Tuesday, February 9, 2010

THE PRIVATE EYES (1981)

There's been a murder at the Morley Manor and it appears that the victim, Lord Morley himself asked that detectives Don Knotts and Tim Conway come solve his murder. How can it be that the murder victim is the one who contacted Scotland Yard? Kinda strange huh? Well, not as strange as the cast of characters that make up the servants and family that live in the mansion. I won't go through them all, but my favorite is the butler who murdered his wife's 13 lovers and now anytime he hears the word "murder" he goes into a violent frenzy until you kick him in the balls!

Naturally, both Knotts and Conway are idiots (Knotts thinks he's smart and Conway has a knack for inventing useless items, like the "Time Gun" that goes off every hour), but despite this they still somehow come across some clues. Will they solve the murder? Or figure out who's the hooded figure going around killing all the servants?! Well, you're just going to have to find out for yourself.

I might be biased towards this film since I fell in love with it as a child and watched it a million times, but I genuinely think it's a funny film and well worth checking out especially if you enjoy silly mystery comedies.  Highly recommended.

The audio commentary by Don Knotts is also worth a listen. He tells some pretty interesting stories about filming this movie in such a huge mansion and even says the script was written in two days, but I find that very hard to believe.