The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 8)

THE SEVENTH MURDER - THE SINGING TELEGRAM GIRL

The Situation:
The final murder takes place near simultaneously with the previous two. The group is split into pairs and are searching the house, Ms. White turns off the power. Chaos ensures.

The Murder:
We get almost nothing to chew on about this murder. In the darkness, the doorbell rings, is answered and the poor telegramist is gunned down. We find out during the subsequent investigation by the group that the girl was the one who had an affair with Prof. Plum, cost him his practice and then informed on him to Wadsworth.

This murder breaks the pattern and to some extent the logic of the movie. The setup of the whole film is that each game piece character kills the person responsible for their blackmailing troubles. By this logic, Prof. Plum should be the one to kill the Singing Telegram Girl. Yet the setup of the movie makes this impossible. All of the other victims existed in the house for the entirety of the movie. Long enough for each killer to get over the shock of seeing their blackmailer and accomplice and then try and put together a murder plan. In this case, Prof. Plum isn't even 100% sure the girl is informing on him, he only suspects. He probably would've figured it out had she been there the whole time but that didn't happen. At no point can he possibly know that she is even coming, let alone make a plan to kill her. When she arrives during the power outage, Prof. Plum is in the basement with Mrs. Peacock and the gun is strewn on the hallway floor. Impossible that he can get upstairs, figure out who is at the door, find the gun, take the shot and return to the basement. No, Plum's murder was spent on Mr. Boddy.

So instead of Prof. Plum logically killing his nemesis, the duty falls to Wadsworth. In one respect that makes sense. Like all the other visitors that have been killed, the Singing Telegram Girl was brought to the house by Wadsworth. Only he knew about it, so he could be the only one who developed a plan to kill her. The question though is why? All during the movie Wadsworth has done nothing proactive to ensure that the group killed their informers. Aside from instructing Mr. Boddy to bring all the weapons, he essentially let the rest of the cast determine how the events played out. The main goals of this passive stance was to allow the game pieces to do all the killing, leaving Wadsworth with no blood on his hands, no troublesome informers left and more information with which to blackmail the group. Killing the Singing Telegram Girl ruins all of that though. Suddenly he himself is wrapped up in a mass murder house, just as guilty as the rest. It damages his ability to blackmail the group as he no longer has informers to their government dirt and they have equal dirt on Wadsworth as a murderer. Wadsworth has ultimately weakened his position.

This murder also adds to the general chaos of the last murder scene. As we know now, during the house searching scene, Plum and Peacock were in the basement and out of the action entirely. Mustard and Scarlett were on the main level, separated. White and Wadsworth were on the second floor, separated and Green and Yvette were in the attic. As they groups were searching, Ms. White goes down to the main level and turns off the power. Then, Wadsworth and Yvette go to the main level as well. So now we have Mustard, Scarlett, White, Wadsworth, Yvette, and the Off-Duty Policeman are on the main level and the Telegram Girl is on the front step. Additionally, Scarlett and White have to get their weapons from the same cabinet while Wadsworth has to get the gun, in the dark, from the mess in the front hall which is in plain sight for everyone. Weapons acquired, Scarlett has to get to the library, White has to get to the billiards room, Wadsworth has to stand in front of the door waiting for the bell to ring and all of them have to do this without being seen by each other or the wayward Col. Mustard who is doing something. Maybe just hiding somewhere. Even in the dark, that is a lot of movement by a lot of people in relatively short time and confined spaces. It also assumes that Mr. Green, who we know is an FBI agent investigating the blackmail, is unaware or has chosen to do nothing about the fact that Yvette has split from him. The attic didn't look huge so its very hard to believe he was fooled in any way. Ultimately Green played no role in the final burst of action.

Conclusion:
Like Yvette, the Singing Telegram Girl just had to be killed so that the movie could get to the fun part. The lack of a cohesive plan by Wadsworth finally reaches its apex as he is forced to ruin his own plan by killing the Telegram girl. I understand that the movie needed Wadsworth to do something evil so that there could be the big shocking reveal at the end that he was actually Mr. Boddy. If they couldn't figure out a way for Prof. Plum to kill the Telegram Girl, they should have left her out completely. In that situation, all six game characters would have killed someone and Wadsworth could have revealed his true identity some other way and left his master plan intact. Of course, that would leave Wadsworth with one informant left operating in the world. Maybe they should have just found a way to get Plum's informer into the house and had him kill 2 people. Would've made more sense.

