Sleuth (1972 film)
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| Sleuth | |
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 Sleuth film poster |
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| Directed by | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| Produced by | Morton Gottlieb |
| Written by | Anthony Shaffer |
| Starring | Sir Laurence Olivier Michael Caine |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | December 10, 1972 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 138 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | { |
| IMDb profile | |
Sleuth is the 1972 film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play Sleuth by British playwright Anthony Shaffer, who wrote the screenplay. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, it stars Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine.
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[edit] Synopsis
The plot centers on Andrew Wyke, a wealthy country squire and writer of detective novels who delights in playing elaborate games. Aware that Milo Tindle, the struggling owner of two hair salons, is having an affair with his wife, Marguerite, Wyke invites him to his country manor house. Wyke is also having an affair with a girl named Thea and is quite happy to divorce his wife. His main concern is that Tindle, a struggling businessman, will be unable to maintain Marguerite in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed, and that she’ll leave him and return to Wyke.
Wyke suggests that Tindle steal some valuable jewelry and sell it in order to live happily with Marguerite, while Wyke will claim the insurance in order to live happily with Thea. Tindle agrees and, disguised as a clown, breaks into Wyke's manor house, blows open the safe and obtains the jewels.
Wyke then reveals that he has lured Tindle into a trap whereupon he can legally shoot him as an intruder. Wyke's real grievance is that his wife has been having an affair with a working-class boy made good rather than a member of the upper-classes like himself (Tindle's Italian origins make him even worse in Wyke's eyes). He looks upon Tindle as nothing more than a gigolo, "a jumped-up pantry boy who doesn't know his place". While Tindle begs for mercy, Wyke shoots him and he falls to the floor.
Two days later, in the evening, the eccentric but methodical Inspector Doppler comes to Wyke's house, announcing that he is investigating Tindle's disappearance. Wyke states that he did not really kill Tindle, but had fired blank bullets. It had been one of his games to humiliate the man and teach him that becoming a member of the gentry requires breeding rather than just joining in. He maintains that, after recovering from the shock, Tindle left the house alive.
In the course of searching the house, however, Doppler finds traces of blood, evidence of actual bullets being fired into the walls and Tindle's clothes in a wardrobe. Wyke panics at this stage and tries to get away when Doppler pins him down and reveals himself to be none other than Tindle in disguise.
Tindle reveals that he wanted revenge for the way Wyke had humiliated him. Wyke expresses admiration for the way it was done, but Tindle is not prepared to leave it at that. For him, the whole charade has become something of a class struggle, Wyke's gentrified world against his working-class background. He has therefore set up a new game, this time based on reality, and involving a real-life murder.
Wyke's murder mystery novels revolve around an upper-class detective, St. John Lord Merridew, who has a "nose for smelling out evil superior to anything in the force". Merridew is always solving cases that leave the official detectives baffled. Tindle has always rejected this image, seeing the police as sharp-eyed professionals who know their job.
Tindle claims to have "screwed" and strangled Wyke's mistress Thea, and planted evidence around the house that would frame Wyke for the crime, his motive being to play games with the police !
He reveals that the evidence for Thea's murder is set to look as though Wyke had set it in plain sight to provoke the police; to incite them with the impression that Wyke holds a belief that the police are unintelligent and useless and will not see the evidence for what it is. When Wyke phones Thea's roommate Joyce she confirms that Thea's body has been found and that the police are on their way to question him !
Wyke has half-an-hour to destroy the proof linking him to Thea's murder before the police led by Detective Sergeant Tarrant arrive. Tindle reads out riddles as to where the evidence is hidden and Wyke frantically runs around the house, interpreting the riddles and finding the items.
After Wyke barely manages to dispose of the evidence in time, Tindle reveals that he had not called the police at all. He further reveals that Thea is alive, that he knows she is only marginally involved with Wyke, and that she wholeheartedly approved of Tindle's plan to humiliate the unpleasant older man, who is impotent.
Tindle then goes upstairs to retrieve Marguerite's fur coat, a sign that she is moving in with him for good. Wyke takes a small revolver out of a nearby drawer. Having been humiliated himself, Wyke informs Tindle that he cannot let him leave and that he intends to kill, this time for real.
Tindle then tells him that he actually did go to the police in order to make a complaint about the earlier incident but that the police is unlikely to do anything since they see him as "some common little git who's been screwing the wife of a local nob and who got what he deserved". Thus, if Wyke does kill him the police will not believe the burglar story. Wyke does not believe this and shoots Tindle through the torso.
Within a few moments, a police car, with lights flashing, reaches Wyke's front door, and someone begins to knock. Wyke tries to retreat away from the window to avoid being seen, while Tindle, bleeding profusely and barely able to crawl, grabs the switch wired to the entirety of Wyke's large collection of mechanical toys, which come violently to life and attract the attention of the police. The screen then fades out with the toy collection making a ruckus, and the dying Tindle laughing.
[edit] Background and legacy
Shaffer initially was reluctant to sell the film rights to the play, fearful it would undercut its success of the stage. When he finally did relent, he hoped the film version would retain the services of Anthony Quayle, who essayed the role of Wyke in London and on Broadway. Alan Bates was Shaffer’s pick for the part of Milo Tindle. In the end, director Mankiewicz opted for Olivier and Caine, though the former had once denounced the play as a “piece of p**s.”
The film is noted for its prop-cluttered set (courtesy of production designer Ken Adam), quasi-baroque music score by John Addison (whose Oscar nomination was announced after Nino Rota’s score for The Godfather was ruled ineligible), and its Oscar-nominated performances from Olivier and Caine.
The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Sir Michael Caine, Sir Laurence Olivier), Best Director and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score. Olivier won the New York Film Critics award for Best Actor. Shaffer received an Edgar Award for his screenplay. The film was the second to have its entire credited cast (Caine and Olivier) nominated for Academy Awards after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in 1966; this feat has been repeated only by Give 'em Hell, Harry!, in which James Whitmore is the sole credited actor.[1]
The production team intended to reveal as little about the movie as possible so as to make the conclusion a complete surprise to the audience. Hence, a false casting at the beginning of the film consisting of fictional people playing roles that do not exist. This “game” not only serves as irony, but continues to throw a curveball to new audiences. The same trick was pulled in the original stage version.
Much of the story revolves around the theme of crime fiction, as written by Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Merridew = Lord Peter Wimsey) or Agatha Christie, whose photo is included on Wyke's wall, and how it relates to real-life criminal investigations. Class conflict is also raised between Wyke, the long-established English country gentleman, compared to Tindle, the son of an immigrant from the working-class streets of London.
This was Joseph Mankiewicz’s final film.
The likeness of Paul Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, was used for the painting of Marguerite Wyke.
[edit] Deleted Footage
While questioning Wyke, Doppler points out that the clown costume that Tindle was wearing when he was shot is missing, though the clown's mask is later found and put on the head of the plastic skeleton in the cellar. He is probably implying that Tindle was buried with it.
In the trailer for the film, there are the scenes with Doppler laying out the evidence against Wyke as shown in the movie. They include him pulling open the shower curtains in one of the bathrooms and exposing the clown's jacket, dripping wet and apparently with bloodstains on it. This scene was not included in the final film.
[edit] Remake
On September 7, 2006, Kenneth Branagh announced at the Venice Film Festival that he would be directing a remake of the film, with a screenplay by 2005 Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter. Caine starred in this adaptation, this time in the role of Wyke, while Jude Law played Tindle as a struggling actor. Production was completed in March 2007, and the film was released in the UK on Friday 23 November 2007.
[edit] External links
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