After seeing knives out last year, I
immediately started binging murder mystery movies. The film inspired a love
of the genre in me that I had never had before, and it's been a lovely and
illuminating adventure, so this video is going to look at what I discovered
watching the 10 murder mystery movies that in some way inspired knives out.
Though I've been planning to make this video for a while, in the last month the
task has become a bit morbid. Like... "hey a deadly virus is spreading all over the
world right now time to talk about a bunch of movies that are about murder
and death!" But then again seeing as most of you are hopefully socially distancing
and probably very bored, maybe a video like this is more necessary now than I
had ever hoped it would be at the start. So no grand unifying thesis this time.
I'm just going to review 10 movies and tell you which ones to watch to pass the
time. And no this won't have spoilers in it.
"And who turns out to have done it? "I couldn't tell you that it would spoil it for you."
"But none of us will see it" "Let's begin with one of Agatha
Christie's most famous stories: The Murder on the Orient Express. This is a
book I read when I was about 12, so it's the only film here that I was spoiled on
before watching it. But the fact that I still remember exactly what happened
even from back then speaks to how timeless the story is. The film takes
place in 1935 when Hercule Poirot boards a train in Istanbul. Heavy snows stop
the train somewhere in Yugoslavia and while they are stuck, one of the
passengers is murdered. Since all of the passengers are still on the train it had
to be one of them. Classic setup.
"A murder in the middle of the night a lot of
guests for the weekend everyone's a suspect that sort of thing"
"How horrid."
The best part of the movie is that it treats the train starting up as the most
magical and important thing in the world. I don't know why I find that so funny.
Just feels like the shot screams hey get it this is the train from the title get
it ah. The film stars Albert Finney as the best version of Poirot you'll find.
What Finney understands about the character is that he should be extremely ridiculous. This is what makes him more
than just a sherlock holmes clone. His moustache should be ridiculous.
His hair should be ridiculous. His accent should be incomprehensible. Finney with
his gelled hair and hunchback posture delivers on all of this. It provides a
great contrast in the story. We're dealing with a very serious subject --
murder -- but our main character is basically a cartoon. Benoit Blanc
inherits all of the silliness. If you were put off by Blanc foghorn leghorn
Kentucky drawl, well I feel like it's a nod to Poirot. For me, this is a big part
of the reason that the 2017 remake of the film directed and starring Kenneth
Branagh is a bit of a miss. The only category he beats our other Poirot in is
the mustache game. I mean... look at that stache. But actually the mustache feels
out of place considering Branagh's more straight-laced version of the character.
It's not just Branagh either everyone in that movie feels like they're holding
back making the movie feel a bit stale so if you haven't yet watched any
version of the story, I highly recommend watching the original first. It's the
archetype of the perfect murder mystery. Finney was unfortunately unable to
reprise the role of Poirot for a sequel but paramount cast someone who is very
nearly just as good. Peter Ustinov plays him as an even more gentlemanly version
of the sleuth in three films the first two of which are on our list Death on
the Nile in 1978, and evil under the Sun in 1982. Of the two, Death on the Nile is
the more famous and more frequently adapted. And if you like the Branagh
movie then careful watching this one since they just remade that one with
Branagh and it's due to come out well... it was supposed to be this year, but I guess
no one really knows anymore do they. But that being said it's the other
Ustinov-led movie that is by far my preference. Death on the Nile is
perfectly fine, but there's little you'll find here that you won't find just
watching the Murder on the Orient Express. It's mostly the same movie just
on a boat (and there's a blackmailing subplot that Rian Johnson draws on for
the blackmailing subplot in Knives Out). Evil Under the Sun though is just so
much more fun. Now despite having the least impressive moustache of the three
Poirot's, Peter Ustinov is wonderful in Evil Under the Sun. I mean... the man wears
a full-body bathing suit with his initials sewn into the breast. Just take
this in for a second. He wears a full-body bathing suit with
his initials sewn into the breast. Now strangely Maggie Smith stars in both
Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, but playing different characters, which
is weird because it's the same version of Poirot so you'd think he'd realize the
fact that miss Bowers and Daphne Castle look an awful lot alike. "You're not much of a detective are you."
But I'm thrilled that they put her in this movie even though she was already in death on the
Nile, because she's a delight in Evil Under the Sun, especially in her scenes
opposite Diana Rigg. Now, if you don't know who Diana Rigg is, yes you do
because THIS is Diana Rigg. Except in 1982 THIS was Diana Rigg. "Hello Daphne."
and let me tell you her performance in this movie is dynamite.
Especially because her and Maggie Smith are so snarky at each other it hurts.
"Arelene and I were in the chorus of a show together. Not that I could ever compete. Even in those days, she could always throw her legs up in the air higher
than any of us... and wider"
"Kenneth this is such a surprise. When you told me of an
island run by a quaint little land lady I don't know, dear it was Daphne
Castle." "Yes, quite."
But then later... I can't believe
I'm saying this... for a few minutes the movie becomes a musical and young
Professor McGonagall and young Lady Tyrell sing a song together, and if
you're not watching this you're missing out on a truly transformative life
experience. "You're a new invention. You're the top.
