Long before CGI and AI started putting dead actors into movies (and who knows how many other acronyms will soon be involved), there were different ways of accomplishing the same. Woody Allen’s 1983 mockumentary Zelig managed to incorporate him into archive footage and stills with such figures as Herbert Hoover. Carl Reiner’s 1982 parody Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid incorporates Steve Martin’s detective into various noirs from decades earlier.
How this is accomplished is rather low-tech, but quite clever. The script is basically reverse-engineered from the scenes chosen from those old films. Even the name of Martin’s detective is determined by a clip where somebody uses that name.
Martin largely reacts to whatever is in the clip from an old movie. Occasionally, a stand-in with the used in the foreground, such as when a guy in a trench coat is supposed to be Alan Ladd.
It would be pointless to describe the plot, but it concerns the death of the father of Rachel Ward. She faints when she sees this headline on the front page of the paper: “noted scientist and philanthropist was also cheesemaker and father of three.” Martin catches her, and thinks she actually saw the back page: “You must be quite the Dodgers fan.”
Martin will disregard the first rule of private eyes, which is “Don’t fall in love with a client”. It is even in embroidery up on the wall over his sofa. Representative of what qualified as acceptable back then, he will fondle her breasts while she is unconscious. When she comes to, he will claim her breasts were out of alignment, so he adjusted them. We hear in voiceover: “I hadn’t seen a body like that since I solved the case of the murder of the girl with the big tits.” I will confess I laughed at that, just from the audacity.
Most of the scenes from older films are worked into the plot by being names Martin investigates on a list with the heading “friends of Carlotta”. They is also a list of “enemies of Carlotta”. This bit had me wondering if Nixon only had an enemy’s list. If he had a friend’s list, I guess that wouldn’t have been as scandalous.
Among the movies repurposed here include Notorious, The Killers, The Glass Key, The Big Sleep, White Heat, The Lost Weekend and The Postman Always Rings Twice. And that’s not all the films. A typical setup has Martin opposite Cary Grant in a train compartment, as Martin lulls him to sleep with his harmonica: “It’s lighter than an accordion and more effective than a sleeping pill”. The most audacious gag has Martin in drag to meet Fred MacMurray in a market, per one of the most famous scenes from Double Indemnity. This line from the voiceover had me laughing: “I was wearing a perfume called Fondle Me. it was an aroma that drew Neff to me like fat to a mother-in-law.”
And I laughed a good bit while watching this. Some lines are funny even without knowing who said it or in what capacity: “I planned to kiss her with every lip on my face.” Ward gets this line when telling Martin about her sister: “She’s been diagnosed as a paranoid hypochondriac. The doctors think she’s faking.”
Still, I wonder how funny this picture would be if one wasn’t already familiar with the films from which clips were excised, or at least the genre in general. I like how some noir tropes are subverted, such as when Ward addresses something Martin only says in voiceover, or when he rinses out a paper cup before pouring her a cup of his “famous joe”. We’ll see him make that later, and a solid gag has even keep adding coffee to the pot until the entire bag is empty. To my surprise, not even I make my coffee that strong. I also have never put two raw eggs in my java, as he does here.
If there is anything that kept from getting fully immersed in the film, it is the difference in film grain between the various sources. Of course, that was due to limitations of the technology of the time. A more minor quibble I have is the film is widescreen, when it should be in Academy Ratio if they were going for maximum adherence to the period. Admittedly, they went to great pains to otherwise recreate the era, with Miklos Rosza providing the score. Edith Head handled the costumes in this, her last picture.
I really liked Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, possibly more than it is objectively good. It is highly recommended for fans of noir and/or Martin. The former will have fun figuring out which movie a particular clip is from. Martin fans will appreciate a film from his prime years, with him maxing the potential for humor out of such moments as failing to think on his feet: “I’m doing a picture about Saint…Betty. She…taught the lepers how to…sing.” It doesn’t fully emulate the films director Carl Reiner clearly loved, but it is a noble effort. It opens with the 1940’s version of the Universal logo, a sign these are people who know the era.
Dir: Carl Reiner
Starring Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, and almost every major actor you can think of from classic noirs
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray