By April Wolfe
Translator: Yi Ersan
Proofreading: Issac
Source: Film Review
Translator press
This article is a film review op-ed introducing the term "Whodunit," an original word abbreviated from Who done it, coined by book reviewer Donald Gordon in 1930 when he wrote an essay on the novel Half-Mast Murder, which is defined by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as a detective story or Mystery story (detective or suspense story) can also refer to detective novels or detective film and television works.
For fans who are old enough to remember the big studio films before Kevin Feige appeared, and who can rarely role-play Captain America, there is an unwritten consensus between them: "Detective Colombo" and "The Writer and the Murder" are great.
Considering that these series have occupied a lot of their time, it should not be difficult to prove their quality, and at the same time, they are also a genre that has not received much respect for many years, that is, detective films.
Women Writers and Murder Season 1 (1984)
A potential problem with detective films is their "cheesy" stage effects, which mostly follow a certain paradigm, succinctly introducing each possible suspect along with their motives and eccentric personalities, and trying to make most of the characters recognizable in some archetype, such as giving information through a typical twitching expression.
Take John Gillemin's 1978 adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel of the same name, for example, where Salome Otterburn, played by Angela Lansbury, drinks a glass of wine in a gilded glass every time she appears. Her character is completely limited to this point – she is an alcoholic, but behaves gracefully and believes that her privileges have given her rights.
The Massacre on the Nile
Perhaps Gillemin could have spent more effort on Salome to make her a more three-dimensional character, but it wasn't entirely necessary, and it was a potential minus for detective films that relied on portraying characters as angels, demons, or enemies.
This is the simplest way to tell a story because in an intricate story, there are many characters who need to be featured; efficiency is key. In order to squeeze as much time as possible out of five minutes of screen time for each character, the director had to find professional character actors.
It is no coincidence that Lansbury subsequently appeared in another film adaptation of Grandma's novel, Murder in the Broken Mirror, as Miss Marple, and since then she has achieved great success with her role as a detective in the TV series.
Murder in the Broken Mirror
Lansbury has been a character actor since his teenage years, teetering between villains and virgins. Peter Fark, who starred in Detective Colombo, was also an evergreen character actor, co-starring with Irene Brennan (who later starred in Jonathan Lynn's The Mystery Hunt) and David Nevin (also in The Massacre on the Nile) in the Robert Moore comedy detective film Strange Feast.
To learn about these best detective films and their casts, you'll see a smorgasbord of character actors on the big screen and on TV, moving from work to work, blending into each legendary character.
Half the fun of a detective movie is looking up each actor's Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to see how they fit into the genre's big picture; for me, without the phrase "Oh, that guy!" It's impossible for me to watch every episode of Detective Colombo and The Writer and the Murder.
Angela Lansbury
In recent years, perhaps movie fans have stopped liking detective movies because it's obsessed with famous big names, but it's more likely that it's obsessed with clichés.
A detective film doesn't have to be too serious, which is why some of the best works are either comedies, such as The Mystery Hunt, The Strange Feast, Sidney Lumet's Death Count, or comical dramas like Herbert Rose's giallo-style Ghost Game ("The Writer and the Murder" borrows a lot of material from lead-yellow films), or they are always confusing, like Howard Hawkes's film "The Night Long Dream". (The latter proposed a new genre of cinema that avoided the ending that detective films needed to end.) ）
Of course, horror films in this genre, such as Wes Craven's Scream and James Mangold's Deadly ID, have a Rotten Tomatoes score that vastly underestimates how interesting the latter is. The film features Ray Lyotard, John Hulks, Kerry Duval, john Lyon. C. McKinley, Jack Bussey, Holmes Osborne and Alfred Molina, among others, are among the best of many character actors.
Unfortunately, critics didn't grasp the comedic color of the film and lumped it into the same category as Common Suspect, accusing it of being a boring imitation. After all, it was in 2003, the post-9/11 era, and all films, including comic book adaptations, went to the gritty, cold and dark side, and Mangold tried to inject the atmosphere of the nineties drama series "Magic World" into the film, but people at the time wanted to seriously reflect on it. All the timing was wrong. But is it possible that we are ready to have fun again? Are there enough character actors now?
"Ordinary Suspect"
Kenneth Branagh's remake of Murder on the Orient Express has become a bellwether for the future of detective films, and judging by the box office, the work shows that audiences seem ready to have fun again, although critics don't have a high opinion of the comedy that swept the world. (Branagh will follow up with an adaptation of Massacre on the Nile.) )
At the time of the film's release, I noticed a generally lukewarm response from the audience, denouncing the film's lack of subtlety and its play of too many eye-catching tricks. To this, I must respond: Have you really read Agatha Christie's novels? They are like layers of candy pulp wrapped in layers. My biggest criticism of Branagh's remake, if I had to be picky, was that it was too bland — not enough character actors.
Murder on the Orient Express
Branagh's own detective Poirot, who has two moustaches, makes a good start, but unfortunately, only a few actors, like William Dafoe, know what type of film they're acting in — a film that doesn't have time to slowly show subtleties. It could have been and should have been grander.
It's not surprising that the detective genre thrives on television, as TV personality actors still show up often, and it's not a big deal to be a bit tacky. But before and after 9/11 (did you find some kind of pattern?). American detective dramas have become cold, boring procedural works, focusing more on DNA testing and advanced technology than on detectives analyzing the traits of cunning criminals to solve crimes.
Law & Order: Special Victims is a rare set of programs and "easy" (cozy, when coined as a noun, specifically referring to the kind of light-hearted detective novels/film and television works, usually with a well-educated protagonist and rarely overtly violent) TV series, with new criminal cameos every week, who have a distorted psychology.
Law & Order: Special Victims
This kind of light-hearted detective theme — along the lines of Detective Colombo and The Writer and the Murder — still exists in literary works and related film adaptations. Take, for example, the popular Australian television series Miss Fisher, in one episode female detective Fillene Fisher performs with a burlesque dancer, and in the next episode she disguises herself as a fearless circus knife thrower assistant. Yes, murder is happening, and Fei Lin is battling her own demons, but it's an episode that always tells the truth: a light-hearted detective story.
Fortunately, this type of detective film will return to theaters with Ryan Johnson's Blade Out of the Sheath, with character actors like Michael Shannon and Emmet Walsh, as well as actors like Toni Collette, Daniel Craig, and Chris Evans, who have always wanted to prove that they can create a variety of characters, all of whom have the ability to "open up" (Collette's Hereditary Doom; Craig's "Thief League"; Evans' "Crooked Scott Against the World"), But it often ends up being bland.
"Sharp Blade Out of sheath"
Johnson was previously an apprentice on this subject, and had both subtle and extroverted works in front of him. But it's up to you detectives to find out for yourself.