokes you almost feel guilty for giggling at. Guilty as charged, your honour! Ditto the ridiculous bit where Martin shaves his tongue. Yeah, you just need to see it. English-born actress Rachel Ward, never a comedienne, nonetheless is a perfect stand-in for Barbara Stanwyck and the like. Composer Miklos Rozsa (“Double Indemnity”, Hitchcock’s “Spellbound”), legendary costume designer Edith Head (on her final film assignment), and cinematographer Michael Chapman (“Raging Bull”, “Personal Best”), meanwhile rightly treat the thing as no joke. It may be a one-joke idea, but having Martin interact with inserts from various 40s and 50s crime/mystery/noir flicks and then constructing a plot (albeit a fairly simple one) out of it all, is very cleverly done by Reiner and co-writers George Gipe (“The Man With Two Brains”) and Martin himself. There may be more technologically sophisticated ways of doing this sort of thing in 2019, but for 1982, this was clever and reasonably seamless. Some of the highlights among the inserts include; a genuinely funny use of Barbara Stanwyck freaking out in “Sorry, Wrong Number”, a cute “Lost Weekend” bit – ‘You can buy a lotta booze with that!’, Steve Martin interacting with Ingrid Bergman from “Notorious” but in a totally different context where she drugs him and he barks like a dog. Meanwhile, as soon as you hear the name ‘Walter Neff’ you should know where things are headed, and it shows Reiner and co have put some real thought into this yes, thin but clever idea. Once we get there it’s spectacularly silly and priceless. And if you don’t laugh at the Bette Davis scene, check your pulse ‘coz you might be dead. The film probably loses a bit of steam after about an hour, as the gags aren’t as funny and the story stops being interesting or quite as clever. That is, until the finale where Martin and the villain both bicker over who has the right to divulge the evil plot, the talking killer or the gumshoe who has figured it out. Cute.

There’s not really any big laughs, but I smiled a whole lot during this clever, spoof-y comedy. Martin and Ward are good, the inserts often very amusing. Underrated, if mild entertainment.

Rating: B-