El fin de Sheila

Exotic locales on the French Riviera form a beautiful setting for this highly complex whodunit story about six Hollywood movie insiders who agree to participate in a reality-based game to celebrate the life and tragic death of Sheila, another Hollywood insider, whom they all knew.

The game's host, Sheila's multi-millionaire husband Clinton Green (James Coburn), has devised six pretend pieces of gossip; the idea is for the participants to guess everybody's secret. As one participant says: "That's the thing about secrets; we all know stuff about each other; we just don't know the same stuff; how did (Clinton) find out? Sheila, probably." The game winner gets top billing in Clinton's forthcoming movie: "The Last Of Sheila".

The script's underlying premise is ingenious, and the story is quite well executed. The plot has more twists and turns than a corkscrew. Every scene is important in some way. The identity of the killer is not at all easy to discern. Indeed, my guess was wrong.

The film has an ensemble cast, and they all give convincing performances. I especially liked James Mason and Dyan Cannon. Color cinematography is topnotch, and includes some difficult camera shots of and on a luxury yacht. My only complaint about this film is its relative lack of suspense. I could have wished for more spooky chills. For a murder mystery, the tone is just a tad too playful.

Inadequate suspense aside, this is a terrific movie that will appeal to mystery lovers especially. It's got some classy characters and dialogue, great visuals, fine performances, and a riveting plot.

This is a perfect example of mature entertainment for its day, made in the deep dark days of the mid 1970s when the F word was rarely heard in cinema not shown in Times Square. Saw this one in the drive-in; yes the drive-in when I was a wee lad with my folks. I don't understand why it isn't better known, but most people I'm sure have never heard of it. It's a good one. Macabre, clever murder mystery with a cast you can sink your teeth into. The clothes, lingo and attitudes are so pathetically 70s; I sometimes find it hard to believe I'm actually this old when I watch something like this. Most of the action takes place on a yacht anchored off of the Italian Riviera, and to me it has always had twisted adult Gilligan's Island feel to it all. The scenes in the monastery are good old fashioned creepy. Find me a director who can do any of this now, without showing bare tetons or dismembered alien corpses, and I'll eat my bellbottoms.

This very fun movie made me so nostalgic for the 70's. Excellent who-dunnit. Dyan Cannon is perfect as the brassy, free-wheeling wild blonde; I don't know why she was not more famous--good actress, excellent comedienne, beautiful. For the first time ever, Richard Benjamin actually acts. James Mason is wonderful. Many very very funny moments. Raquel Welch is terrible--all she can do is be pretty. James Coburn as the captain who plans the crafty game onboard ship is a wonderful diabolical schemer. Too bad Tony Perkins and Steven Sondheim didn't write some more sreenplays. I loved this to death.

The Last of Sheila, a star-packed murder mystery written by Broadway legends, really doesn't start or even progress with much momentum at all, but when the true wheels of the actual murder puzzle start turning, it pulls a lot of palpable tension and sharp dialogue out of nowhere and does the job. It doesn't help that first half that I was tempted to turn it off, but the fact that the intrigue ratcheted up at the precise moment when I was going to is what saved it by a hair's breadth. And I'm glad I stuck it out. It proved itself worthwhile.

The movie comes out of a fine heritage of murder puzzles from such as Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith. In fact, it's a little rare to see this material showing up first as a movie. It feels like the sort of story that would start life as a play. Bringing seven people together and then doing the old "one of the people sitting here amongst us is a murderer" schtick is inherently stagy. Nevertheless, it functions well as a movie, perhaps since the screenplay has as much to do with characters as with crime. The movie was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, and they flaunt an apparent sense of showbiz manners and dialogue. They've also play Name That Tune with us: We can enjoy speculating who the bitchy agent was motivated by, or the director on the skids, or the centerfold, each played respectively by Dyan Cannon, James Mason and Raquel Welch, two out of three of whom kept me watching purely just to watch.

I like the concept of a murder mystery set among showbiz types because Hollywood is often thought to be shy about death and shrink from it. Genuine sorrow seems quite rare. The movie opens as a watchful-waiting stratagem concerning Coburn and the killer, which is latently intriguing though it rambles too far away from the point of tension and plays more like a '60s romp than an expository double-blind. Yet it makes a striking hairpin halfway through. And it actually is a game to them; they don't spend time mourning when somebody dies, just clean up the blood and tally one more loser against their competition for a win. And yet it's barely started until just two of these characters spend a great deal of time deliberately hammering out the true significance of the clues, a scene so tight, well-acted, well-written and loaded with sharp wit that it makes the whole package worth it.

A better part of the performances are pointed and mercenary, and very good, particularly James Mason with his typical cultured obstinacy. Dyan Cannon as the agent. Joan Hackett is beautiful and tender, and Richard Benjamin treads a fine line between voice of reason and a screenwriter trying to think in formulas. Coburn is always entertaining owing to his sheer presence and it's interesting watching an Ian McShane so much younger than anyone my age is aware he ever was. Welch is quite wooden by comparison, but as I said before

Superb, darkly and wickedly comic whodunit from screenwriters Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, with all the pieces right there for you to place. Cunning James Coburn is the movie producer and game-aficionado who invites to his yacht the failed screenwriter (Richard Benjamin), his alcoholic wife (Joan Hackett, in a sympathetic performance), the catty agent (Dyan Cannon, more wired than ever before), the starlet (Raquel Welch, looking a bit dazed), the starlet's husband (Ian McShane) and a director down-on-his-luck (James Mason, the calm-head who pays attention to the details). The only trouble with "The Last of Sheila" is that the first-half, involving a hilarious personality game, is so clever, we want more of it; the murder-mystery second-volley is an acting showpiece, but not quite as engaging. Still, these characters are a wonderfully tainted, self-absorbed lot, and Cannon's mini-breakdown after someone almost offs her is a wild bit of hysterical showing off. I also admired Welch's scene at midnight on the top deck, talking about stealing a coat (she's very seductive and charming, though she continues to whisper her dialogue throughout the film and fails to make the strong impression each of her co-stars do). The character conflicts and the reasoning behind who-does-what-to-whom doesn't bear a great deal of scrutiny (and even after several viewings, I'm still not clear on that business regarding the cabin keys); however, the picture is extremely entertaining, a verbally exciting match-of-wits by a group of Hollywood hopefuls and burn-outs. ***1/2 from ****