Up next:
Murder #8, the final overall death. No mystery but interesting in some ways.

Up Later:
The phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and the interruption from the beatnik have to be addressed but only after the main mystery has been unraveled. Soon.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 1 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 1 murders
Mustard: 1 murders
Scarlett: 1 murders
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead
The Cook: dead
Yvette: dead
Stranded Motorist: dead
Off Duty Cop: dead
Singing Telegram Girl: dead

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 7)

THE SIXTH MURDER - YVETTE

The Situation:
Literally speaking, Yvette was killed before the Off-Duty Policeman but the story of the movie followed the policeman so I did him first. Either way, as discussed in Part 6, both murders happen nearly simultaneously. To recap, the group has split up and is searching the house in pairs. Yvette is all the way up in the attic with the clandestine FBI agent Mr. Green. The lights go out and the murder is afoot!

The Murder:
Yvette occupies unique space in this movie. On one hand, she is an informant like the cook or motorist which lines the hands of fate against her survival. On the other hand, she also acts as a member of the main cast. There are 6 game pieces characters plus Wadsworth. You need one more character to balance out the group for when they split up in pairs and Yvette was the choice. Because this is Hollywood and this was a comedy made in the 80's, I'm going to assume that the reason they kept Colleen Camp around for as long as possible are self evident.

Yvette also has more connections to other people than anyone in the movie except Wadsworth. She works for Wadsworth, she works for Ms. Scarlett, she serviced Col. Mustard for Ms. Scarlett and she had an affair with Ms. White's husband which led to the murder for which Ms. White is being blackmailed. All of these connections help explain why her murder makes utterly no sense.

When the lights go out, Yvette heads back down to the main level. Somehow without Super G-Man Green noticing. She returns to the billiards room and has a perplexing conversation. This is directly from the script:

"99 -- INT. GROUND FLOOR--BILLIARD ROOM -- 99

Yvette enters quietly.

An off-screen voice can be heard.
It can't be identified, even as being male or female.
The first line sounds male, the second female.

VOICE
Shut the door.
Did anyone recognize you?

Suddenly, Yvette's French accent is gone.

YVETTE
They must have. And not just my face.
They know every inch of my body.
And they're not the only ones . . .

A noose flies onto Yvette's neck!

YVETTE
(gasping)
It's you!"

And so ends the tale of the tragic maid, prostitute spy. We know the power outage was caused by Ms. White. And we also know that Ms. White was not who Yvette was expecting to see. So who was she expecting to see? And how did they plan to meet in the billiards room at that point? Whoever she thought she was meeting couldn't have known about Ms. White's actions, so what was the original plan to get all the way from the attic back to the billiards room with out anyone noticing? In her mind, she had to get away from Mr. Green, then past White and Wadsworth and then avoid Mustard/Scarlett on the main level to get to the billiards room unobserved.

The only logical explanation was that Yvette was going to meet Ms. Scarlett or Wadsworth. I would guess Scarlett since she was already on that level of the house. Had she wanted to meet Wadsworth she only would have had to go down one level and Wadsworth had already split from Ms. White. Of course we know that both White and Wadsworth had snuck to the main level at that point but Yvette wouldn't know that. The only problem with either explanation is that the conversation makes no sense. Ms. Scarlett and Wadsworth would have no reason to ask if anyone recognized Yvette. It was made very clear to everyone that Yvette knew Ms. White at the very beginning and that Scarlett and Mustard knew each other. During the examination of the film and later during the endings, it was exposed that the pics were of Yvette and Mustard in flagrante delicto. Even the cop recognized Yvette in front of everybody. Of all the mysteries in the movie, what Yvette was up to isn't one of them. Everyone recognized her essentially. So that beginning question is nonsense. Yvettes answer is equally nonsensical. She essentially admits that everyone knows who she is. Then she admits that some of them have slept with her. She then mysteriously hints that that there is another person, maybe who she thought she was talking to(?), also knew "every inch of her body." Also, the French accent is gone. This scenario only points to some situation where Yvette thinks she is talking to someone outside the people in the movie that we already know. An outside police presence, J. Edgar Hoover perhaps? She is then surprised to find out that she has been talking to Ms. White instead of the mystery contact and is killed. The problem is, we never get an ounce of evidence as to why she did what she did. Here are all the people in the movie that she could have been trying to see:

