Classic Films in Focus: MURDER, HE SAYS (1945)

Fred MacMurray and Marjorie Main most famously appear together in the 1947 comedy classic, The Egg and I, but Murder, He Says (1945) offers an earlier pairing that pits the two against one another as hapless city slicker and unscrupulous backwoods crook. This comic mystery from director George Marshall bursts with physical comedy, sight gags, and cartoon peril that even the youngest viewers can appreciate; I first saw Murder, He Says many decades ago, and the memory of its loony fun has stayed with me ever since. MacMurray and Main are the chief attractions in this homicidal hoot, but the supporting cast features entertaining, offbeat performances from Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Peter Whitney, Barbara Pepper, and Helen Walker as MacMurray's attractive ally.

The story opens with locals concerned about the lawless Fleagle gang just as professional pollster Pete Marshall (MacMurray) arrives in town looking for his missing coworker. Pete soon discovers that his predecessor had a fateful encounter with the Fleagles, who also take Pete prisoner with the intention of murdering him. The Fleagle matriarch, Mamie (Marjorie Main), spares Pete so she can use him to get dying Grandma Fleagle (Mabel Paige) to reveal the location of a fortune in stolen cash, but Pete only acquires a confusing clue before the old lady expires. Everyone in the house rushes to find the loot while thwarting or betraying the others, but the confusion increases when two different women claiming to be Bonnie Fleagle turn up and demand the money.

The Fleagles are as nutty and sinister a gang as any madcap comedy could invent, but their wackiness overpowers their ability to terrorize. Main leads the pack as bad-tempered but duplicitous Mamie, alternating between imitations of human tenderness and cracks of her much-used whip. The role lets Main cut loose with an extreme version of her usual character type; Mamie is a rough matriarch with no heart of gold to redeem her brusque manner. Mamie's current husband, a mild-looking little man named Mr. Johnson, is played by comedy stalwart Porter Hall with sly amiability and amoral intentions. Peter Whitney does double duty as identical twins Bert and Mert, a hilarious gag that the picture fully commits to in repeated scenes that frequently have Whitney acting against himself. Of the other family members, Grandma and the real Bonnie (Barbara Pepper) make brief but memorable appearances, while Jean Heather gets a sympathetic but rather tragic role as Mamie's daughter, Elany, a pretty sort of Ophelia figure whose main job is to sing the nonsense song wherein the clue to the stolen cash is hidden. Together they're a lot to keep track of as the rapid action unfolds, especially in a house full of trap doors, secret passages, and even radioactive poison. Each character, though, is played with enough energy and comedy to be memorable, even if nobody can tell Bert and Mert apart.

MacMurray and Helen Walker play the sane characters in the midst of this mayhem, but their roles also have great comedy moments. Walker's tough act in her first scene gives way to her development as the hero's love interest and partner against the Fleagles, but she gamely keeps up the deception for much of the movie. While he starred in dramas and serious films like Double Indemnity (1944), MacMurray is also widely celebrated as a comedy lead in pictures like The Egg and I (1947), The Shaggy Dog (1959), and The Absent-Minded Professor (1961). Murder, He Says belongs very much to the second set, despite its title, which recalls a song written for the 1943 film, Happy Go Lucky, and predates the arrival of the Miss Marple comedy, Murder She Said, in 1961. As the unlucky but quick-thinking Pete, MacMurray is constantly on the move, falling into traps, climbing out windows, and always trying to stay one step ahead of the violent but incompetent Mert and Bert. His scenes with the imaginary ghost are especially fun and will remind viewers of Harvey (1950), which might well be intentional as the original stage version had appeared in 1944.

For more of Marjorie Main's comic roles, see The Women (1939), Heaven Can Wait (1943), and The Harvey Girls (1946). George Marshall's other comedy films include The Ghost Breakers (1940), Hold That Blonde! (1945), and Scared Stiff (1953). Look for Helen Walker in Brewster's Millions (1945), Cluny Brown (1946), and Call Northside 777 (1948). Jean Heather appears in supporting roles in Double Indemnity and Going My Way (1944), but her film career was cut short by a 1947 car accident that damaged her face. If the clue tune in Murder, He Says sounds weirdly familiar, you probably listen to NPR's All Things Considered, which features an identical song as its theme music.

You can find Murder, He Says on DVD or stream it on The Criterion Channel (as part of the December 2022 Screwball Comedy lineup).

