It wasJonathan Lynnon the soundstage with the camera… John pitched it very excitably, running around his office and playing all the characters at once.
Eventually he said, “Then the butler says, ‘I know who did it.'”
So I said, “Well, who did it?”
Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Tim Curry, and Madeline Kahn in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
And John said, “I don’t know.
That’s why I need you to write it.”
I was the sixth writer.
Madeline Kahn, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
They’d hired several who had given up and returned the money.
At one time, they’d hired Tom Stoppard.
But I couldn’t really see what to do because it’s a board game.Cluedidn’t have any characters.
Lesley Ann Warren in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
I felt it was a bit of a straitjacket.
I said yes because how often are you offered your first film?
Once attached as writer and director, Lynn set about casting the film.
Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, and Coleen Camp in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
LYNN:Carrie Fisherwas originally cast as Miss Scarlet.
She was extremely funny.
Not that I would’ve known.
Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Kellye Nakahara, and Lesley Ann Warren in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
But she sniffed a lot, and she said she had hay fever.
I’ll be sleeping here.
I’ll come out every day and shoot."
Michael McKean and Martin Mull in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
But the studio told the insurance company, who put a stop to that immediately.
I was friends with Carrie at the time and knew what was going on with her.
And I went full out I dressed up in a maid’s outfit; I created this French accent.
Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Colleen Camp, and Tim Curry in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
I basically got the part in the room.
LYNN:I chose the people who I thought were right for the parts that made me laugh.
I didn’t know who most of them were.
Madeline Kahn, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, and Michael McKean in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
I didn’t know they were famous.
I’d seen Christopher Lloyd inTaxi.
But Tim Curry I knew from my school days.
Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, and Tim Curry in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
We’d known each other since he was 12 and I was 14.
He always said he became an actor because I became an actor.
Nobody else in our school ever become an actor.
Christopher Lloyd, Colleen Camp, and Eileen Brennan in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
LYNN:I understood how fast it had to go.
I said, “That’s what we’re aiming for.
What we’re doing here is screwball noir.”
Madeline Kahn in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
CAMP:He was very adamant about the pace.
He wanted us to have the rhythm.
We would be almost overlapping dialogue.
Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, and Eileen Brennan in ‘Clue’.Everett Collection
There’d be a certain style to it.
The people just talk."
Comedy is comedy, but farce is what happens on the worst day of your life.
So they had to be given aliases, and that meant they all had something to hide.
Obviously, somebody who had invited them was blackmailing them.
That’s how the story got going in my head.
So, for instance, Miss Scarlet was dressed in green.
WARREN:I loved that dress.
But I loved wearing it because it was so specific to her character and made me feel like her.
CAMP:There were three costumes, and I’m heartsick that I didn’t take one home.
It was made easier by shooting it that way.
WARREN:It’s so rare that you get to shoot in continuity.
Because you’re building a character, and it grows as you grow in the film.
It was wonderful to have that luxury of being able to shoot in sequence.
And because there were three endings, we had to play the whole first part in a straight way.
We’d say, “All right, something terrible has happened.”
WARREN:We were impossible.
We would be laughing, doubled over at everybody else’s stuff.
I always say this, but it was like herding cats.
MCKEAN:It’s one of the most fun gigs I’ve ever had.
The action begins in New England at a remote country house on a stormy night in 1954.
Once all the guests are assembled, Wadsworth gathers them for dinner.
Mr. Green displays his hapless clumsiness, regularly spilling things and tripping.
MCKEAN:Some of the things happened in the moment or were an addition to an existing piece.
Primarily, it was all written though.
We see Yvette listening to the conversation that is being tape recorded in the billiard room.
CAMP:I was trying to determine if everything was going according to plan.
Is anybody a double agent?
None of us knew; Jonathan kept us in the dark about who was the killer.
MCKEAN:I think about all the pool we played in that billiard room.
Eileen was the best.
She was literally a cheerleader.
If you made a shot, no matter who you were, it was “Yay!
Mr. Green slaps her to get her to calm down.
McKean:Eileen was one of the most amazing women I’ve ever known.
She was a sport.
CAMP:There’s just a natural feeling when you’re doing comedy of what physicality is funny.
And there was something very funny about being jammed into a stairwell.
I used the tightness of the stairwell, and the blocking created a natural feeling of being squeezed.
I don’t know which take they used, but there’s a millisecond where I’m laughing.
I don’t think it’s apparent to anyone else, but Martin made me laugh all the time.
MCKEAN:Sorry to burst your bubble, but the collision on the stairs is all stunt people.
Everything else we did ourselves though.