Mr. Boddy - dead
Cook - dead
Stranded Motorist - dead
Off-Duty Policeman - possible that Yvette might have been trying to talk to him. He also worked for Scarlett in service of the brothel. But everyone knew he was in the library and Yvette went to the billiards room.
Singing Telegram Girl - not arrived
Wadsworth - perhaps but the location and conversation make no sense.
Scarlett - perhaps, location is good, conversation makes no sense.
Mustard - no, he might want to kill Yvette himself and that conversation wouldn't make sense. Yvette would know better than to try and meet him privately when she helped blackmail him.
Peacock - no, wrong location, no connections, no reason to meet.
Plum - no, wrong location, no connection, no reason to meet.
Green - This might have made sense, that Yvette was secretly working for the FBI and needed to check in with Green. Bu they were paired together all the way in the attic and could have talked in private all they wanted.
White - She never would have tried to meet her in private, same reasons as Mustard.
Police Chief - the beatnik chief hasn't arrived yet and even if he had, he wasn't in the house.

That's every character in the movie. Yvette's intended contact is a mystery and remains so. It doesn't make sense in the context of the movie. The movie needed to get rid of Yvette so that only the game pieces would be left at the end having murdered someone. This contrived plot thread was what they came up with.

That brings us to the nonsensical Ms. White plan. Apparently, she turned off the power, got the rope and then went to the billiards room to wait for Yvette. We know that's how it went because White was in the room when Yvette arrived. So how did White know that Yvette would return to the billiards room given the opportunity to do so secretly? No idea. We've already determined that Yvettes motivation for going downstairs is unknowable in the context of the film. If we can't know, then White can't either. And there is no other reason for Ms. White to go downstairs for a weapon. Mr. Boddy is already dead and none of the other people alive can inform on her. Had Ms. White went downstairs, got the rope and then, as she was heading to the attic to kill Yvette, noticed that Yvette had come downstairs, she could have snuck up behind Yvette to strangle her. That would have made some sense. As it stands, Ms. White pretending to be Yvette's mystery contact to lure Yvette into the billiards room is lacking in believeability. That conversation still makes no sense, Yvette dropping the accent makes no sense and Ms. White's knowledge of what Yvette was doing makes no sense. Pretty sloppy murder that they quickly slip into the part of the movie mostly dedicated to the Off-Duty Policeman. Yvette gets only slightly more screen time in death as the Singing Telegram Girl.

Once again, Wadsworth, the supposed mastermind of this movie, is not participating in the events at all. His lack of involvement becomes apparent soon.

Conclusion:
The movie knows that it's racing towards the part where Tim Curry gets to do 30 minutes of slapstick exposition and it doesn't want to waste anymore time getting there. The cops murder was the last bit of movie that provides clues that the audience could theoretically follow. Yvette and the Telegram girl (discussed next) just need to be killed so the final act can begin. Colleen Camp was a bigger part of the movie so they give her some extra, nonsensical, dialogue and off she goes.

Up next:
Murder #7, the final mysterious death.

Up Later:
The phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and the interruption from the beatnik have to be addressed but only after the main mystery has been unraveled. Soon.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 0 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 1 murders
Mustard: 1 murders
Scarlett: 1 murders
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead
The Cook: dead
Yvette: dead
Stranded Motorist: dead
Off Duty Cop: dead
Singing Telegram Girl: about to ring her last doorbell

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 6)

THE FIFTH MURDER - THE OFF-DUTY POLICEMAN

The Situation:
The group has split up into pairs and has begun searching the house. During this search Col. Mustard separates from Ms. Scarlett and kills the stranded motorist. The secret passage is also revealed. Outside the house we see a cop inspect the Stranded Motorists car. Back inside the house, Yvette has shot open the door that had been trapping Mustard/Scarlett in with the dead body. Col. Mustard begins to verbally accompany Yvette for nearly killing him. The chandelier rope finally breaks from having been shot and the chandelier crashes to the ground, scaring the group. As the group deals with the crash and discusses how the weapon cabinet could have been opened, the doorbell rings. the cop has arrived to check if the Stranded Motorist had been by.

The Murder:
This murder gets padded out quite a bit. I assume thats so the movie could actually be movie length instead of a special edition episode of Mr. Bean. Mr. Green, at his mysterious best, opens the door as he has nothing to hide, then immediately slams the door. Then when the other guests try to deny the motorist was there, Green informs him that he was in fact there. Wadsworth then sends him off to the library where he is locked in. He seems to recognize Yvette. The group then decides to clean up the broken glass (odd) when the phone rings and the cop answers (odder) and reveals that it was J. Edgar Hoover on the phone (oddest). While Wadsworth handles the Hoover call, Mr. Green shows the cop around and the rest of the group stages the drunken party with the corpses of previous victims. The open-minded cop seems satisfied with the ruse and again asks to use the phone. He is again locked in the library.