You're the fourth dimension." So those are the Poirot films. Collectively they are
probably the finest examples of their genre, but they are definitely movies
from another time. Despite their subject matter, they are
movies without an ounce of grit to them. Everything is clean and polished, proper
and restrained. While Christie does have some characters who are working-class,
most are rich, and it's odd that in the Ustinov films specifically, there are
a bunch of servants in the background, who are never considered as part of the
mystery. It sort of makes it feel like the characters are not actually solving
a real murder mystery, but are rich people role-playing a murder mystery
while on vacation. We'll get into that a little more in a bit, but first let's
talk about the last Agatha Christie film that's on this list: this one isn't a Poirot story but a story
about her other famous detective Miss Marple.
The best scene is the opening one. It starts in black and white in a scene
that feels like it should be the end of the movie where the detective explains
the crime. Then it's revealed that that was a movie within the movie when the
projector breaks down. Everyone's upset because now they won't find out who
committed the crime, until Miss Marple stands up and explains it all on her way
out. It's a really fun way to introduce this character who was just so
effortlessly good at this well. "Then who did do it Miss Marple? Who murdered Lord
Fenley?" "Why young Miss Kate of course." She gets injured early on in the story so
she has to stay home for most of it while her nephew does all of the
evidence gathering and interrogating, and I kind of dig the idea of someone
solving a mystery while staying at home and doing the gardening. This one's a
middle-of-the-pack movie probably difficult to find and you've seen it
before. Knives out is also a pretty funny film
so no surprise then that three of the movies that inspired the film are
satirical takes on the murder mystery genre. They are Murder By Death,
The Private Eyes and Clue. Now, superficially these are all almost
exactly the same movie, since they're all basically riffs on Agatha Christie's "And
Then There Were None." All three of them are about a group of people who are for
one reason or another called to a spooky mansion by a wealthy host who promptly
dies. The characters then wander around the mansion trying to solve the mystery
while not getting picked off themselves. The mansions almost all look exactly
the same - and the Thrombey house looks like they took every prop from all three
of these movies and managed to shove it into one building. In Murder by Death
the characters are all spoofs on famous fictional detectives. The comedy is very
out of date in certain places, and it's hard to imagine many of the jokes
landing, even at the time. It's only 90 minutes, but felt much longer. At the time
critic John Smith said "Murder by Death is not a movie to write or read about
but to be seen and modestly enjoyed." So I'm going to stop talking about it now
except to point out that it also stars Maggie Smith. The private Eyes is a slightly better
version of Murder by Death. The film stars Don Knotts in Tim Conway
who were a well-known comedic duo at the time, starring together in a boatload of
other movies. No movie can really fail if it has Don Knotts in it since the tone
of his voice is just inherently funny to me. Not much other reason to recommend it
though and if The Private Eyes is a better version of murder by death,
then clue is a much much better version of The Private Eyes. As it's based off of
a board game, Clue has no right being as good as it is. And yet this one's a
genuine classic. We've got the same strangers in a mansion plot and a
mystery about who killed the host, so who did it? And who kills everyone else that
follows? Well no one really knows and neither will you by the end of the movie!
When it was released in theatres, Clue had three different endings but
paramount did not advertise that that was the case so people walked out having
seen different movies but without knowing it. The home release of clue
included all three endings and they play one after the other which is a brilliant
decision. The comedy from each just piles on to the next until the whole thing
descends into absolute farce. The actual plot literally doesn't matter this is
about endlessly riffing on the same handful of jokes... "so it's all has nothing to
do with a disappearing nuclear physicist and Colonel Mustard's work on the new fusion bomb. "Communism is it was just a red herring."
"Communism is just"
"a red herring." ... and overacting everything as much as possible. "I'm upstairs with you. Yes, you."
