Opening with a vintage Universal logo reflecting its 1946 period setting and filmed in black and white by director of photography Michael Chapman to match the classic crime films it\u2019s parodying, Dead Men<\/em> lampoons many of the signifiers of noir. The seedy detective, the alluring femme fatale, the hard-boiled narration, the twist-laden plot that needs to be explained at length during the wrap-up \u2013 all get trotted out when Rigby (Martin) is hired by Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) to look into the mysterious circumstances surrounding her scientist father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The set-up is straight out of The Maltese Falcon<\/em>, but that\u2019s not one of the 18 films Dead Men<\/em> culls scenes from to allow Martin to play opposite the likes of Alan Ladd, Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, and, yes, Humphrey Bogart. (His scenes are borrowed from three different movies since he\u2019s kept busy doing Rigby\u2019s shoe-leather work and calling in his findings.) Most of these interactions are accomplished through intercutting and the judicious use of doubles for Martin\u2019s scene partners, but he\u2019s also composited into a sequence from Hitchcock\u2019s Suspicion<\/em> so he can briefly share the screen with Cary Grant. The roll call of familiar faces then continues with Ingrid Bergman, Veronica Lake, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Edward Albert, Kirk Douglas, Fred MacMurray, James Cagney, Joan Crawford, Charles Laughton, and Vincent Price, with the writers resorting to increasingly absurd explanations for Rigby\u2019s wardrobe changes so he can be inserted into their scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These seamless transitions were accomplished with the expertise of famed costume designer Edith Head, who died shortly after filming wrapped and to whom Dead Men<\/em> is dedicated, along with \u201call the brilliant technical and creative people who worked on the films of the 1940\u2019s and 1950\u2019s.\u201d (One of them, composer Mikl\u00f3s R\u00f3zsa, was likewise scoring his final film, but he lived on until 1995.) This reaches the height of incongruity when Rigby\/Martin does back-to-back drag to stand in for Stanwyck in scenes from Double Indemnity<\/em> and impersonate Cagney\u2019s mother in White Heat<\/em>. As convincing as he attempts to be, these moments reinforce the notion that \u2013 to borrow the title of Martin\u2019s 1979 stand-up record and 1980 television special \u2013 comedy is not pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putting aside the gimmick of slotting Rigby into scenes from This Gun for Hire<\/em>, The Lost Weekend<\/em>, The Killers<\/em>, Notorious<\/em>, The Glass Key<\/em> and others, Reiner, Gipe, and Martin work in an assortment of running gags that obey the rule of set-up and payoff. One of the less PC ones involves Rigby feeling up Juliet twice when he finds her passed out, but she gets him back by groping him later on. Other gags include Rigby repeatedly getting shot in the arm and going to Juliet to suck the bullet out, and the revelation that the phrase \u201ccleaning woman\u201d causes him to go berserk. A fair bit of time passes, however, between the first mention of his \u201cfamous java\u201d and when he makes it for Lancaster\u2019s doomed Swede Andersen from The Killers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dead Men<\/em> also plays with the conventions of noir by including moments where Juliet replies to Rigby\u2019s voice-over as if she can hear it. (Naturally, this momentarily throws him for a loop.) The plot point that comes up most, though, are the lists of the \u201cFriends of Carlotta\u201d and \u201cEnemies of Carlotta,\u201d which don\u2019t add up until Rigby is tipped off that Carlotta isn\u2019t a person but a place \u2013 an island off the coast of South America where the film\u2019s climax, borrowed from relative obscurity The Bribe<\/em>, takes place. If nothing else, Dead Men<\/em> makes great use of its spectacular chase though a street carnival and attendant fireworks display. All that\u2019s left, then, is for Rigby to uncover the true nature of the conspiracy he\u2019s been unraveling ever since Juliet fainted in his doorway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Dead Men Don\u2019t Wear Plaid<\/em> wasn\u2019t as much of a runaway hit as The Jerk<\/em>, it was enough of an artistic success that Reiner, Martin, and Gipe re-teamed for the following year\u2019s mad scientist spoof The Man with Two Brains<\/em>. More comedies followed \u2013 including Reiner and Martin\u2019s crowning achievement, the body-switch romance All of Me<\/em> \u2013 but they never made another film as conceptually daring as the time they went Plaid<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDead Men Don\u2019t Wear Plaid\u201d is available to rent or buy from <\/em>the usual suspects<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Dead-Men2-1024x576.jpg\")
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