If you were one of the people spending more time with me, you would know the following quote. I use it a lot. I watch this movie a lot and it never loses its charm to me.
I'm an avid reader of mystery novels. Today many writers seem to think their stories have to be really gruesome and bloody, with detailed descriptions of the wounds and the maggots that crawl around in them, but honestly that often turns me away. Just the other day I put a book away because I couldn't stand the prologue describing a woman dying from being poisoned while holding her baby in her arms. Call me a wimp, but sometimes I rather go back to the old mysteries, the Miss Marples, the Professor Shandys, the Charlie Chans, the Chief Inspector Alleyns and so on.
This movie is as much an homage as a parody of those old detectives, packed with great actors.
Peter Sellers is Sidney Wang (Charlie Chan's alter ego ;-)), Truman Capote is Lionel Twain, the host who invited a group of famous detectives to his house to solve a murder ....
Wang: What meaning of this, Mister Twain?
Twain: I will tell you, Mister Wang, if you can tell me why a man who possesses one of the most brilliant minds can't say his prepositions or articles. "THE, Mister Wang, what is THE meaning of this."
Wang: That what I said. What meaning of this?
If you don't know the movie, watch it. Enjoy the blind butler (a great Alec Guinness) and the deaf-mute cook (Nancy Walker in her last movie) and be surprised at the ending.
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