Mystery Film - Parodies and Homages

Parodies and Homages

• Who Done It? (1942), an Abbott and Costello comedy, is one of the first film spoofs of the genre.

• Lady on a Train (1945) is a murder mystery comedy starring Deanna Durbin that also satirizes film noir.

• In My Favorite Brunette (1947), Bob Hope is a cowardly baby photographer who is mistaken for a private detective (played by Alan Ladd in a brief cameo). Later that year, The Bowery Boys released Hard Boiled Mahoney with the same mistaken-identity plot.

• Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), A&C are detectives out to save a man framed by mobsters.

• Private Eyes (1953), The Bowery Boys open up a detective agency after Sach develops the ability to read minds.

• Underground sexploitation filmmakers also spoofed the genre. Nature's Playmates (1962) is one of exploitation producer H.G. Lewis' many "nudie-cutie" flicks. A beautiful female private eye tours Florida nudist camps in search of a missing man with a distinctive tattoo. Take It Out In Trade (1970) is Ed Wood's softcore porn take on the Philip Marlowe films. Cry Uncle! (1971) is another sex comedy inspired by vintage private eye films. Ginger (1971), The Abductors (1972), and Girls Are for Loving (1973) are softcore sexploitation comedies featuring Cheri Caffaro as tough private-eye Ginger. England also produced the sex comedy Adventures of a Private Eye (1977).

• The Pink Panther (1964) is the first in a series of comedies featuring Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau.

• They Might be Giants (1971) stars George C. Scott as a mental patient who believes he is Sherlock Holmes. He and his female psychiatrist (Dr. Watson) go on a Don Quixote-type odyssey through New York.

• Gumshoe (1971) is a crime comedy about a man so inspired by Bogart's films he decides to play private eye.

• The Black Bird (1975), critically panned comedy sequel to The Maltese Falcon starring George Segal as Sam Spade Jr. and Elisha Cook, Jr. reprising his role of Wilmer Cook.

• The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975), a Gene Wilder comedy.

• Murder by Death (1976) is Neil Simon's broad spoof of mystery films and Sam Spade, Charlie Chan, and Miss Marple. This was followed by The Cheap Detective (1978), an even broader spoof starring Peter Falk as a Bogart-like private eye.

• The Late Show (1977), quirky, contemporary detective story is largely an affectionate tribute to the classic Hammett/Chandler era.

• A trio of Chevy Chase comedies, Foul Play (1978), Fletch (1985), and Fletch Lives pays homage to vintage detective films and Hitchcock.

• The Man with Bogart's Face (1980), a detective has his face changed and becomes involved in a mystery that resembles The Maltese Falcon.

• The Private Eyes (1980) is a detective comedy with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

• Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), set in the 1940s and filmed in black and white, Steve Martin plays a traditional hard-boiled detective who interacts with vintage film clips in Carl Reiner's cut-and-paste film noir farce.

• Hammett (1982), fictional account of Dashiell Hammett involved in actual mysteries that inspired his novels.

• Trenchcoat (1983), comedy about a female mystery writer who has to solve a real crime.

• Clue (1985), set in 1956, a period-piece whodunit spoof based on the popular board game.

• The Singing Detective (1986), a British miniseries about a mystery writer named Philip Marlow who is confined to a hospital bed. There his vivid fantasies of being an old-fashioned gumshoe are brought to life. Later remade as a feature film The Singing Detective in 2003.

• In 1987 Robert Mitchum was the guest host on Saturday Night Live where he played Philip Marlowe for the last time in the parody sketch, "Death Be Not Deadly". The show also ran a short film he made called Out of Gas, a mock sequel to his 1947 classic Out of the Past. Jane Greer reprised her role from the original film.

• Without a Clue (1988) comedy about an actor (Michael Caine) hired to impersonate Sherlock Holmes.

• The Naked Gun (1988) and its sequels features Leslie Nielsen as an inept police lieutenant. Based on the short-lived Police Squad! TV series.

• The Gumshoe Kid (1990), an adolescent obsessed with Bogart gets his chance to be a detective in this R-rated comedy with Tracy Scoggins.

• A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994), comedy with Keenen Ivory Wayans as a private detective.

• The Naked Detective (1996), an R-rated softcore parody of film noir with fetish model/actress Julia Parton.

• The Scream franchise (1996)-(2011), which is a satire of the horror genre, has heavy elements of the detective, mystery and crime fiction genres, and is often self-referential.

• A Gun, a Car, a Blonde (1997), a paraplegic's fantasy (filmed in black and white) of being a tough private eye in a 1950s film noir world.

• Brown's Requiem (1998), detective story based on James Ellroy's Chandleresque first novel.

• Zero Effect (1998) updates the Sherlock Holmes concept with a detective who is brilliant when working on a case but an obnoxious cretin when off duty.

• Where's Marlowe? (1998) drama about film makers following a low-level L.A. private detective.

• Camouflage (2001), private-eye comedy with Leslie Nielsen.

• Woody Allen's nostalgia for film noir, mysteries, and Bogart's tough-guy persona is evident in Play it Again, Sam (1972), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001).

• Twilight (1998), Paul Newman stars in this old-fashioned private eye yarn that's reminiscent of earlier films in the genre as well as his two Lew Harper films.

• I Heart Huckabees (2004) offbeat philosophical comedy involves two "existential detectives" (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) hired to uncover the meaning of life.

• Broken Lizard's Club Dread (2004) is a murder mystery film that spoofs slasher films.

• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), crime-noir comedy inspired by hardboiled detective fiction and vapid L.A. culture.

• A Prairie Home Companion (2006), film of Garrison Keillor's radio show features the recurring character Guy Noir, a Chandler-esque hardboiled detective whose adventures always wander into farce.

• In the season 6, episode 11 of Married... with Children, Al Bundy dreams he's a private detective who's being framed for the murder of a rich woman's father.