Clue (1985): These Folks Are Just Having A Good Time

Clue is a 1985 American live action movie based on the board game of the same name. The interior sets for Clue were filmed at the Paramount lot and decorated with authentic 18th and 19th-century furnishings rented from private collectors, including the estate of Theodore Roosevelt. The only interior scene not filmed at the Paramount lot, the ballroom, as well as the driveway exteriors, were filmed on location at a mansion in South Pasadena, California; a site that was destroyed in a 2005 fire. Writer/director Jonathan Lynn had also admitted to being overly cautious while filming and not fully trusting the stunt coordinator because of John David Landis involvement in the film. At the time, John Landis was still embroiled in legal action over the deaths of one adult and two children while filming the Twilight Zone movie.

Three endings were filmed for the movie and a different one was shown at each theater - advertised as Clue A, Clue B, or Clue C. The DVD release plays all three sequentially or can play a single ending chosen at random. A fourth ending was filmed, but removed because it "wasn't very good". The cut ending would have reportedly had Wadsworth, motivated by his desire to become the 'perfect killer', commit all the murders by poisoning the champagne. After stealing a police car, three dogs hidden in the back seat would leap forward to maul him. However, Jonathan Lynn stated in a 2013 interview that he doesn't remember what the fourth ending was about. Several actors for the movie have also given differing accounts; Tim Curry claims the butler was meant to kill everyone but it was dropped because the butler was too obvious a suspect, and Michael McKean recalls an ending where the entire cast was chased by dobermans.

Spoiler Warning: I am going to give a synopsis and my opinions at the very end.

 

Summary:

It is the year 1954. Six strangers, most from Washington, D.C., arrive at a secluded New England mansion in response to a mysterious invitation. Wadsworth the butler greets each guest at the door and assigns them an alias (in order of arrival): Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green, Professor Plum, and Miss Scarlet. While awaiting the arrival of a seventh person, the guests get to talking amongst themselves, discovering that many in their number are already acquainted with each other. Furthermore, they all make a living from government jobs.

When Mr. Boddy (whom Wadsworth implies is not the host) arrives, the butler reveals that everyone is being blackmailed (in order of appearance): Professor Plum lost his medical license for having an affair with a patient. Mrs. Peacock took bribes for her U.S. senator husband. Miss Scarlet runs a brothel. Colonel Mustard is a war profiteer who sold plane parts on the black market. Mrs. White has had multiple husbands, all of whom went missing or turned up dead, and Mr. Green is a homosexual which could cost him his job at the State Department. Mr. Boddy is the blackmailer.

Wadsworth claims to have already called the police and has a file of evidence ready as well as their entire conversation thus far recorded. Mr. Boddy, however, threatens to expose the guests if he is arrested and suggests that they instead kill Wadsworth who has the key to the mansion. Each guest is supplied with a weapon from the game: a candlestick (Miss Scarlet), noose (Mrs. White), lead pipe (Mr. Green), wrench (Colonel Mustard), revolver (Professor Plum), and knife (Mrs. Peacock). When the lights go off, moans, thuds, and a gunshot can be heard. When the lights are turned back on, the body of Mr. Boddy is laying limp on the floor.

"He felt you were all thoroughly un-American. So he decided to put his information to good use and make a little money off of it. What could be more American than that?" -Wadsworth

Professor Plum denies having used the gun, claiming someone tried to grab it from him in the dark. An examination of the body reveals no bullet wound; the bullet instead having broken a vase on the mantle. Plum suggests poisoning as a possible cause of death which upsets Yvette the maid in the next room over because she had drank the same cognac as Mr. Boddy. Wadsworth then admits to having summoned everyone to the mansion. His wife (now deceased from suicide) refused to name socialists friends which Mr. Boddy used to blackmail him into serving as a butler. He had wanted to hand Mr. Boddy off to the police, but now that will be impossible. The group suddenly remembers there is a cook in the mansion and upon reaching the kitchen discover the cook's body stuffed into the freezer with a knife in the back.

