SLEEPING WITH THE PAST: MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, SPLITTING HEIRS
As befitting Allen, this is more of a light mystery than a hardboiled one - a critic even likened it to an episode of "Murder, She Wrote." There's the usual Allen dialogue (Larry won't go to see a Wagner opera because "I get the urge to invade Poland"), and he also loads the movie with plenty of references to other mysteries or noirs, like DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE THIN MAN (Larry and Carol are like Nick and Nora), and most directly, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (the famous "Hall of Mirrors" sequence). It's all done effortlessly; Allen is not known for someone who has fun, but he seems to be enjoying himself here, and the charm is infectious.
It also spreads elsewhere. Though Allen and Keaton hadn't appeared together since 1979's MANHATTAN, they pick up right where they left off, even though the part was originally written for Farrow. And as this is about a couple who's comfortable with each other, it's appropriate. Alda returns to his nice guy persona and shows Allen is one of the few directors who can actually direct him well on film, and though Huston doesn't get much screen time, she gives a dry performance. MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY may ultimately be seen as just a sop to Allen's fans, but it's an entertaining one just the same.
Idle, of course, was a member of the famous Monty Python troupe. His career outside Python, however, has been spotty at best; while he made the hugely entertaining Beatles spoof THE RUTLES: ALL YOU NEED IS CASH, he also made the frantic farce NUNS ON THE RUN and the lousy TV show "Nearly Departed." One hoped this movie with Young, which co-starred fellow Python John Cleese (who was directed by Young in the short film ROMANCE WITH A DOUBLE BASS), would be a good film, or at least a funny one, but alas, it's not to be.
Idle plays Tommy Patel, who's a gardener and is working for, and befriended by, the new Duke of Bournemouth, Henry Bullock (Rick Moranis). The problem is, Patel discovers through research that he in fact should be the new Duke of Bournemouth - apparently, his real-life mother Lucinda (Barbara Hershey) left him in a restaurant, and then claimed the wrong baby. Not only that, but the Duke is chasing the same woman Patel is in love with, Kitty (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Patel goes to a lawyer, Raoul Shagrind (Cleese), but
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