Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

"This thing is never going to heal.", 9 April 2005

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is a spoof of the film noirs popular in the 40s and 50s. While the plot doesn't matter, here it is in a nutshell - Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) is hired by Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) to find out what happened to her father, a noted scientist and cheese maker. Along the way, Reardon gets shot in the arm (three times), gets slipped a mickey, makes coffee, dresses like a woman, talks on the phone with Phillip Marlowe, loses his pajamas, shaves his tongue, adjusts Juliet's breasts, picks up dog poo, battles Nazis, and falls in love. All in a normal day for a private eye.

The gimmick to Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is mixing the old film clips with the actions of Steve Martin. Carl Reiner does a fabulous job of seamlessly matching not only the look, but the atmosphere of clips from movies like The Bribe and The Killers with the new footage of Martin and Rachel Ward. It's often difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. Much of the credit must surely go to costume designer extraordinaire Edith Head. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid was the last of the 426 films she credited as costume designer. Her clothing designs for the new footage perfectly fit the clips from the old movies - many of which she did the original costume design.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid may be my favorite movie with Steve Martin. He plays Reardon perfectly. He doesn't play it as a comedy, but straight instead. This makes it all the more funny. Rachel Ward is adequate as the female lead.

The only negative thing I can say about the movie is that the big finale gets a little off-track. Carl Reiner's character is a little too over-the-top and doesn't fit with the straight tone the movie had presented up to this point. A little more realism on his part might have made for a much better ending.

8/10