Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

I first learned of Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid inside a little video rental store. The VHS had a cool cover with Steve Martin on the front aiming a gun at the audience, a plaid outline behind him. This would be the late-ish 1980s and Steve Martin was a huge star. I was a young teen and loved Martin in movies like Three Amigos (1986), Roxanne (1987), and The Man With Two Brains (1983). I immediately picked the VHS up and talked my mother into renting it.

We took it home and I popped it in the VCR and pressed play. I was immediately disappointed. It was in black and white. I hated black-and-white movies. Or I thought I did. I’d never actually seen one. But black and white movies were old and old was bad. At least that’s what I thought back then anyhow.

I watched for maybe ten minutes then turned it off in disgust.

Many years later, when I learned that there are, in fact, many really great movies in black and white, I decided to give it another spin. I was definitely a classic movie fan by then, but just a beginner. I knew actors like Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Vincent Price. I’d seen a few film noirs but was by no means an expert.

The film is a homage to the classic film noirs of the 1940s. Through trick editing, it intercuts the new story with clips from 19 classic films. It does this surprisingly well.

Steve Martin plays Rigby Reardon a private investigator who is hired by Juliett Forest (Rachel Ward) to investigate the murder of her father. During the investigation, he comes across a large crowd of interesting characters, which is where the classic films come in.

Sometimes Reardon will call someone on the telephone and it will be Humphrey Bogart from The Big Sleep (or some other classic film star in a classic movie) who will answer. The dialog is cut as if Reardon is talking to Phillip Marlowe. Other times he’ll meet up with someone and it will be Veronica Lake in The Glass Key (or some other classic film star in a classic movie). In these instances, the film will sometimes use an extra dressed like the classic film actor, shot from behind, so that they can interact with Reardon in a more realistic way. It is all done cleverly and that makes it a really fun watch.

The great Edith Head (in her last film) did the costumes and she did an amazing job matching everything up. Ditto the lighting and staging and everything.

The film was co-written (with Steve Martin) by Carl Reiner, and it was directed by him as well. Reiner is a vaudevillian at heart and this is very much in Martin’s very silly stage (long before he started writing for the New Yorker and Broadway). I have to admit I’m not a big fan of that style of comedy. It is too jokey for me.

It is also a bit cringe. There is an ongoing joke where Reardon feels Juliet Forest’s up, caressing her breasts because they were knocked out of place during a scuffle. Or another time Reardon gives Juliet a kiss when she has passed out. There are quite a few dumb gags like that that play very differently now.

I am now a very big fan of classic movies and film noir in particular. I’ve seen more than half the films included inside this movie and so all of that stuff was really quite delightful. It is very well done; clearly, the filmmakers are very big fans of classic movies.