Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Carl Reiner

Writers:

Carl Reiner (written by) &
George Gipe (written by) ...

Release Date:

21 May 1982 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Laugh... or I'll blow your lips off!

Plot:

Film noir parody with a detective uncovering a sinister plot. Characters from real noirs appear as scenes from various films are intercut.

Plot Keywords:

Parody | Pastiche | Homage | Kidnapping | Murder

Cast

Steve Martin	...	Rigby Reardon
Rachel Ward	...	Juliet Forrest
Alan Ladd	...	(in "This Gun For Hire") (archive footage)
Carl Reiner	...	Field Marshall VonKluck
Barbara Stanwyck	...	(in "Sorry - Wrong Number") (archive footage)
Ray Milland	...	(in "The Lost Weekend") (archive footage)
Ava Gardner	...	(in "The Killers" / "The Bribe") (archive footage)
Burt Lancaster	...	(in "The Killers") (archive footage)
Humphrey Bogart	...	(in "The Big Sleep" / "In a Lonely Place" / "Dark Passage") (archive footage)
Cary Grant	...	(in "Suspicion") (archive footage)
Ingrid Bergman	...	(in "Notorious") (archive footage)
Veronica Lake	...	(in "The Glass Key") (archive footage)
Bette Davis	...	(in "Deception") (archive footage)
Lana Turner	...	(in "Johnny Eager" / "The Postman Always Rings Twice") (archive footage)
Edward Arnold	...	(in "Johnny Eager") (archive footage)

Also Known As:

Dead Men Wear No Plaid

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Portugal:M/12 | Brazil:Livre | USA:PG (#26624) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | West Germany:12 | Spain:7 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Aspen Film Society

Trivia:

The movie was initially planned by Steve Martin and Carl Reiner to be a '30s-era film titled "Depression". After Reiner incorporated some footage of a '30s star into the movie, he and Martin decided that the entire movie should be done that way, and re-wrote it into a mock-detective story.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Rolodex card file wasn't marketed until 1958, yet appears on a desk in scene set in Forties.

Quotes:

Juliette Forrest: What does "Foc" mean?
Rigby Reardon: It's a slang word. When a man and a woman are in love, the man puts his...
Juliette Forrest: No, no. Here: "F. O. C."

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Married with Children: Dead Men Don't Do Aerobics (#4.2)" (1989)

Soundtrack:

Dead Men's Bolero

Along with "The Jerk," one of Steve Martin's top two finest films

I remember reading reviews in The New York Times and elsewhere in 1983 fawning over Woody Allen's brilliant and wholly original idea of inserting himself into old film footage in "Zelig." They'd not noted, of course, that everyone from Ernie Kovacs to John Zacherle had already done that "brilliant and wholly original idea" on television -- and, most notably, Steve Martin did it in a feature film, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," one year prior to "Zelig." While "Zelig" has its moments, it is ultimately tedious, running about twice as long as it's one-note gag treatment can sustain. In sharp contrast is the far more clever, inspired, fully developed, insightful and witty DMDWP, which, as noted. came out one year earlier. As often happens with groundbreakers set somewhere outside the norm, DMDWP was not exactly a box office hit -- a key reason why no sequels were ever made. That's unfortunate, as Martin's character was one of his finest creations and could have sustained more installments in the series. (Steve was never better on film than he is here.) It's good that the people behind "Police Squad" did not give up on it after it failed to fit within the confines of standard TV concepts around the same time. Reborn as "The Naked Gun" series of feature films, the "Police Squad" concept turned into three of the greatest comedy motion pictures of all time. DMDWP deserved a lot better than it got in 1982 as well, and I'm glad to see that it has finally found respect and its audience through television exposure (much like a previous box office bomb, "It's A Wonderful Life"). The kind of creativity Martin, Carl Reiner and the rest of the DMDWP crew put into their project needs to be strongly encouraged -- as it represents excellent comic film-making, as opposed to the witless parade of routine crudities that Hollywood ordinarily churns out.