Synopsis
If It Was Murder, Where's the Body?
A mystery novelist devises an insurance scam with his wife’s lover – but things aren’t exactly as they seem.
Sleuth
1972 Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
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Alternative Titles
Le Limier, La huella, 侦察, Mord mit kleinen Fehlern
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You know what film is really hard to track down these days? Sleuth.
Seriously, it's like $40 online. It's SO worth it though. God I love this film. So much.
I'd only seen it once, years before. On just that one viewing I knew I was in love with it. Since then, the fight for finding it was expensive but it was fueled by knowing the reward at the end. So now I get to watch it again, soon after I finally find a copy. I grab a friend who hasn't seen it yet (Which to be honest, A LOT of people haven't seen it) and start it up.
Despite the possibility of it being somewhat alienating with all the…
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Sleuth is a brilliant film on the page. It is based on a play of which I know nothing about, so when I first watched it a few years ago, I found the dialogue stunning with wit and playfulness. As written, the story is flawlessly macabre and blacker than black in its humor. The script could be handed off to any filmmaker and they'd be given immediate advantage. In fact, it was handed off to Kenneth Branagh as a remake, of which I have also not seen.
What puts this version over the top is dropping two of cinema's most celebrated and versatile legends into the sandbox together to square off over who can command the camera with more ease.…
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The last film completed by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, “Sleuth” turns a cozy manor murder mystery into a savage slaying of classism.
After a steady descent into the quagmire of gaudy style over substance, it’s only right that Mankiewicz returned, in the end, to the power of the written word.
Having made his bones in the studio system - turning in a career’s worth of scripts before finally getting his turn at the camera - Mankiewicz knew a surefire hit screenplay when he spotted one. And he did - in a 1970 play.
“Sleuth” - the film, and show, concern a crime fiction author whose wife has left him for her hairdresser. The author, played by Laurence Olivier, invites his…
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Tailored from playwright Anthony Shaffer's Tony Award-winning play, by Shaffer himself, Sleuth proved to be Joseph L. Mankiewicz's final offering as a director, after five successful decades in the film business, and it provides some enthralling entertainment. It observes prosperous crime fiction author Andrew Wyke, a man who adores games as well as the theatre extending an invite to his wife's lover, Milo Tindle, to join him at his country manor house to talk over the predicament amicably.
Mankiewicz investigates the dense sets with some tremendous vigilance to both detail and atmosphere, and the emerging two hours plus runtime comes to be a real tour de force for its two, and only, stars Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. Shaffer's intricate…
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I know this is based on a play, but OH MY GOD!
2 actors
1 location
A great screenplayThat’s all you need!
Super fun, and in a weird way super inspiring. -
A twisty little mystery thriller, Sleuth is a film adapted from a play and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. As with every play-to-film adaptation, it never stops feeling like a play, which is both to the film's detriment and betterment. Featuring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine as two men squaring off in a battle of the minds with the two putting one over on one another throughout the film. What is truth and what is fiction befuddles both the characters and the audience, with very moments going as anticipated. When will these boys cry wolf and actually see a wolf? Will they ever see a wolf? This all plays out in Sleuth, which is…
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Sleuth is a devilish game of chess and charades between two madmen, where the audience, helplessly caught in the middle, gets played the most (and likes it!).
The script is a tightly-written, well-structured masterwork of theater, creating a total mind puzzle with only two actors and a single location. The mystery of the film is in the intricate layers of lies and truth, and in an exciting change of pace, the audience is the only one with none of the answers. The story constantly evolves across each distinct act, with the audience always just a beat behind the brilliant main characters. Without ever becoming frustrating, this film keeps the audience in the dark in a way that intensifies the suspense…
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To say anything specific about the elaborate and convoluted plot is doing the very enjoyable experience of watching this film for the first time a huge disservice. All I'll say is that Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine are obviously having lots of fun playing these two characters who love a good game of cat and mouse. If you're patient through the seemingly endless talking and all of the twists and turns, this film will reward you. Sleuth is based on a play and therefore feels very much like a play, but there are distinct cinematic elements that make this a worthwhile film. I'm not sure if I need to see it again, but I had a lot of fun watching it this time.
This might sound kinda crazy and please don't hurt me, but Michael Caine kicks Lawrence Olivier's ass in terms of acting prowess here. I was pretty floored to discover that.
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The only thing I knew about "Sleuth" was the poster and the cast. I figured it must be a detective story. Actually it is, and it is also not.
At first, I was surprised with the comedic tone. I wouldn't imagine I would ever see Sir Laurence Olivier portray such a character on a film. So witty and peculiar. The games, the dolls, the masks, the photographs, and trophies... everything in the house of Andrew Wyke is a monument to his personality. At one time, he is explaining Michael Caine's Milo Tindle what he is supposed to do, and forgets about it, since showing his collections is simply more fun. Wyke is a Hitchcockian character, but not a character from…
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In which Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine psychologically torture each other for almost two and a half hours, in the process ruthlessly deconstructing the classic British drawing room mystery. Of course it’s stagy, the entire thing is built around performance, perception and deception, how to create another reality through carefully chosen words and props, and maybe a clown outfit or two. Paradoxically it’s Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s most visually interesting movie, although for the most part he steps back to let his two leads have a bit of fun - or maybe bitter fun. What does it matter, it’s only a game.
“The shortest way to a man’s heart is through humiliation.”
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This film is based on the stage play by Anthony Shaffer, and before I saw for the first time, eleven years ago or so, I had already seen it on stage, where I had no idea of the twists and tricks the piece can play.
Other reviews here are chock-full of spoilers, but if you're coming to this fresh for the first time, you will meet Andrew Wyke in his maze-surrounded posh house, and Milo Tindal who is part-Italian and conducting a very English affair with Mrs Wyke.
Wyke (Laurence Olivier, in one of his best parts amongst a host of late-career dross) is a silky voiced serpent with a wicked sense of appropriateness, while Tindal (Caine) is rough at…