Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
As the private eye of private eyes, Steve Martin is Rigby Reardon. He's tough, rough and ready to take on anything when Juliet Forrest appears on the scene with a case: her father, a noted scientist, philanthropist and chesemaker, has died mysteriously. Reardon immediately smells a rat and follows a complex maze of clues that lead him to the "Carlotta Lists."
With a little help from his "friends" Reardon gets his man. An exciting action-fun packed film the way '40s films used to be!
Member Reviews
Underwhelming exercise in noir collage - Elsa
This is not just an homage to noir, it's a collage of snippets from The Big Sleep, Notorious, Suspicion, Double Indemnity, and many others - I recognized Lana Turner, Bette David, Joan Crawford, and other stars, but couldn't place the films. Martin basically inserts himself into scenes from the old films, and sometimes has to dress in drag to do so - since the plot is just strung-together clips from other movies, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Neither did the plot of The Big Sleep, but at least that kept you glued to the screen - this didn't, for me. The humor is sometimes off-puttingly crude, sometimes delightfully absurdist or philosophical, and the contemporary dialogue, costumes, settings, etc., are a wonderful pastiche of noir (a famous line from To Have and Have Not borrowed and made NSFW, and even, interestingly, references to late noir/noir pastiche like Chinatown). Sadly, though, the plot and characters were just too thin to hold my attention - I kept wishing I was watching one of the old films spliced into Martin's prank.Nearly Too Clever - KevinJaques
Early Steve Martin was great for a bold, exuberant, and very unexpected humour. Think "The Jerk". Or in "Man with Two Brains", as a surgeon operating, when he shouts, "Get that cat out of here!" And he invents 'screw top brain surgery'.
This movie is still pretty funny like that. For instance, in this movie, he gropes an unconscious woman and when she wakes up and catches him, he explains that he was just adjusting her breasts, because they had gotten out of whack when she fell.
And Rachel Ward looks great in a 40s get up. So does Steve, for that matter.
But as his popularity was shooting up, he tried to get more and more clever in his stuff. This movie, a camp of the film noir genre, features him interacting with clips from genuine films noir. It was very well done, but who cares? This movie is nearly too clever. A later movie, "Pennies from Heaven" was so damn clever it was intolerable and his career tanked for a long time, till he began a come back carefully avoiding both exuberance and this sort of cleverness. The new Steve Martin is all about comic acting and subtle writing trying to combine humour and insight or empathy.What a great classic Steve Martin - Trixnbun
You know I've always loved Steve Martin, remember my parents having to give permission for me to see Man with two brains by myself because of the topless scene, this movie is just as good.
The film is in black and white, a tribute to the noir films of the 30's and 40's. My favorite line that's used is a few times.. I'm just adjusting your breasts, you knocked them out of whack.
In a way an amazing movie, as they merged old scenes from classic black and white movies with Cary Grant and others in with the movie and Steve Martin looks like he's interacting with the characters. Which considering there was no "one there" he did a great job
There's a part where he plays a blond bombshell (rather homely one) and the cut back and forth between the original and Steve Martin, the director did a great job in merging the two together.
A very campy movie, with typical Steve martin humor.. not one for the under 14 crowd, but they make fun of a lot of different things in subtle and not so subtle ways.
And hee keeps finding clues for the "Carlotta list"
Member Reviews
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Underwhelming exercise in noir collage - Elsa
This is not just an homage to noir, it's a collage of snippets from The Big Sleep, Notorious, Suspicion, Double Indemnity, and many others - I recognized Lana Turner, Bette David, Joan Crawford, and other stars, but couldn't place the films. Martin basically ...Nearly Too Clever - KevinJaques
Early Steve Martin was great for a bold, exuberant, and very unexpected humour. Think "The Jerk". Or in "Man with Two Brains", as a surgeon operating, when he shouts, "Get that cat out of here!" And he invents 'screw top brain surgery'.
This movie is ...What a great classic Steve Martin - Trixnbun
You know I've always loved Steve Martin, remember my parents having to give permission for me to see Man with two brains by myself because of the topless scene, this movie is just as good.
The film is in black and white, a tribute to the noir films ...