Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

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 | Murder | Stock Footage | Henchman | Voice Over

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
Cliente muerto no paga (Mexico) (cable TV title) (Spain) (Venezuela) [es]
Bogart Jr. (Denmark) [da]
Cliente Morto Não Paga (Brazil) [pt]
Döda män klär inte i rutigt (Sweden) [sv]
Il mistero del cadavere scomparso (Italy) [it]
Kuollut mies ei palttoota kaipaa (Finland) [fi]
Les cadavres ne portent pas de costard (France) [fr]
Mrtvaci ne nose karirano (Serbia) [sr]
Tote tragen keine Karos (West Germany) [de]
Umarli nie owijaja sie pledem (Poland) [pl]

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Portugal:M/12 | Brazil:Livre | USA:PG (#26624) | Australia:M | 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:

Rigby Reardon: [narrating] Was she real? There was only one way to find out. But I remember Marlowe's words.
Rigby Reardon: What the hell does Marlowe know?
Rigby Reardon: [narrating] She was real alright.
Juliet Forrest: What are you doing?
Rigby Reardon: Adjusting your breasts. You fainted and they... shifted all outta whack. There.
Juliet Forrest: Thank you.
Rigby Reardon: You're Welcome.

Movie Connections:

Spoofs Double Indemnity (1944)

Soundtrack:

Dead Men's Bolero

Neo-classicism at its best

Dead Men.. maintains a delicate equilibrum between a re-enactment and an original script. On one hand, Carl Reiner offers a comedy which compilates several film noir classics (the strongest influence seems to come from the Maltese Falcon)and makes fun of their profound grim atmosphere, but without ever loosing its self-esteem. On the other hand, it combines at least a dozen scenes from those movies with stand-ins in order to establish a believable (physical) interaction between actors who differ 40 years in age.

Steve Martin would play the same kind of unwilling comedian in Plains, Trains & Automoblies. His voice-over definitely was an inspiration to Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun series. Along with Dragnet (1987), both owe, of course, a lot to the police serials from the 50's.

This movie is mostly suited for classic film buffs such as me