Un héritage contesté

Murder, He Says (1945) : Brief Review -

George Marshall gives a "glowing" touch to "The Ghostbusters" (1940) days, minus Bob Hope hysteria. Remember James Whale's classic gothic horror-comedy "Old Dark House" (1932) and Bob Hope's "The Cat and the Canary" and "The Ghostbusters"? Murder, He Says is something like that, but you have no Bab Hope going hysterical with his trademark chatter and jokes. Of course, you can't have Fred MacMurray as his replacement, but this wasn't even supposed to be one of those comparisons. Look at it as a fresh film, and you have a super entertainer in front of your eyes. Murder, He Says is a mix of murder mystery and comedy, and then you have a slight touch of horror as well. MacMurray plays a trotter poller, looking for one of his colleagues who went missing. He goes to the haunted-like house of the nutty and murderous Fleagles family and finds himself in a jam. A dying granny tells him a secret of $70, 000 of bank loot, and he can't make a head or tail out of it. Bonnie, a jailbird who has had a successful jailbreak, is after the money and arrives at the house at the right time. Wait, do we have a real Bonnie? Let's not spoil the fun. So, things get mixed up in the house, and the search for money turns the family members against each other. Meanwhile, fake Bonnie has her own agenda, and we have a scientist with a powerful glowing liquid to make things mystical and intriguing. The script, the screenplay, and the character fit well in the funny mess together, and we certainly enjoy the chaos. Seeing Fred MacMurray in such a funny role was a big surprise to me. I have always seen him in intense and classy roles. Helen Walker brought that Bonnie accent well, but the character wasn't well-written. Marjorie Main was deadly, and Jean Heather sounded cutely dumb. Marshall's trademark scenes were visible here. He actually made them look different and did quite well there. Overall, a healthy entertainer.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

So silly that's it's actually hilarious. Holds it's own thru the years. Fred McMurray is totally incredulous thru it all and Helen Walker is his beautiful counterpart. The mystery is good. And of course the topping on the cake is Marjorie Main with that whip! BTW Let's not forget Peter Whitney playing both twins. Super job. The whole cast deserves a good round of applause.

I've seen Murder He Says many times and it's a pretty funny film. Fred MacMurray had never done that kind of belly laugh comedy before and I'm sure that Walt Disney must have screened this film and that he was certainly capable of it when he made him Disney's number one male star starting with The Shaggy Dog.

But every time I watch it, I keep thinking this was a property developed for Bob Hope. All of the mixed up adventures with this rube Fliegle family are pure Hope. Imagine Hope instead of Fred MacMurray in the lead and I'm sure you'll agree with me.

My guess is that Hope was busy entertaining the troops and Paramount had this thing ready to go and prevailed upon another of their contract players to step in.

As a pinch hitter though, Fred MacMurray batted in a big old home run with this one.

By the way that tune that is the key to where the buried treasure is will be rattling around in your brain for weeks.

Wonderful comedy, tops my list of movies that deserve to be better known. Funny from start to finish, well written, well directed, very well cast, with veteran character actors like Marjorie Main and Porter Hall nailing all the laughs and then some, plus Peter Whitney as the identical twins Mert & Bert (which one has the crick in his back? I forget) and excellent performances from the cast in general.

Fred MacMurray is at the top of his game (only a year after Double Indemnity), and the pacing is exhilarating, lots of great gags and surreal comedy, and a nutty, over-the-top ending that pays off the whole thing.

I always come away from this movie feeling happy. Only not often enough -- since it's rarely on TV, not on DVD, and in and out of availability on VHS.

This movie deserves much better. It should have a first-class DVD release, and be in the rotation at TCM. Please!

And then there's the music, which mysteriously is note for note the theme to "All Things Considered" on NPR, only 30 years earlier.... "On horse flies is, in comb bees is..."

"Murder, He Says," is a comedy from 1945 starring Fred MacMurray, Helen Walker, Marjorie Main, and Porter Hall.

MacMurray plays Pete Marshall, a pollster who goes looking for another employee who disappeared. He soon finds himself at the mercy of a bunch of inbreds who are looking for money hidden by a relative, Bonnie Fleagle, who is in prison. The matriarch, Ma (Marjorie Main) walks around with a whip to keep everybody in line. Everybody includes twin brothers, Mert and Bert, one of whom has a crick in his neck. This leads to a funny scene later.

Pete can't seem to get away from them, and they make him pretend he's Bonnie's boyfriend, hoping that grandma, whom Ma poisoned with something that makes her glow in the dark, knows where the money is.

Grandma gives Pete a sampler with a song on it, and something to quote for Bonnie. Meanwhile, another relative, Elany, seems to know the song, but the words she sings are nonsensical.

Things become more complicated when Bonnie (Helen Walker) escapes from prison and shows up. Except she's not Bonnie. Her father was accused of helping Bonnie Fleagle steal $70,000, and she wants to find it to clear his name. Pete is all for hightailing it out of there, but she wants to stay and find the loot. Everyone knuckles under to her until the real Bonnie (Barbara Pepper) shows up.

I perhaps wasn't in the mood for this comedy, but it was very funny anyway, if a little long. The scene at the dinner table is hilarious. I just don't understand how this glow in the dark stuff was supposed to work.

Anyway, the house is filled with hidden passages that everyone disappears in and appears from.

Fred MacMurray was perfect for this, a normal guy caught up in complete insanity. Helen Walker, whose career would suffer so badly later on, is terrific. Marjorie Main - off the wall with that whip. Brilliant.

The denouement is clever and a riot.

Helen Walker gave a ride to three soldiers on New Year's Eve 1946, and had a terrible accident where one soldier was killed and the other two injured. The surviving soldiers accused her of driving drunk and speeding, and she was put on trial. She was cleared, but her career was basically over. She died at 47.

In this film, she's on the verge of stardom and after "Murder, He Says," she was cast as the lead in a big film, "Heaven Only Knows," but the producers replaced her.

She's very good here -- if you get a chance to catch this film on TCM, don't miss it.