Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid | | Cast : | Steve Martin, Rachel Ward | | Director : | Carl Reiner | | Studio : | Universal Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Black & White, Dolby | | Released Date : | May 21, 1982 | | DVD Released Date : | August 23, 2005 | | Language : | French (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 21, 2005 | | Summary | Imaginative Film Noir Spoof | Content
 | Carl Reiner earned his spurs as a comedian and comedy writer for the great sketch comedy giant Sid Caesar in the early days of television. He turned his genius loose in "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" by not only writing and directing, but also portraying the film's villain.
Steve Martin is hilarious in deadpanning macho film noir lines in this spoof of the genre. The ingenious part of the film resides in the way that Reiner has taken key scenes of film noir classics and used the famous personalities and dialogue to serve this film's ends.
Humphrey Bogart is used in his Philip Marlowe character, but the two hilarious scenes involving him stemmed from the 1950 Nicholas Ray classic about Hollywood, "In a Lonely Place," in which the famous actor played a screenwriter with a strong penchant for violence. After Steve Martin has dressed in drag as a sexy blonde to trap Fred MacMurray in his Walter Neff role from "Double Indemnity" an angry Bogart almost strangles him. This was the scene where he almost strangled Gloria Grahame in "In a Lonely Place."
Eventually Martin fires Bogart's Marlowe character, telling him he is past his prime as a detective. Bogart stalks off dejectedly toward the courtyard of the apartment complex where he and Grahame live, a classic scene from the same film. With the Reiner script insertions for Martin's role it all plays hilariously.
Rachel Ward is the sexy beauty that hires Martin to solve the murder of her father. The trail eventually ends with Carl Reiner. The veteran comedian plays the role of the Nazi officer in a convincing manner with proper comedic gusto. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 13, 2005 | | Summary | Mostly fun but loses its way a bit | Content
| DMDWP is a black and white film noir comedy that uses footage from real film noirs from the 40s and 50s and intercuts them with the plot to make it appears that Steve Martin is really talking to/acting with the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney etc. The effect is almost seamless but for a movie made in 1982 it's quite impressive.
Martin plays the wonderfully named Rigby Reardon, a typical, gritty private eye who narrates the story with sarcastic observation and gets involved in the usual femme fatal plot and a conspiracy surround the death of a cheesemaker. Yes, it's nonsense, and towards the end it becomes a bit hard to follow and the silliness gets out of control. But it's all played straight and for most of the film you could believe you were actually watching a classic film noir.
Steve Martin should have done more of these movies. Rigby Reardon was a great character and could have lasted for a few more movies. The humor is frequently hilarious and he certainly retains a lot of the integrity he has lost in recent years since he went the way of Eddie Murphy and sold himself out to family audiences. Either way, I say you should give this movie a go if you're a fan of his older work.
The DVD is sadly in non-anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen with Dolby 2.0 surround. It still looks quite good for a black and white film and the sound has that limited soundspace effect to it to make it fit in with the older footage. A Dolby 5.1 remix would have been totally unnecessary. Some boring extras (trailer, cast bios) are included. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 27, 2004 | | Summary | Awesome for any film noir lover! | Content
| This film creatively integrates clips from great old films like "The Killers" with Burt Lancaster, and "Sorry, Wrong Number" with Barbara Stanwyck.
Steve Martin is great in an early 1982 performance. He steals the show. If you feel like watching something sort of goofy, then go for this one. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 14, 2004 | | Summary | The Best Plaid Plans | Content
| The novelty of incorporatiting film clips from classic gangster and noir movies with a cast of crazy characters was a fresh idea when Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid was released in 1982. Now as CGI technology leaps ever forward, what made for a fun film at first, seems suprisingly dated. But the movie's real problems don't lie in its execution...
Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) is the private eye of private eyes. He's tough, rough and ready to take on anything when Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) appears on the scene with a case: her father, a noted scientist, philanthropist and chesemaker, has died mysteriously. Reardon immediately smells a rat and follows a complex maze of clues that lead him to the "Carlotta Lists."
Directed by Carl Reiner, from a script he wrote with George Gipe and star Steve Martin, the film does a masterful job at having Rigby interact within the scenes used from The Killers, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, White Heat, This Gun for Hire, Sorry, Wrong Number, and Notorious. The problem here is that as clever as those sequences may be, the rest of the film is not nearly as much fun or funny. By the halfway mark, I was just looking for more of the integration stuff, rather than following the plot. While I have great respect for Reiner, he did after all create The Dick Van Dyke Show, I don't know why he had to play two roles in the film. Surely someone else could have done one of them. Having him play Juliet's Butler and Field Marshall Wilfred von Kluck seemed overdone.
The DVD extras are quite slim. The theatrical trailer, filmographies, talent bios, a few production notes, and web links are all you get. I had problems with the movie, to be sure, but I still wanted to know more about how they did it.
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is a great idea--with problems not related to the technical challenges posed by the film. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 09, 2004 | | Summary | Humorous Homage To Film Noir | Content
| Before I review this film I have to admit something. When I originally saw this films in the theatre in 1982 on a double-bill with "Porky's"(?) I thought that Steve Martin was actually interacting with real actors and not old film clips. Blame it on my limited film vocabulary at the time but it wasn't until the end credits that the truth was revealed to me(Gee, that guy sure looks alot like Bogart!). Anyway, this is a thoroughly enjoyable comic homage to the old film-noirs. Like the best send-ups, it is required that the makers have an affection for the genre that they are lampooning. This film was effective enough that it spurred my interest in the films that it incorporated into the narrative. Steve Martin is at his peak of comic prowess here. Director Carl Reiner and the scriptwriters here have virtually seamlessly woven the old clips into a humorous mostly coherent story. The black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous. To boot, the film includes old Hollywood hands Edith Head and Miklos Rosza as the costumer and music director. |
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