PETER SELLERS IN THE CLASSIC MYSTERY SPOOF 'MURDER BY DEATH'

Peter Sellers & Richard Narita in MURDER BY DEATH Year: 1976 Rating: ****

In the final season of COLUMBO, when MURDER BY DEATH was filming, Peter Falk almost sounded like he was doing a Humphrey Bogart imitation... so obviously his role as Sam Spade-like Sam Diamond was infectious, and he had plenty of dialogue here to get that character in his head...

Meanwhile Peter Sellers, in the midst of the latter PINK PANTHER films, speaks very little, and practically steals the movie... especially when his Charlie Chan-esque Sidney Wang responds smugly to naive adopted Japanese son Richard Narita: their scenes driving to the central mansion, where an eccentric millionaire has gathered all the iconic mystery sleuths to solve a million dollar crime, are some of the funniest...

David Niven and Maggie Smith in MURDER BY DEATH

And as the fast-paced movie moves along, things get weirder and weirder as the mansion becomes a surrealistic character on its own, including secret duplicate rooms with plenty of ways for each crime-solver to be killed...

David Niven, the original PINK PANTHER star before Sellers' secondary role ultimately reigned, is perfectly/visually cast as the dapper THIN MAN gent alongside even more classy wife Maggie Smith... their subtle reactions are as funny as James Coco, playing an effeminate Hercule Poirot, constantly throwing tantrums... mostly against his own young sidekick James Cromwell, as sublimely vulnerable a guinea-pig-pawn as Narita is to Sellers...

Peter Falk in MURDER BY DEATH

There's ancient Estelle Winwood as the crippled nurse of Elsa Lanchester's Miss Marples clone... the latter a terrific spitfire wordsmith alongside the insult-spouting Coco and especially Falk, who... with put-upon waitress girlfriend Eileen Brennan by this side... thunders through the literally mazy plot-line with enough blunt observations to make the other characters funnier by his expository diatribes...

Overall, backed by creative big-screen direction by TV-director Robert Moore, and with Alec Guinness as a hilarious plot-important blind butler alongside Nancy Walker's enigmatic cook, there aren't any main stars in this equal star-studded ensemble  — yet the one non-actor's surprisingly effective as legendarily offbeat novelist Truman Capote equally morphs Neil Simon's highly-quotable joke-a-second MURDER BY DEATH from a cinematic murder/mystery spoof to an Agatha Christie literary one. 

Peter Sellers & Richard Narita in MURDER BY DEATH with Alec Guinness

Peter Sellers & Richard Narita in MURDER BY DEATH with David Niven

Peter Sellers & Richard Narita in MURDER BY DEATH

Peter Sellers, James Coco, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Falk, James Cromwell in MURDER BY DEATH

Peter Sellers & James Coco in MURDER BY DEATH

Peter Sellers & James Coco in MURDER BY DEATH with Alec Guiness

James Coco in MURDER BY DEATH

Alec Guinness in MURDER BY DEATH

Peter Falk in MURDER BY DEATH

Peter Falk and Richard Narita in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Charles Addams artwork in MURDER BY DEATH

Finally MURDER BY DEATH with original artwork

James Coco and Peter Sellers in MURDER BY DEATH

 Peter Sellers in MURDER BY DEATH