Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Episode 101: Clue


We're rolling the dice on one of the first motion pictures based on a board game, a film that would transcend its reputation as a box office bomb to become a cult classic: Clue from 1985. Listen as we discuss the pros and cons of the film's multiple ending gimmick, investigate the story's backdrop of red scare paranoia and 1950s American hypocrisy, and marvel over the cast's amazing comedic chops. Warning: Contains explicit language, spoilers, and several red herrings, all of them communist.


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Which of the film's endings do you prefer? Does one plus one plus two plus one equal six? Would you pay to see a horror movie adaptation of Candyland? Leave a message and keep the conversation going.

4 comments:

  1. Hello, I love the podcast. as for that look of confusion you mentioned during the Ms.White speech. you are correct that it was a genuine reaction as obviously none of the other actors knew that she would give it. this is according to a documentary I recall watching some years ago. anyway, thanks for the great discustion on one of my favorite movie. Cheers

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    1. Thanks for confirming that! Here's hoping that some of the raw footage of that scene will come to light. It'd be amazing to see the full takes of Madeline Kahn's improvisation and some of the other actor's reactions to it. It's amazing they didn't burst out laughing.

      Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for listening!!

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  2. Curry's Wadsworth is the only character that gets development. The rest of the cast is... wasted?
    So much information in this episode - plenty to appreciate in this classic comedy film, but also there are choices from the 80s that haven't aged well.

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    1. This is one of those films where charactern development is a bit tricky since by design the characters have to remain somewhat anonymous and are often very different than the personas they present. That said, I think the script does a good job fleshing everyone out to the degree necessary for the story and the actors fill in a lot of the detail beautifully.

      As for comedy that hasn't aged well, we had originally planned to record this episode along with one for the similar comedy Murder by Death. Although I grew up with the latter film and there are still some very funny bits in it, there's also a lot of humor that doesn't age well at all!

      Thanks for listening!

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