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DVD Without a Clue
Without a Clue is an underrated comedy featuring stellar teamwork by two great actors, Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. This Sherlock Holmes pastiche with a twist stars Kingsley as physician, writer, and self-effacing super-sleuth Dr. John Watson, who channels his genius for deduction into lucrative stories about Holmes. Watson wants the world to believe the fictional private eye actually exists, posing a problem when a steady stream of troubled souls come seeking Holmes's help. The doctor's prescription: hire a two-bit, drunken, skirt-chasing actor (Caine) to portray the Great Detective, an arrangement that causes Watson consternation whenever "Holmes" tries to improvise his way through a case. Wonderful comic timing and tension make Without a Clue a delight; Caine, particularly, gets a lot of mileage out of the faux Holmes's grand efforts to appear a genius. Henry Mancini's score adds a touch of old Hollywood gloss, and Thom Eberhardt (Night of the Comet) directs. --Tom Keogh
This is a wonderful, literate satire of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, in which Watson is the actual great detective and Holmes an unemployed ham actor. One of Michael Caine's best performances as Holmes, with Ben Kingley witheringly sharp as Watson. Beautiful production, excellent supporting cast. It helps to know your Conan Doyle to appreciate the nuances this film offers. Most unusual that it has not received the notice it deserves.
A Funny Holmes Pastiche, Worth Having
Dr. Watson has a problem. He's always been the brains behind Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character he dreamed up as cover for the cases he has solved. He even hired a third-rate ham actor, Reginald Kincaid, to impersonate Holmes. But now he's fed up with the fatuous dimwit Kincaid whom everyone is fascinated by and who seems to believe his own notices. He longs to be known as John Watson, Crime Doctor, and to receive the recognition due him for his amazing deductive powers.
That's the set up, and it's a funny one, especially with two first-rate actors as Ben Kingsley playing Watson and Michael Caine playing Kincaid. Watson finally boots out Kincaid and decides to solve a case as himself...but no one is prepared to take Dr. Watson seriously as a detective, even his publisher. Plates for 5-pound notes are stolen from the Royal Mint, the powers of England want Holmes on the case, Watson finds he may need Kincaid after all, and the game's afoot.
Caine makes a spectacular dimwit who finally and inadvertently comes through. Kingsley combines frustration and resentment in a performance that is funny and believable. They both learn something about friendship.
The movie has its weaknesses. It goes on a bit, the climax is workmanlike, and it's essentially a one-joke premise. It still, however, is a very nice, amusing movie, especially if you're a fan of Holmes pastiches. If you're stuffy about Holmes and the sacred canon, well, you may not find this suitable. I thought it was great fun.
The DVD transfer is nothing special but good enough.
Ben Kingsley does comedy
You might think of Ben Kingsley wearing a diaper as Gandhi, or as a villain in various roles (playing Meyer Lansky in _Bugsy_, Cosmo in _Sneakers_ or as the frightening Don Logan in _Sexy Beast_) but Kingsley can also do comedy, as proven by this film. The central conceit of this film is that John H. Watson, M.D. of the Sherlock Holmes stories was actually the detecting genius and that Sherlock Holmes was a fictional creation. Later Watson was forced to hire a drunken actor (played to perfection by Michael Caine) to fill out the role of Holmes for a public that would not accept the talents of "John Watson, the Crime Doctor". The chemisty between Kingsley, playing the tightly wound John Watson, fed up with the fact that his creation has taken center stage and that no one will believe in his talents, and Caine, as the buffoonish actor, receiving the adulation that rightly belongs to Watson is fantastic, as witness the scene where Holmes is recounting the curious case of the Manchurian Mambo ("It was a night like any other, when suddenly a knock came at the door. I opened it and there were these Manchurians, doing a rather festive Caribbean dance...").
The only reason I'm giving this DVD four stars and not five is because it is a panned and scanned print of the original movie and pan and scan sucks. Even so this is still worth seeing.
Curtain's up, light goes down, everyone goes quiet, and... The director leaves the building. This is pretty much the happinings at any drama production. Rehearsals, dress rehearsals, tech rehearsals everytime it goes terribly down hill. Actors get on each other's nerves, and the little vains in the forehead of the director begin to show. This is such a comical screenplay greet on film or on the stage I captures everything. And any performer knows that a terrible upcoming of a play 99.9% of the time results with a perfect opening big opening production. This shows the down fall of every show and it gets worst each time.
A must see for everyone. A plus is that Christopher Revees and John Ritter are in this one too.
Enjoy! More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Carol Burnett - Michael Caine Director(s): Peter Bogdanovich DVD Release Date: Released the 04 May 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Neil Simon wrote this 1976 spoof in which virtually every famous fictional detective of the 1930s and 1940s congregate at the home of a mysterious fellow (Truman Capote) to try and solve the mystery of who's trying to kill them all. Simon's jokes are mostly obvious, and the film's real appeal is the clever concept matched with fine--sometimes legendary--actors. Peter Falk plays a very Bogart-like Sam Spade equivalent, James Coco is a Hercule Poirot wannabe, Peter Sellers does a Charlie Chan bit, David Niven and Maggie Smith are reflections of Nick and Nora.... You get the picture. Lighthearted and silly, this is cotton-candy comedy for the cast as well as viewers. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Robert Moore DVD Release Date: Released the 18 December 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This 1985 adventure directed by Barry Levinson (Rain Man) and written by Chris Columbus (Gremlins) may not have much to do with the Sherlock Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle's invention. But it is a delightful and somewhat unexpected combination of exciting elements: Victorian-era, foggy-London mystique, Gothic horror, and Indiana Jones-like exotica. Nicholas Rowe plays Holmes as a schoolboy at a boarding academy for young men. Paired with the owlish, reticent young Watson (Alan Cox), Holmes embarks on the solution of a mystery that involves a hallucinatory and lethal drug, and a religious cult celebrating ancient Egyptian rites of mummification. Levinson makes handsome and crisp work of this Steven Spielberg production, without a trace of the treacle that often found... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nicholas Rowe Director(s): Barry Levinson DVD Release Date: Released the 02 December 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Undoubtedly the first movie in history to have played in theaters with three different endings (depending on which theater you attended), Clue is a silly whodunit based on the familiar board game featuring Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, and all the other usual suspects. A broadly comic cast play the sundry suspects gathered in a mansion to solve a murder, knowing that one of their numbers is the culprit. Michael McKean, Eileen Brennan, and Tim Curry are the best of the bunch, and the film is as lightweight an experience as a round of the game itself. Directed by Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny). The video release contains all three endings. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Jonathan Lynn DVD Release Date: Released the 27 June 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Man (Christopher Reeve) writes play. Older washed-up hack (the blissfully hammy Michael Caine) covets play. A meeting is arranged in a remote cabin festooned with various sharp objects. To reveal anything more would serve to ruin one of the most wondrously convoluted plots of the '80s and '90s. It's a cerebrum-bending romp from start to finish, with marvelously airtight plotting that simultaneously parodies and honors its genre, and two vibrant, continuously morphing lead performances (pity poor Dyan Cannon's weak-link wife, though, who gets stuck with the shrillest character and worst dialogue of the lot). Based on Ira Levin's long-running play, this adaptation's rhythm is thrown off a bit by director Sidney Lumet's somewhat misguided attempts to open it up for the screen, but the script... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Michael Caine - Christopher Reeve Director(s): Sidney Lumet DVD Release Date: Released the 27 July 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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