Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid |  | Director: Carl Reiner
Actors: Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, Alan Ladd, Carl Reiner, Barbara Stanwyck
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
Buy New: $18.46
as of 3/20/2010 19:53 EDT details
New (11) Used (19) from $8.79
Seller: kylakins
Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 10268
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5
MPN: MCAD20523D
ISBN: 0783232063
UPC: 025192052323
EAN: 9780783232065
ASIN: 0783232063
Theatrical Release Date: May 21, 1982
Release Date: March 16, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Bonus features: theatrical trailer film highlights talent bios production notes and web links. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 08/23/2005 Starring: Steve Martin Run time: 89 minutes Rating: Pg
Amazon.com essential video
This is one of the best parodies of the '40s hardboiled detective genre, with a very clever conceit: weaving the plot and production design around memorable movie clips (The Killers, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, White Heat, This Gun for Hire, Sorry, Wrong Number, Notorious). Steve Martin plays the cool Rigby Reardon, who tries solving an incomprehensible mystery with the assistance of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Burt Lancaster, Fred MacMurray, Ingrid Bergman, and Ray Milland, among others. It's all silly hokum with Rachel Ward as the pretty moll and director-cowriter Carl Reiner as the nefarious villain. Miklos Rozsa takes us back to yesteryear with his lush score, and, fittingly, Edith Head handles the period costumes in her final production. --Bill Desowitz
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
 Almost a classic in its own right June 22, 2009
James D. Crabtree (Fayetteville, North Carolina)
Steve Martin stars in this comedy which relies upon clips from classic films to fill out its plot. The unlikely plot twists, dramatic scenes and actors from the classic age of the gangster film make this a fun film, even if it sometimes relies on some very bad jokes to get some of its points across.
What a Wild & Crazy Dick (Detective, That is)!! May 3, 2009
Scotman (Sausalito, CA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
That's what we called 'em, sweetheart.
Carl Reiner and Steve Martin put together a collage of films from the 1940s and 1950s, along with a silly script that could have come out of the melodramatic film noir of the time. The dialogue meshed perfectly with the old clips they used to make a somewhat coherent, funny story.
Steve tries to solve the murder of a girl's father and while looking, find love, murder, bullets being sucked out of shoulders and other silly stuff.
They run into many stars of the period: Alan Ladd, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Jimmy Cagney, Joan Crawford: Like 19 different stars of the time.
Steve dressing as a blonde and getting picked up by Fred McMurray in a grocery store (Double Indemnity) was especially funny.
Rent this today!
 Great Film! April 11, 2009
justice4all72
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A great movie from Steve Martin. I wish they would show this one on TV more because nobody seems to know about it! Great editing and constantly funny I laughed the whole movie. The only thing I didn't like was the DVD claimed to be 1:85:1 widescreen but it has black bars surrounding the top botton and both sides. But otherwise BUY THIS MOVIE! Great laughs
 Gimmicky homage to film noir March 17, 2009
Turfseer (New York, N.Y.)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm wondering what was the point in actually making this movie. I'm sure it was a lot of fun for the filmmakers to blend Steve Martin into classic film noirs especially in terms of matching the sets, the stand-ins and the musical score. But such cleverness doesn't extend to the actual script which didn't have much of a story. Many of the scenes seemed completely extraneous to the plot, designed merely to show off the great actors of yesteryear. At best, Steve Martin's goofy humor is only mildly amusing at times. The best jokes are trotted out more than once (e.g. Rigby's 'cleaning woman' tantrum and Rachel Ward sucking out the bullet from Rigby's arm). But for the most part DMWNP is not funny at all. The main problem is that no real dramatic interplay develops in this story. Because the story is basically a gimmick, Steve Martin merely interacts with a bunch of film clips and is not pitted against any significantly developed antagonists. The "B" Story, the love story between Steven Martin and Rachel Ward is simply a collection of juvenile sexual innuendos (for example, when Martin grabs Ward's breasts in the opening scene). If you take away all of Steve Martin's silly asides, you're pretty much left with a standard by-the-numbers film noir, thoroughly mediocre and uninspired.
A Classic! February 14, 2009
Sarah G. Tyler (Greensboro, NC United States)
One of the best comedies of all time! I had this on VHS, and just had to replace it on DVD. It's not intellectual comedy, but it's a lot of fun, silly jokes through the whole movie. I've probably seen it 20 times since I first got it years and years ago, and it still makes me laugh!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
|
|
|
