Favorite Whodunit/Mystery Films

Favorite Whodunit/Mystery Films Mar 25, 2017 19:35:04 GMT spiderwort likes this

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Post by Salzmank on Mar 25, 2017 19:35:04 GMT

Mar 25, 2017 19:23:16 GMT spiderwort said:

You've named a lot I would have chosen (The Thin Man, Charlie Chan, for example), but I'll give it a stab, hoping I meet the whodunit criteria and sticking with some of the less famous ones.

The Spiral Staircase (1946)
The Uninvited (1944)
The Cat and the Canary (1939)
Lady on a Train (1945)
Murder She Said (1962)
Spellbound (1945)
My Favorite Brunette (1942)

But I have to add Laura (1944), just because I love it so much.

Beyond this, I think I'm into the really famous ones.

Great choices, Spider! And I completely understand about putting certain movies on the list just because we love 'em so much. I mean, heck, I'm even stretching it a little with my choices based on my criteria: does The Thin Man truly fit, as much as I love it? Its focus is obviously more on the Charleses than on the puzzle plot, but I just can't bear to leave it off. I've been meaning to see Lady on a Train--that's the one with Deanna Durbin, right?--for the longest time, ever since Everson recommended in The Detective in Film. One day I'm going to have to bunker down and find it--or, more likely, just wait for it to come on TCM again!

The Uninvited, one of my favorite movies (I was recently defending it--I can't believe it needs defending, but so be it!--on the "Monster Kid" forum), is a curious case of cross-genre pollination. I mean, for a ghost movie, it actually has a more involved, complicated (too complicated?) puzzle plot than at least half of cinematic whodunits, with probably more clues to boot! Then again, as I wrote there too, the supernatural tale and the mystery tale both do come from the same source, Gothic literature.

No need to worry about meeting the criteria, by the way: I was trying (and, as noted, probably failing) to restrict myself to them, but yours may be different for "whodunit."

Thanks!