"One of us did it. We all had the opportunity. We all had a motive." -Wadsworth

Mrs. Peacock denies killing the cook, saying she dropped the knife in the study where anyone could have picked it up. The group decides to move the cook's body to the study, where Mr. Boddy currently resides, in order to keep the evidence together. However, the group is shocked to discover Mr. Boddy's body has gone missing from the study. It is rediscovered just outside the bathroom a short while later by Mrs. Peacock, now bleeding from a blow to the head with a candlestick. Miss Scarlet also claims no wrongdoing as she too dropped her weapon on the study floor where everyone had access to it. To prevent any further deaths, Wadsworth gathers the weapons and locks them in a cupboard. When he goes to throw away the key, a stranded motorist appears at the door asking to borrow the phone. Wadsworth leads the man to the lounge and locks him inside.

"Well, he's certainly dead now. Why would anyone want to kill him twice? It seems so unnecessary." -Wadsworth

Colonel Mustard suggests they split into pairs to do a thorough search of the mansion. If one member of a pair turns up dead, they'll know who the killer is. Lots are drawn to determine the pairings and where in the mansion they will be searching - short sticks get the basement, long sticks get the attic. While the group is investigating the mansion, an unknown person burns the blackmail evidence, unlocks the weapons cupboard, and uses the wrench to murder the motorist, who recognized one of the guests as his "old boss". Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet then discover a hidden passage in the greenhouse leading to the lounge with the motorist's corpse. Having become trapped, and without a key to open the door, Yvette shoots the lock open using the revolver from the cupboard. When questioned about how she knew the cupboard was open, Yvette says that she had intended to break it open but someone else had already unlocked it.

"This is war Peacock! Casualties are inevitable! You cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, any cook will tell you that." -Colonel Mustard

A police officer, having noticed the motorist's abandoned car at the end of the road, inquires if the man had made his way to the mansion. When the guests give mixed responses, the officer requests to use their phone, but a call from the FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover, is received and taken by Wadsworth in the library. While they wait on the only phone left in the house, Mr. Green offers to show the officer around, but the officer swears he recognizes Yvette from somewhere. Suspecting the household of hiding something from him, the officer lets himself into the study and lounge, where the guests have successfully hidden the bodies as drunken partygoers and lovers making out.

"Don't worry, there's nothing illegal about any of this. This is America. It's a free country, don't you know that?" -Police Officer

The guests then resume their search of the mansion until the power is cut by the unknown person from before. Yvette is killed with the noose, the officer is bludgeoned with the lead pipe, and a singing telegram girl at the front door is shot with the revolver. Power is restored to the mansion, at which point Wadsworth claims to have solved the case. He recreates the night's events, interrupted only briefly by a door-to-door evangelist.

"At the start of the evening, Yvette was here, by herself, waiting to offer you all a glass of champagne. I was in the hall. I know because I was there." -Wadsworth

He reveals that Mr. Boddy purposefully played-dead after realizing the gunshot was intended for him. While everyone was checking on Yvette in the other room, someone grabbed the knife and used the secret passage way to murder the cook. Both Yvette and the cook worked as informants for Mr. Boddy, so there was reason to want them dead. Yvette had also previously worked for Miss Scarlet, slept with Colonel Mustard, and had an affair with Mrs. White's husband. When everyone ran to check on the murdered cook, the killer used the passage way to return to the study where they chased Mr. Boddy into the bathroom with the candlestick. After Mr. Boddy was rediscovered and the weapons were locked in the cupboard, someone could have pickpocketed the key given how often they were huddled together in tight hallways and small rooms. When they split up to search the mansion, the killer destroyed the evidence on the study desk. Now aware of Mr. Boddy's full network, the killer retrieved the wrench from the cupboard to murder the motorist who worked as an informant for Mr. Boddy. The body was then discovered and the police officer arrived. As soon as the group split up again, the killer cut the power and murdered the officer for taking bribes from Miss Scarlet. The telegram girl was involved in the affair with Professor Plum.