Things begin to escalate as a mysterious motorist arrives, then a cop.
So when the door slams, I was like, “Oh, she wouldn’t just cover it.
She would cover it and take a provocative pose.”
And I didn’t get any pushback from the studio on it.
WARREN:In real life, I’m not an extrovert.
But when it comes to a character that is in charge of herself, I will jump in.
So, I remember suggesting parts of that with Chris.
I was like, “Why don’t I do this?
Why don’t I be on top?”
Of course, Jonathan loved it.
Another wave of murders occurs.
LYNN:I got pushback on one shot only, which isn’t in the film.
They didn’t want blood.
But you have to actually create the horror of it.
WARREN:Those were all very choreographed.
That was more by rote in terms of learning what you’re doing, where to put your hands.
It didn’t have the emotional impact of any of the other scenes because it was very structured.
We couldn’t do all that in one take.
It would’ve been impossible because it’s in about five or six rooms.
He’s going backwards and forwards from one room to another.
It was shot piece by piece, and I worked it all out in advance.
MCKEAN:We were all glad it wasn’t our job.
Tim had to say so much.
It was a stretch of I’d say two or three days of just Tim taking us through stuff.
At one point he was on a skateboard.
The guy worked for that paycheck, I’m telling you.
LYNN:Michael has a wonderful imagination.
Tim was not on a skateboard.
I would remember that.
It was so tight.
He made the second dress with this hidden zipper that I could undo when it was these running sequences.
He throws me in the bathroom, and I come out of the bathroom having washed my hands.
We threw that in.
WARREN:I was in awe of Tim.
And he was meticulous and perfect every time.
Not a lot of people can do that, no matter how talented they are.
That’s a particular facility that he had that was gorgeous to watch.
As Wadsworth nears the end of his explanation, he offers up a possible conclusion.
But the studio wanted multiple, alternate endings.
I found out about that at the very end because they left pages out of the script.
MCKEAN:The first version of the script that I saw had all of them in it.
The fourth ending was ultimately cut from the film.
But I cut it because it either wasn’t interesting, surprising, or funny enough.
MCKEAN:One person killed the fake Mr. Boddy.
It was like all overlapping guiltiness but we weren’t in cahoots.
It was a contrivance.
WARREN:I have zero memory of that.
She and Wadsworth face off, arguing over how many bullets are left in the revolver.
There’s something very fulfilling about being something that somebody doesn’t expect.
Don’t f with me.”
And Tim was such a great person to play it with.
It’s my favorite of the three endings, of course.
The counting of the bullets and the bedlam, it’s really funny.
LYNN:You’ve got a character called Scarlet.
That joke becomes essential.
The second ending, “How About This?
“, names Mrs. Peacock as the murderer of all the victims.
LYNN:Madeline Kahn was wonderfully crazy.
She was very inventive in the way she played her character.
WARREN:We were laughing our heads off.
CAMP:Everyone applauded.
She was beyond brilliant.
MCKEAN:What you’re seeing is the second pass.
In take two, we were prepared.
It was supposed to be just, “Yes, I hated her.”
That was the whole line.
But she went off on this thing about the flames.
MCKEAN:The last line of the picture was mine.
Jonathan liked it, and he kept it in.
LYNN:I don’t think he’s right.
I remember writing that.
MCKEAN:We were running it before they started lighting it, and I threw it in.
I thought it was funny.
It might’ve been replacing something.
“Take them away,” or something like that.
I don’t remember the nuts and bolts, but I said it and it made Jonathan laugh.
Everybody thought it was funny.
So, it went in.
LYNN (following up via email):I checked my script and the last line is in it.
LYNN:I had great misgivings about the multiple endings.
WARREN:It didn’t do the movie any justice.
It was an interesting idea, but it didn’t add anything.
CAMP:Because they showed the movie with different endings in different theaters, nobody saw it.
Especially if I’m going to get the same one again.”
It was a victim of its gimmick.
LYNN:There was massive confusion.
Some of the critics were shown different endings.
It was a true mess.
Which is why no one has ever done it since.
I think that’s why it suddenly started to go well when people saw it on television.
Because you only really enjoy the endings when you see them all together.
CAMP:I loved the different endings.
They were trying to create a fun thing like the game where different people were the answer.
The weirdness of it is kind of its point.
But apparently people like it.
MCKEAN:I thought it was good that they repeated it in the way it was assembled.
People come up to me and recite my lines to me.
Things I don’t even remember.
MCKEAN:The release stuff is irrelevant now because for almost 40 years people have really loved the movie.
And we’re all really proud of it.
Who would imagine that?
