Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(1976)

I’d say this film has aged like a tuna sandwich but that would imply there was a time it was actually good.

I’m sad this had such a great premise. Having a bunch of caricatures of famous fictional detectives all brought together on purpose and challenged to solve a murder which one amongst them has yet to commit seems like it would be a fun time.

The problem is author Niel Simon saw fit to include Sidney Wang, a parody of Charlie Chan who was unfortunately already a parody of a Chinese person played by Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and/or J. Carrol Naish, none of whom were Chinese. In this all-star detective spoof, the Charlie Chan stand-in would be played by Peter Sellers without an ounce of cultural sensitivity, if such a thing could even be achieved by him in that role.

The cultural insensitivity from this portrayal aside, the other characters spewed one racially charged “joke” after another toward Wang, with the villain also constantly yelling at him to speak proper English.

The Chinese were not the only people group lambasted with this low-brow hateful “humor”. Even the blind, mute, illiterate, and gay were targeted; ironic that Truman Capote would be involved. 

At the very least, Wang’s adopted son “Willie Wang” (a parody of Charlie Chan’s “Number One Son”) was played by Japanese descended American actor Richard Narita and never was it implied that he was Chinese. In fact they drew attention to the fact that Willie was Japanese and adopted by the Chinese Sidney Wang. Willie happened to be the most realistic and likable character in this whole film. Compared to the rest, Willie almost seemed out of place.

I’m loath to talk about high points for fear I might intrigue a reader to actually watch this. Just keep that in mind while I talk about high points.

Most of the non-racially, non-handicapped, non-homophobic gags were genuinely funny. Sifting through the jokes in poor taste to get the gems was hardly worth the effort though.

Among the other parodied detectives were Peter Falk as Sam Diamond (an amalgamation of Humphrey Bogart characters), Eileen Brennen would be his arm candy. Eileen would later star in Clue (1985), an actually good comedy mystery, although not without a couple homophobic jabs of its own.

David Niven as “Dick Charleston” would parody Dashiell Hammet’s “Nick Charles” character from his novel The Thin Man. An extremely young Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall) plays Dick’s wife “Dora”, obviously a parody of Nick Charles’ wife Nora. Get it? Dick and Dora = Nick and Nora. They even had a wire-hair terrier running around with them just like the Charleses.

Incidentally, this would be the second film both David Niven and Peter Sellers would appear in together while both were still alive. Niven would appear posthumously in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) by way of old film footage and stand-ins.

James Coco as “Milo Perrier” would be a Hercule Poirot parody and a fairly entertaining one at that. Coco exemplified and exaggerated Poirot’s idiosyncrasies quite hilariously. James Cromwell would be his extremely French (or was it Belgian) sidekick “Marcel”, an obvious parody of Poirot’s Colonel Hastings. In this case though, Perrier would be more the comedian with Marcel as somewhat straight… not by much though.

Elsa Lanchester plays “Jessica Marbles” for a second Agatha Christie character parody to be featured here. If you’ve never looked into Elsa’s story, she is a fascinating person. It so happens her ashes were just recently found this passed October of 2025 by a Mr. Scott Michaels of Dearly Deaparted Tours. Seriously, look up the story. It will blow your mind.

The most interesting inclusion for me would be that of Truman Capote, who appears in a handful of films, none of which I’ve ever been particularly interested in until this. It is remarkable to me that this funny little flamboyant man, who could portray a comedy villain so enjoyably, is the author of both Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. Two stories that couldn’t be more different from each other. This little fella who would infamously ruin his reputation amongst his friends by writing a deeply personal exposé about them, would ultimately be considered the father of the true crime genre. Here he was now, behind a painting of a dog, poking his tongue through a hole where the dog’s mouth would be, in a play on the old “painting with spy-holes” trope.  Absolutely remarkable! Who was this guy!?!

An absolute stellar cast and a hilarious premise, this film had such potential. It’s too bad it was such a vehicle for slurs!

Mild Spoiler ahead, I suppose…

The epilogue was a bit lackluster for me as I am a devout fan of Poirot and Nick Charles. The fourth wall is broken slightly as a character complains that the film’s whole plot is the fault of the present detectives (or, more accurately, the authors of said detectives) by way of poorly written murder mysteries that introduce previously unknown characters at the end of a story, and a lack of information presented to the audience. All this was soliloquied just after the detectives accused each other of the crime, posing a wealth of information never once mentioned until this point. While this transpiration may be poking fun at the whole affair, I took issue with it.

I took issue because Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammet, the creators of Ms. Marple, Hercule Poirot and Nick Charles respectively, are good mystery authors who haven’t relied on the aforementioned literary faux pas.

It’s true, some of Christie’s mysteries are controversial regarding whether the evidence or lack thereof in her books constitutes “fair play” or not. In a few novels she’s thrown some unexpected curves with arguably not enough evidence for the reader to make the same conclusion as the fictional detective. But Christie stood by her work, insisting explicitly that “fair play” is central to her work and should be so for the genre at large.

Dashiell Hammet, a former Pinkerton detective, even published a list of strict rules and things to avoid when writing mysteries. These authors were serious about their craft.

I’ve liked Niel Simon. He was reportedly very happy with the script he wrote for Murder by Death. I played Oscar Madison in the Odd Couple, a well written play by Simon. If you’re going to make jokes about something, you better know the subject well or you’ll just expose your ignorance and make yourself look like an idiot.

I’m sure I’m guilty of this from time to time but at least I didn’t write this script. It just saddens me that someone who has had my respect, lost it with this film on multiple accounts.