The group then decides to finish the search despite the cops presence. The pairs return to their previous floors. The kitchen passage is discovered. The power is then cut and 3 people get killed, including our dear cop. In the darkness, the cop suffers essentially the same fate as the Stranded Motorist. The door unlocks and slowly opens, a gloved hand holding a pipe approaches and clubs the Policeman to death. Oddly enough, the cop was also actually calling someone and telling them how scared he was and was about to tell them where he was when he was killed. After two other killings, the lights return and the group surveys the carnage.

We know from both the A and C ending that Mrs. Scarlett killed the Policeman during the power outage caused by Ms. White. The reasoning makes sense in that Scarlett killed the Policeman for informing on her brothel activities. The footage in the movie generally supports the explanation given although not much of it is shown with the lights out. I do question some of the logistics though. Ms. Scarlett was already on the main level with Col. Mustard and we saw from their footage that they had already searched everything and were re-searching some rooms, after they discovered the kitchen passage. We don't see how Scarlett separated from Mustard but we do know that at the same time that Scarlett was killing the Policeman, both Ms. White and Wadsworth were coming down the stairs to kill victims 6 and 7 while Yvette was coming down two levels from the attic. Essentially there were 3 murders taking place at once, on the same floor, involving 6 people, with Col. Mustard wandering around. Two of those people had to return to the top floor as well before the lights were thrown back on. That's a lot of people in a small space to not bump into each other at all.

Once again though we have to return to the motivations and plans of the characters. The behavior of the policeman makes no sense. He was called to the house by Wadsworth for some reason. Perhaps he was given the cover story of investigating the found car on the road belonging to the stranded motorist. I originally thought that maybe the Policeman was the most realistic of the victims as he recognized Yvette and was suspicious of what was going on in the house. This would make sense if he was invited by Wadsworth but found the situation was different than he expected. I don't think that's the case though as the cop really starts investigating whats going on in the house. He should know for certain that something is going on with the criminal conspiracy that he is a part of. He should be trying to leave or get in contact with Wadsworth. Instead, he's searching rooms, threatening to be let out and answering the phone when it rings. He even investigated the Stranded Motorists car outside the house. Just like the stranded motorist, he spent his last moments on earth calling some stranger to express his misgivings about what was going on. No, his actions only make sense in the context of him being a real off duty police officer investigating an abandoned car. Any sensible person, especially with police training, would realize something was off when the door opened and he saw his boss, one of his boss's prostitutes and the person he was informing on his boss to all together. You don't question whether you know the prostitute and ignore the main players.

Also, Wadsworth has no plan whatsoever here. Wadsworth allows the members of the gathering to be scattered randomly around the house at the direction of Col. Mustard. This makes it infinitely more difficult for each new victim to be killed. Scarlett is on the first floor and ready to deal with the cop but, as we will see in our discussion of the next 2 victims, Ms. White, Yvette, Prof. Plum and Wadsworth are all completely out of position. Had the drawing of straws gone differently then Ms. Scarlett could easily have been in the attic or paired with someone more intellectually resilient than Col. Mustard. Had either of those things happened, Scarlett probably doesn't get near the cop. It also depended entirely on the rogue actions of Ms. White settling a personal vendetta that the limited opportunity presented itself. During this sequence, Wadsworth is a bystander whose bad planning ultimately get him involved in the final action, probably against his desires.

Conclusion:
Through a very narrow looking glass the Scarlett killing of the Off-Duty Policeman is fine. The power went out, she was close to the victim and she took her chance to take him out. All well and good. The scene as a whole though, beginning with the Policeman's arrival and ending with the discovery of the Singing Telegram Girl, is pure nonsense. We shall see more why in the next two parts.

Up Next:
Murder #6, technically happened before murder #5 but not from a storytelling perspective.

Up Later:
The phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and the interruption from the beatnik have to be addressed but only after the main mystery has been unraveled.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 0 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 0 murders
Mustard: 1 murders
Scarlett: 1 murders
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead
The Cook: dead
Yvette: dead but awaiting discovery
Stranded Motorist: dead
Off Duty Cop: dead
Singing Telegram Girl: about to ring her last doorbell