Sick Product of a Sick System

A Major Disappointment

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

"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.

I was not having any high expectations seeing this movie, but I did initially understand the very high rating it had. I had a very good time watching the first 45 minutes.Unfortunately as with many comedies they do not know when to stop. So the movie does go on at least 20 minutes too long. If you do enjoy seeing people chase each other around in an old house for half an hour then it will not loose momentum for you and most likely still be hell of a kick. But for me personally I just sat and waited to see what the end would be for a quite long time.Too bad really as good actors and fair story. It just outstays it welcome in my opinion. Also quite good ending. I just wish it had been there much earlier. For me that was the difference between a gem and something not worth spending your time on.

Sometimes I wish I was as easily amused as most folks. This picture gets almost unanimous high ratings from reviewers, and, honestly, I missed the humor involved. I understand it was played for laughs and was made in a jocular vein, but it wasn't that funny. Here are some reasons for my dissent;Marjorie Main, the matriarch of the homicidal family, was never funny. She wasn't funny in the 'Ma And Pa Kettle' series and was just a nasty, bad tempered old battle ax in anything she played in. And she doesn't disappoint here.The twin characters played by Peter Whitney are threatening and not endearing characters, and when called upon to display a humorous side, he couldn't do it. The 'crick-in-the-back deal was semi-funny the first time.Fred MacMurray, a fine actor and comedian, is reduced here to slapstick and pratfalls, which are best left to the Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy. He tries gamely to overcome the lame script but the odds are stacked against him."Murder He Says" is at best a black comedy, and not a good one at that (Try "Arsenic And Old Lace"). Besides Fred MacMurray the best member of the cast is Helen Walker, a good actress who was great to look at. All in all, an overrated film and a waste of 90 minutes.

On the surface, I could see someone mistaking this for "The Egg and I" or one of the Ma & Pa Kettle films. After all, "The Egg and I" stars Fred MacMurray and Marjorie Main and is set in rural America--and Main starred in these sequels. But, while the Kettles were a wacky but sweet family, Main and her brood in this film are more like the folks from "Arscenic and Old Lace"--but meaner. In other words, a family of dangerous psychos. This makes "Murder, He Says" a very, very dark comedy--one that might surprise you.Fred MacMurray works as a pollster. He's been sent to look for another pollster who disappeared some time back and the trail ends with Main and her family. Soon it becomes apparent that the family is sort of like the Mansons morphed with the Clampetts--and it appears Fred might be next. The only reason they don't just kill him is that they want to use him to get the secret from Grandma as to where some cash from an older robbery is hidden. Once he learns some clues as to its whereabouts, the family wants to beat it out of him and cannot kill him until they find it. But clearly Fred's days are numbered. A bit later, a woman arrives who claims to be an escaped family member interested in the money. However, she's really not--and is trying to return the money to clear the family name. Oddly, Fred agrees to help her--though she is one wacky and violent lady herself--just not a killer. Then, an unknown person (whose face you can't see) pops in and out of the walls--klunking people on the head. Can Fred survive this house of horrors?! Overall, the film is a lot of wacky, dark fun. Not as great as "Arsenic and Old Lace" (which tended to be wilder and more likable), but still a very unusual and interesting little comedy. In many ways, it plays like a Looney Tunes short or Scooby Doo episode with live actors.By the way, the film makers did a great job in making one actor look like a set of twins--it was the most complicated use of double-exposures I've seen. Also, towards the end of the film, look for Barbara Pepper (the lady with the .45)--she later played Mrs. Zipfel on "Green Acres".