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