Murder By Death - Cast and Characters

Cast and Characters

The plot takes place in and around the isolated country home populated by eccentric multi-millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote), his blind butler Jamesir Bensonmum (Alec Guinness) and a deaf-mute cook named Yetta (Nancy Walker). The participants are all pastiches of famous fictional detectives:

• Inspector Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers) is based on Charlie Chan and appropriately accompanied by his adopted Japanese son Willie (Richard Narita). Wang wears elaborate Chinese costumes, and his grammar is frequently criticized by the annoyed host.
• Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven and Maggie Smith) are polished, sophisticated society types modeled on Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man film series. Their excellent breeding gets them out of a few scrapes during the course of the weekend.
• Milo Perrier (James Coco) is a take on Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and arrives at the house with his chauffeur, Marcel Cassette (James Cromwell in his first feature film role). The portly Perrier is overly fond of food and appears annoyed that he must share a room with lowly Marcel. He is repeatedly annoyed by being mistaken for a Frenchman, as he is Belgian.
• Sam Diamond (Peter Falk) represents the hard-boiled, American-style detective, a parody based on The Maltese Falcon's Sam Spade and Richard Diamond, Private Detective. He is accompanied by his long-suffering secretary Tess Skeffington (Eileen Brennan).
• Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester) parodies Christie's other great creation, Miss Marple. In the film, Marbles appears as a hearty, tweed-clad Englishwoman with a frail, seemingly senile companion—her ancient "nurse" Miss Withers (Estelle Winwood)—for whom she is now caring. In real life, the two English-born actresses did not care for each other and exchanged mordant, biting insults.