THE MASTERMIND:
Wadsworth: The true villain of the movie hiding out as the butler of Hill House. Claims to be another one of Mr. Boddy's victims but is in reality Mr. Boddy himself.
THE GAME CHARACTERS:
Col. Mustard: A soldier being blackmailed by Mr. Boddy for his illegal war profiteering; selling american military radio parts on the black market. This movie takes place in 1954 so presumably Col. Mustard was stealing/selling parts during WW2 and not Korea. Also a patron of Ms. Scarletts brothel.
Ms. Scarlett: Being blackmailed for running a brothel in Washington D.C. Employed Yvette at some point.
Professor Plum: Psychiatrist being blackmailed for having sexual relationships with his female patients. Works for the U.N.
Mrs. White: Being blackmailed for the suspicious murder of her husband. Suspected of cutting off his head and member. Husband had an affair with Yvette.
Mrs. Peacock: Being blackmailed for taking bribes on behalf of her Senator husband in exchange for votes in Congress.
THE MOLE:
Mr. Green: Undercover FBI agent posing as a closeted gay man who is being blackmailed by Mr. Boddy so he won't be fired from the State Department. On a mission to bring down Mr. Boddy.
THE VICTIMS:
Mr. Boddy: Presented as the main villain but is in reality the real Mr. Boddy's (Wadsworth) butler. Was twice killed by Professor Plum. Importantly, Mr. Boddy did not appear to be informing on anyone. A must see for fans of Fear or just Lee Ving in general.
The Cook: The cook was killed by Mrs. Peacock for informing on her accepting bribes.
The Stranded Motorist: Killed by Col. Mustard for informing on his war profiteering.
Yvette: Killed by Mrs. White for having an affair with her late husband. Also Colleen Camp doing some outstanding accent work. Except for when she forgets.
The Policeman: Killed by Mrs. Scarlett for informing on her brothel.
The Singing Telegram Girl: Killed by Wadsworth for . . . . . . reasons. Presumably to tie up loose ends. Small but memorable role the Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin. See PLAN below.
THE PLAN:
The first sign of trouble comes early in the review. What exactly was Wadsworths ultimate plan and how exactly did he think it would go down? Taking the dialogue at face value we can see the broad stroke outline of the plan. Basically, Wadsworth has been blackmailing the guests for so long that they have all run out of money. As blackmail has no use if the victims are broke, Wadsworth's plan is twofold. Get the guests to become his new team of informants using the information they gain due to their positions in government jobs. Second, get the guests to kill off his current team of informants, as they are no longer useful and can only be used against him. This explanation is actually given during the "A" ending and is attributed to Ms. Scarlett but I think it's also Wadsworth's plan. At the end of the movie Wadsworth comments that he is going to continue the blackmail but all his informers are dead and all the proof against the game pieces was burned in the fire. All Wadsworth has left to blackmail them with is the murders he was involved in as well and all they have to give him is information they get from their jobs.
I think that makes sense though. Wadworth wants to keep in the blackmail game but he wants his current informants gone and he wants the current victims to become the new informants. Easy. How he intends to do that however is suspiciously lacking in details. As we will see when we examine all the murders; Wadsworths has no real control over the outcome. He himself kills nobody until the very last victim and that action seems odd in the context. His goal up until then seemed to be to get everyone else to do the killing so his hands would be clean. The only proactive thing Wadsworth did to provoke the nights activities were to call dinner, invite the guests and provide weapons. For the first 2/3 of the movie, Wadsworth is preaching a non-violent end to the confrontation with Mr. Boddy. The calculation seems to be that just by creating a scenario with the stress of victims confronting their abuser combined with weapons and the threat of time running out (45 minutes until the police arrive) is enough to provoke a violent outcome. Not just violence but a specific set of violent actions. Col. Mustard, Mrs. Peacock and Ms. Scarlett all killed the people informing on them so maybe that was foreseeable but Ms. White killed for personal reasons; Prof. Plum only tried to kill Mr. Boddy in an attempt to end the blackmail and nobody was in a position to kill the Singing Telegram Girl at all. Predicting that outcome is a real stretch.
Which brings us to the tricky problem of the gay, bumbling FBI agent Mr. Green. At the end of the movie Wadsworth reveals that he knew Mr. Green was there to expose him as the real Mr. Boddy. While that reveal gives Col. Mustard an opportunity to use the "Please, there are ladies present!" line, it also confuses Wadsworths plan. There are two scenarios, both of them not really plausible. The first one is that Wadsworth knew the entire time that Green was there to bust him. If thats so, then why allow Green to live through the entire plan? Had Wadsworth not killed the Singing Telegram Girl and admitted his whole plan, Mr. Green would've had little to work with. Unless Green had prior knowledge of Mr. Boddys true identity, Wadsworth might have just gotten away with it. In this scenario, its difficult to see why Green was invited at all. None of the people involved was informing on Green, assuming there was a real Mr. Green, State Department employee being blackmailed. The second scenario is that Wadsworth didn't know Green was undercover until J. Edgar Hoover inexplicably called the house. At that point the Motorist and Cop have already entered the scene which complicates things but again Wadsworth has done nothing wrong up to that point. Other people have done all the killing, the blackmail evidence has been burned in the fire, and the most useful witnesses against him are being killed of according to plan. Why kill the Telegram Girl and admit to the plan? Very odd indeed. If his plan was to then gun down Mr. Green, why go through the trouble of getting other people to kill the Cook, Yvette, Butler, Motorist and Cop? Killing seven people isn't that much worse legally than killing two, especially if one was a federal agent. It's possible that Wadsworth simply lost his nerve at the end of plan that was being executed to well to be believed. To believe this scenario you would also have to believe that Mr. Green has been undercover, Donnie Brasco style for years, being blackmailed by Mr. Boddy. Otherwise Wadsworth wouldn't have invited him or Wadsworth would've known that the Mr. Green that showed up wasn't the person he had been blackmailing.
OTHER CAST:
The Police Chief-Evangelist: Working with Mr. Green to take down Mr. Boddy. Played by DJ Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP in Cincinnati.
UP NEXT IN PART 2:
We shall begin to examine the murders to see if the proposed solution makes sense.
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