"A double negative! That sounds like a confession to me. In fact the double negative has led to proof positive. I'm afraid you gave yourself away." -Wadsworth

Ending 1: How It Could Have Happened

Hearing the gunshot in the study room, Yvette assumed Mr. Boddy had been murdered. She retrieved the dagger from the study floor and killed the cook. When everyone ran to check on the cook, Yvette went to look at Mr. Boddy in the study, and attacked him with the candlestick when she realized he wasn't dead. Yvette then informed Miss Scarlet - her employer, of the secret passages. Miss Scarlet is actually in the business of information gathering and intended to inherit Mr. Boddy's blackmailing of the group. She killed Yvette to eliminate an accomplice and the telegram girl because it would reflect poorly on Professor Plum if anyone suspected he had a hand in her death. Wadsworth (an undercover FBI agent) manages to disarm Miss Scarlet, as law enforcement, summoned by the police chief disguised as the evangelist raid the house.

"Oh, I'm being blackmailed all right, but I did what I'm being blackmailed for." -Miss Scarlet

Ending 2: How About This?

Mrs. Peacock killed the cook, who was formally her cook, and all the other victims to hide the fact that she had taken bribes from foreign powers. She holds the others at gunpoint, but because she did them a favor by taking out their blackmailer, they all agree to stack the bodies in the basement and forget the whole thing ever happened. Wadsworth then reveals himself to be an undercover FBI agent, and Mrs. Peacock is apprehended by the police chief disguised as the evangelist.

Ending 3: What Really Happened (true ending)

Professor Plum tried to kill Mr. Boddy but missed. He then lied about someone trying to take the gun from him. Mrs. Peacock murdered the cook, formally her cook, to ensure her secrets wouldn't be revealed. Colonel Mustard pickpocketed the key from Wadsworth, then suggested they all split up. He used the opportunity to bludgeon his World War II driver, the motorist. Mrs. White used the second split up to cut the power and murder Yvette out of jealousy. Miss Scarlet also used the blackout to murder the cop she had been bribing. The telegram girl was shot by Wadsworth, who is actually Mr. Boddy. The man they had all thought was Mr. Boddy is actually the butler. Wadsworth (aka the real Mr. Boddy) says the police haven't been called, and suggests they stack the bodies in the basement. Mr. Green then pulls a hidden revolver and kills Wadsworth, revealing himself to be a straight, undercover FBI agent. The police chief disguised as the evangelist arrives with law enforcement to arrest the guests.

"He was expendable like all of you. I'm grateful to you all for disposing of my network of spies and informers. Saved me a lot of trouble." -Wadsworth

Final Thoughts:

Clue is a hilarious and very quotable murder mystery that manages to stay surprisingly true to the premise of its unorthodox source material; all six weapons and main characters (in accurate outfits) are present. And every room from the game is in the correct location. The cast even struggle to cram through doors all at once in reference to the 1 tile wide doorways of the game that were only big enough to allow a single player through at a time. The love and enthusiasm that went into making this movie is so evident that it is hard to believe critics tore it apart back in the day and Jonathan Lynn lost future movie gigs over it.

There are very few films that share Clue's structure or the way in which the story is told. And I love the concept of getting only one ending depending on which theater you went to, and having it be different from what your friend saw. It probably wouldn't work out so well today with the internet, but it was a cool idea back in the day and given how common alternate outcomes are in video games, I'm surprised no VG movie adaptations have experimented with the idea. Unfortunately, the multiple endings are generally what are credited for the films failure at the box office, because audiences didn't know if they had to see all three endings to understand the story and were afraid of accidentally seeing the same ending twice. If someone only planned on going once, they "wanted the good ending", but there was confusion over which endings corresponded with which letters. Time has been kind to Clue at least, and with all three endings available on home release, it has finally been recognized as the cult classic that it is.

Have you seen Clue or played the game? What were your thoughts?

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