Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

This is one of the best parodies of the '40s hardboiled detective genre, with a very clever conceit: weaving the plot and production design around memorable movie clips (The Killers, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, White Heat, This Gun for Hire, Sorry, Wrong Number, Notorious). Steve Martin plays the cool Rigby Reardon, who tries solving an incomprehensible mystery with the assistance of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Burt Lancaster, Fred MacMurray, Ingrid Bergman, and Ray Milland, among others. It's all silly hokum with Rachel Ward as the pretty moll and director-cowriter Carl Reiner as the nefarious villain. Miklos Rozsa takes us back to yesteryear with his lush score, and, fittingly, Edith Head handles the period costumes in her final production. --Bill Desowitz Amazon.com essential video

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

My five stars for Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid are primarily for Miklos Rozsa's beautiful and serious musical score, which stands alone by itself. June 25, 2008

Review of Dead Men Dont Wear Plaid

This is a great movie. It is so so so clever and well done in bringing cuts of old classic movies into the film. and funny of course like most Steve Martin movies June 19, 2008

Uneventful and Boring.

Could not watch the whole movie. Senseless, simply intolerable. Probably of interest for Steve Martin's fans only.
May 24, 2008

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

This is one of the most overlooked and under-appreciated films of all-time. Brilliantly edited and hysterically funny, it would be enjoyed by film-lovers of all types. A spot-on parody of film-noir, definitely Steve Martin's best film. March 14, 2008

One great movie

It helps if you've seen a bunch of older movies so the gags make more sense but it's a very funny movie for everyone. The movie is just gag after gag after gag. It's great! March 9, 2008

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