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Rating: I hate my ex! I hate her intensely, with my heart, with my mind, and with my entire body. Not just any ex, but that particular ex. Why only one, why that one? Simple, she made me suffer more than anyone else.
“Women are all the same: they shove their hand in your mouth, take your heart, rip it out, throw it on the ground and stomp on it with their high heels.”
(Steve Martin, in the film)
That ex of mine resembled an actress. Lucky, eh? She resembled Rachel Ward, the one from The Thorn Birds. But while the resemblance was often slight, in one particular film it was very strong: Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.
“Suddenly, I reached an important conclusion: screw it!”
(Steve Martin, in the film)
The film narrates the grotesque and surreal story of detective Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin), hired by the beautiful Julie Forrest (Rachel Ward) to investigate the disappearance and possible death of her father, a very important scientist in the field of chemical research. The film, entirely in black and white, takes place in the '40s, amidst cigarette smoke and bizarre dialogues. Here arise the strokes of genius from director Reiner. Reardon gets advice and help from a friend and colleague, none other than Philip Marlowe himself, whom he consults when the situation becomes too intricate, thanks to an elaborate system of archival footage edits, he talks with real actors of '40s American noir, including Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe, Kirk Douglas as the crime boss.
It's intriguing to see Martin act with actors of the caliber of Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Vincent Price and many others and interact with them thanks to cinematic trickery. Obviously, the archival footage serves the story of the film, but it is also true that the story of the film had to adapt to the footage itself, creating a kind of puzzle that, if it is a stroke of general genius, is also the limitation of the film. Here the skill of the director is not to overuse it and to use very short portions.
It is pointless to recount the developments of the investigation, always on the verge of ridiculous. Surprisingly, however, is the ending, revealing that the professor had been kidnapped to study a powerful bacteriological weapon, made with molds of certain cheeses and designed to destroy half the world's population. The organization formed by former Nazi criminals, who intended to promote, as always, a new race starting from South America (let's recall Boys From Brazil), are defeated by the multiple skills of the detective who brilliantly solves the case.
Despite the impenetrable shell of our detective, the conclusion of the story also presents his love for the beautiful Rachel and the gratifying, very American, and very major's ending is in an embrace and a kiss.
Rachel Ward, gosh how beautiful she was there, striking, devastating. Yet I can only remember her because, as beautiful and entertaining as it is, I could never watch this film again.
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