02-24-2016 Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083798/
Of all the film genres in the world, film noir is arguably the least funny one. The sense of death, misty streets, dark surroundings and gloomy atmosphere just don’t present themselves as cheerful, which makes Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, directed by Carl Reiner and co-written by Steve Martin, all the more interesting. It spoofs the genre, by also paying its respects at the same time.
Steve Martin plays the part of Rigby Reardon, a private investigator who just finished working the case of the murdered girl with big tits. He gets visited by Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward), the daughter of a rich man who died in a strange seeming car crash. Juliet believes her father is killed and wants Rigby to find out what happened. By interacting with movie stars from twenty other film noirs (some of them more famous than others), Rigby uncovers a giant scheme.
All props to the crew of this film, in specific editor Bud Molin, for making Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid a feast to the eyes of the cinephile. Rigby goes from having a telephone conversation with Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946) to talking to James Cagney in White Heat (1949), dressed up as his mother, with all kinds of other antiheroes and femme fatales passing us by in quick succession. An unknowing audience might perfectly well be clueless of the classics, since it seems so naturally woven into our picture. Never does it appear to be a gimmick, which it easily could have.
All this makes Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid more admirable than very good per se, since we’re not treated to a very compelling story, and since the humour of Steve Martin hasn’t proven to be very universal.
7