Clue

Jonathan Lynn’s film comes from a board game but was built on a decision not to acknowledge it. Producer Debra Hill said the main contribution of John Landis, first attached to direct, was insisting it work for someone who had never played. Lynn wrote 4 endings into the script so the solution could not leak, and the cast, like Lynn, worked without knowing how it would finish. Three went to cinemas, one print per theatre. Home versions run all three: the first two as possibilities, the third as what really happened. Hill described another clause: every actor got the same money, the same billing and the same size trailer. To prepare the cast Lynn screened His Girl Friday and asked for the same breakneck pace. The mansion was built on the Paramount stage that once held the courtyard James Stewart watched in Rear Window. The ballroom would not fit, so the unit spent two days at a real house in Pasadena; with the rest on one set, it could be shot in continuity. A 15 million dollar budget returned 14.6 million in North America. A good fit if you want the nervous energy of a script whose cast did not know the murderer. Not for anyone who needs one binding solution; the home version plays three endings back to back.