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''Murder by Death'' is a 1976 American mystery comedy film with a cast featuring Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, and Estelle Winwood, written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore. The plot is a broad parody or spoof of the traditional country-house whodunit, familiar to mystery fiction fans of classics such as Agatha Christie's ''And Then There Were None''. The cast is an ensemble of British and American actors playing send-ups of well-known fictional sleuths, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, and Sam Spade. It also features a rare acting performance by ''In Cold Blood'' author Truman Capote. The film was presented at the Venice International Film Festival in 1976. ==Plot== A group of five renowned detectives, each accompanied by a relative or associate, is invited to "dinner and a murder" by the mysterious Lionel Twain. Having lured his guests to his mansion managed by a blind butler named Jamessir Bensonmum, who is later joined by a deaf-mute cook named Yetta, Twain announces that it is in fact ''he'' who is the greatest detective in the world. In order to prove his claim, he challenges the guests to solve a murder which will take place at midnight; a reward of $1 million will be presented to the winner. The house is then electronically sealed off; doors, windows, etc. Before midnight, the butler is found dead, and later Twain himself appears, only to later re-appear clearly dead from a stab wound immediately after midnight; the cook is also discovered to have been an animated mannequin, now packed in a storage crate. The party spends the rest of the night investigating and bickering. They are manipulated by a mysterious behind-the-scenes force, confused by red herrings, and baffled by the "mechanical marvel" that is Twain's house, and they ultimately find their own lives threatened. Each sleuth presents his or her theory on the case, pointing out the others' past connections to Twain and their possible motives for murdering him. After retiring to their guest rooms to sleep, during which one pair is almost killed by a snake, another by a scorpion, another by a descending ceiling, a fourth by poison gas, and the fifth by a bomb, they all survive and collect in the office where the butler—believed to have been murdered earlier—is waiting, very much alive and not blind. Each detective "solves" the mystery with claims that the butler is one or another of Twain's former associates, complete with backstories and motives. At first the butler plays the part of each of the persons, male or female, with whom he's identified, but then he pulls off a mask to reveal Lionel Twain himself, alive. Twain disparages the detectives (and effectively the authors who created them) for the way their adventures have been handled, including such misdeeds as introducing crucial characters at the last minute for the traditional "twist in the tale" (something the assembled detectives had been doing a few minutes earlier) and withholding clues and information so as to make it impossible for the reader to solve the mystery. None of the detectives walks away with the million dollars, and they all leave. Wang, when asked if there had been a murder or not, replies: "Yes; killed good weekend!" After the guests, freed to leave, do so, and all alone, Twain pulls off another mask—revealing Yetta, who chain smokes and laughs hysterically while rings of cigarette smoke fill the screen. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Murder by Death」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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