Classic Films in Focus: THEATER OF BLOOD (1973)

As gruesome as its murders are, Theater of Blood (1973) belongs much more to the genre of pitch black comedy than horror, given the gloriously ludicrous nature of the whole picture, but it's a dark comedy whose best jokes can only be appreciated by those with a knowledge of Shakespeare that goes well beyond the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet musing to Yorick's skull. For English literature majors whose tastes also run to absurd horror comedy and Vincent Price, Theater of Blood is basically a perfect film, and since I'm squarely in that demographic I have nothing but praise to offer for this weird, wonderful gem from director Douglas Hickox and screenwriter Anthony Greville-Bell. It's a good thing, too, since I wouldn't want the vengeful spirit of Edward Lionheart to come after me for trashing his performance.

Vincent Price plays Lionheart, a demented Shakespearean actor who returns after his apparent suicide to exact revenge on the theater critics who panned his acting and denied him their highest prize. Aided by a group of meth addled homeless people and a mysterious sidekick, Lionheart lures his detractors to suitably Shakespearean fates that recreate scenes from the plays in his final performance season. As each new murder occurs, the surviving critics become more and more anxious about their own safety, but the London police seem utterly unable to protect them from Lionheart's grisly schemes. Meanwhile, Lionheart's daughter, Edwina (Diana Rigg), claims that her father is really dead and protests her ignorance of the crimes to the police and the head critic, Peregrine Devlin (Ian Hendry), the only one of the bunch who seems to acknowledge some karmic justice at work in Lionheart's actions.

Price is the main attraction throughout, but several of the supporting performances are also memorable, especially Diana Rigg as Lionheart's loyal daughter. She never exhibits the hammy lunacy that Lionheart revels in, but Edwina's sang froid proves to be just as unnerving in its own way, especially as the third act reveals its barely hidden secrets. Ian Hendry is the most significant of the critics, partly because Devlin lives longer than the others and thus gets more screen time, but Robert Morley is absolutely scene stealing as the gluttonous dog lover Meredith Merridew, who dies in a truly bizarre recreation of the most bizarre of Shakespeare's plays, Titus Andronicus. Also noteworthy is Jack Hawkins in one of his final screen appearances as Solomon Psaltery, whom Lionheart tricks into strangling his wife (Diana Dors) in a jealous rage, just like the murder of Desdemona in Othello. Most of the other victims die too quickly to have that much to do, but fans of classic British films will appreciate the presence of Dennis Price, Harry Andrews, Coral Browne (who would become Price's third wife), Robert Coote, Michael Hordern, and Arthur Lowe, as well as Milo O'Shea as the baffled police inspector.

Theater of Blood goes all in on its Shakespearean theme, loading little jokes and references into the names of both people and places, but since the murders hinge on specific scenes from the plays it's more important to know those than to know why the derelict theater is named the Burbage (for Richard Burbage, the Elizabethan actor) or that Edwina's disguise is a nod to the popularity of the "breeches roles" in the Bard's canon. The movie doesn't content itself with the most familiar and frequently performed plays, choosing instead to depict scenes from Troilus and Cressida, Cymbeline, Henry VI, Part One, and Titus Andronicus as well as more popular works like Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Richard III, and The Merchant of Venice. Aside from the Titus Andronicus murder, the most entertaining of the lot might well be the drowning of Oliver Larding (Robert Coote) in the vat of wine, mainly because it was Vincent Price himself who met the same end when he played the Duke of Clarence in the 1939 film, Tower of London, as well as then playing Richard III in Roger Corman's 1962 remake, also called Tower of London. That's a lot of meta-humor packed into a single segment of the movie, but it's the kind of thing that becomes possible thanks to Price's long career and penchant for both period dramas and campy horror roles. (Do take a moment to enjoy the prominent placement of the name "Clarence" over the door of the shop where the wine tasting occurs.) The ending reworks the father and daughter pathos of King Lear with Edwina as a rather ironic Cordelia but Lionheart very much in the right mode as the mad monarch, although Lear hadn't committed a series of inventively ghoulish murders as part of his particular brand of insanity. I won't say that Lionheart is more sinned against than sinning, but he, like Lear, probably would.

If skewed Shakespeare suits your taste in films, try pairing Theater of Blood with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead (1990), Scotland, Pa. (2001), or the memorably terrifying Throne of Blood (1957), which is Akira Kurasawa's Japanese interpretation of Macbeth. For more murderous obsessions let loose, check out Fade to Black (1980), in which classic movies serve as the subject of the killer's fixation. Vincent Price's career spanned more than fifty years, but for other horror films from the early 70s try The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), or Madhouse (1974). Dame Diana Rigg, who died in September of 2020, is particularly remembered for her iconic roles in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and the TV series, The Avengers (1965-1968), but I'm personally very fond of her in The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and the delightfully droll series, The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (1998-2000).