Of course the standout performance is obviously Tim Curry. I
mean Tim Curry is hamming it up so much in this movie He steals the spotlight so much that you
somehow forget that Christopher Lloyd is here. I mean do you know how charismatic
you have to be to make Christopher Lloyd a background player? So if you only watch
one movie from this, watch clue. The next two movies on the list are a
pair of very twisty thrillers. In The Last of Sheila, the wife of a Hollywood
producer dies in a hit-and-run accident a year later, the producer reunites other
film industry people who are at the party on the night of the accident, and
takes them all on a cruise of the Mediterranean. During the trip they play
a seemingly innocent game of Secrets where everyone has to figure out
everyone else's secret. I won't say any more about the plot because to do so
would be to spoil the many twists along the way. What I will point out though is
that Knives Out definitely inherits the flashback fake-out from this movie, both
movies have prolonged flashbacks to the murder far before you feel like you
should be getting the answers but the flashbacks do a very good job of
convincing you that there's no other way this could have happened, that they're telling you the truth and that that is that. But that isn't
that, and there's more mystery to be uncovered. It's a great little trick and
it works as well here as a does in Knives Out. Equally fun is the Michael Caine
film Deathtrap. I imagine that the first image that pops into your mind when you
think of Knives Out is the extravagant knife display in the home of Harlan
Thrombey, a mystery writer himself. Well that idea is ripped whole cloth from
Death Trap. The movie takes place almost entirely in the home of Sidney Bruhl a
playwright whose recent thrillers have been critical failures. Then one of his
old students, Clifford Anderson, contacts him hoping to get notes on a script that
he's written called Deathtrap. Sidney, realizing the play is
magnificent, plots to kill Anderson so he can steal the play and pretend it's his
own work, unless his wife stops him. That premise is a formula for incredible
tension throughout the entire two-hour runtime of the film. Part of this is that
the film itself is based off a play and it really feels like it was based off of
a play. There's very few characters and there's very few scene changes so the
scenes are just allowed to marinate in the tension of their situations, and like
The Last of Sheila, this is a very twisty story I don't know if it quite holds
together by the end, but it's a lot of fun and in terms of pure entertainment
value, it's only behind clue on this list. So there's just one movie left and one
more connection to Knives Out to make so let's talk about Gosford Park and class
conflicts. A lot of movies we've talked about so
far are very entertaining, but Gosford Park is the most interesting. On paper
it's the classic setup for a murder mystery story, a fact which is pointed
out by one of the characters a Hollywood producer himself who was working on a
movie that parallels the story we're watching. "Most of it takes place at a
shooting party in a country house sort of like this one actually.
Murder in the middle of the night, a lot of guests for the weekend, everyone's a
suspect, that sort of thing." But of course the movie is so much more than that.
Yes we have a plot where there is a party at a country house and a murder is
committed but that's never the focus. This is a drama first which just has the
thinnest veneer of genre tropes in it. It feels like there are more characters in
this movie than all of the movies we've talked about so far. And it's dizzying
trying to keep track of them all. The world of this movie feels much bigger
than the slice of it that we get to see. Everyone's got their own little agendas
and side plots going on in a way that feels totally natural and seamless, the
dialogue is so understated, that it really does feel like we're watching a
day in the life of these characters rather than a plot. The film is a
satirical black comedy but it's not one that you'll often laugh out loud -
that's not to say it isn't funny. It's that the jokes make you furious.
Like when Constance tells Mary to wash this shirt and Mary has to go through an
ordeal to do that and the next day Constance is like actually I don't even
need that shirt and you just want to explode. But wait... hold on a second... is
that Maggie Smith? Okay time out. That's four out of the ten movies we've talked
about so far. If Rian Johnson doesn't cast her in knives Out 2, it will be a
crime. Please, please do this. I need this. #CastMaggieSmithInKnivesOut2.
Despite being a twenty-year old movie about the 1930s in another country,
Gosford Park feels urgent as does every movie about class divisions these days. There are two worlds in Gosford Park. The
upstairs world of the noblemen, and the below stairs world of the servants. Some
of the best jokes are the movies send-up of murder mystery tropes. Instead of a
brilliant detective, we have inspector Thompson, a bumbling idiot. He routinely
ignores clues and contaminates evidence. "there's
a broken coffee cup down here." "Dexter they have people to clear these things
up you get on with your own job." Usually the detective is the most verbose
character in these movies, but inspector Thompson is constantly interrupted. "I'll
introduce myself. I'm inspector Thomp..."
"This is the countessTrentham."
"Yes I served with your husba..."
"Lord Stockbridge." He also delivers the most revealing line
in the whole movie. When he asks if he's going to interrogate the help about the
death of the master of the house, "Only people with a real connection with the
dead man." But the entire movie has convinced us that maybe the only people
who know a rich man are his servants. Where Agatha Christie stories
typically background these characters, Gosford Park tells the story from their
perspective. Showing the many horrors of being in their position. And knives out
inherits the conscience of this movie. By making it star a nurse battling against
a rich family, both movies are actively revising this trope, in this genre.
Gosford Park is a biting heartbreaking perfectly crafted film out of this
bundle of movies it's at the top of the pack along with Clue and Death Trap. A
set below but still very strong are Murder on the Orient Express, Evil
Under the Sun, and The Last of Sheila. The others you can skip. When I started
watching these movies I didn't expect all the connections to knives out to be
so immediately apparent, except for the Christie films. But in these 10 features
you can draw a direct line from one of them to Knives Out and explain
everything from the basic premise, the plot, the subplots, the setting, the set
design, the props, the tone, the comedy, the characters, the perspective, the acting,
and probably a bunch more I'm missing Yet another lesson in how writing isn't
so much about inventing new ingredients as it is using the same old ingredients
in an inventive way. So if you're a writer looking to hone
your craft then I highly recommend checking out some classes on Skillshare
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They've got tons of other writing classes as well, so if you want to
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That'll give you access to all of their classes. A big thank you to all of my
patrons over on patreon for supporting the channel those are their names
floating by and I can't express how much I appreciate their help. These are trying
times, so stay safe everyone. But keep writing.
It’s impressive how Rian Johnson has managed to make a great film in so many different genres (film noir, conmen comedy, sci-fi thriller, murder mystery).
He just cribbed Agatha Christy. It’s doesn’t require any investigation.