Book Review: Clue: The Storybook, adapted by Ann Matthews (1985)

Clue: The Storybook, adapted by Ann Matthews, 1985. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

The wonderful cast of Clue. From left to right: Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, and Eileen Brennan.

The 1985 murder mystery comedy Clue is my favorite movie. I wrote an article about it earlier this year. And I just wrote about the novel based on the screenplay. In a similar vein, I’ll discuss Clue: The Storybook, which was adapted by Ann Matthews. Like the novel, it sells for ridiculous prices on Amazon. Clue: The Storybook was published by Little Simon, a division of Simon & Schuster that produces books for children. Considering that the plot of Clue is all about blackmail and contains multiple murders, it might not have been the best candidate for the Little Simon storybook treatment. That being said, I saw Clue at a pretty early age, although not in the theater, and it doesn’t seem to have warped me too much. 

Clue: The Storybook reads like a version of the movie with all of the jokes left out. Some of the content has been edited to make it more acceptable for children. Which means that when in the movie Mr. Green tells everyone that he’s gay, in the Storybook he says: “I work for the state department, and I am engaged in a relationship that I have to keep quiet…sort of an affair.” (p.23) So he’s having “sort of an affair”? That makes zero sense. 

And many of the best parts of the movie just don’t appear. For example, Wadsworth and Colonel Mustard’s great back and forth about whether or not there’s anyone else in the house is skipped over. (“No. Sorry. I said no meaning yes.”) Instead of the elaborate scenes concocted to keep the police officer ignorant of the murders that have occurred, in the Storybook his suspicions are assuaged when Miss Scarlet simply tells him, “We’re having a party.” (p.43) 

The best part of the Storybook is that it’s lavishly illustrated with stills from the movie. The endpapers also give us a nice floorplan of Hill House, which is set up exactly like the game board. 

Clue famously featured three different endings when it was released in theaters, and a fourth ending was filmed, but cut before the movie was released. Like the novel, the Storybook also features the fourth ending. The gist of it is that Wadsworth killed everyone, and then poisoned all of the guests, who will die within three hours if they don’t get an antidote. The police show up, and Wadsworth starts another reenactment of the entire evening, but then steps out the front door and steals a police car. He is then attacked by the police dogs in the back seat. (Presumably, the guests get the antidote in time.) It’s understandable why this ending was cut from the film, but it’s interesting to read. The film of it is apparently lost, since it’s never reappeared on any of the DVDs of the movie. 

Speaking of endings, why isn’t there a “Colonel Mustard did it” ending? There’s a lot of suspicion thrown towards his character during the film, and he’s also connected to two of the victims. But I digress.

The Storybook also features the original version of the “Mrs. Peacock did it” ending, which ends with her getting shot by the Chief. This was changed at some point. But the Storybook has Mrs. Peacock encounter the Chief, who she still thinks is a religious beatnik, outside of the mansion. He persuades her to put her gun down, and then just as she gets to her car she asks, “How did you know my name?” “He laughed. Then he picked up the revolver and shot Mrs. Peacock dead.” (p.54) Yikes! Shooting an unarmed suspect is a pretty harsh end for Mrs. Peacock. The novel has Mrs. Peacock put her gun down, but also makes it clear that she is still alive after she’s arrested by the police. I wonder if Mrs. Peacock’s getting shot is the reason for Mr. Green referring to her in the past tense in this classic exchange:

Wadsworth: “You see, like the Mounties, we always get our man.”

Mr. Green: “Mrs. Peacock was a man??”

(Colonel Mustard and Wadsworth both slap Mr. Green) 

Clue: The Storybook is entertaining for diehard fans of the movie like myself, and it will definitely make you want to watch the movie again, so you can experience it with the jokes.

Book Review: Clue, a novel by Michael McDowell, based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn (1985)

My copy of Clue the novel, by Michael McDowell, 1985. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

The cast of Clue. From left to right, Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, and Eileen Brennan.

My favorite movie is the 1985 murder mystery comedy Clue. I wrote an appreciation of it earlier this year. In my desire to collect all things related to Clue, I purchased the novel tie-in, written by Michael McDowell, based on Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay. Clue the novel is noteworthy for being notoriously expensive, because Clue the movie is amazing, and people like me want to buy everything associated with it. I’m a little embarrassed to admit how much I paid for it; suffice it to say that it was much more than the original list price of $2.95. 

The novel is well done, and McDowell’s talent is evident. The first few pages of the novel delve into the history of Route 41, the fictitious highway off of which Hill House, the mansion that is the setting for the movie, is located. It’s the kind of detail you couldn’t include in a movie, and it makes the novel fun to read.

Throughout the novel, McDowell has some great descriptions of the characters. One of my favorite lines was “Yvette was the ne plus ultra of downstairs maids.” (p.6) This statement is true, as anyone who has seen Collen Camp as Yvette can attest to. There’s also a great sentence about “Wadsworth’s tediously detailed recapitulation of the evening.” (p.144) 

For dedicated Clue watchers like myself, the novel gives us some minor differences from the movie. (If you haven’t seen the movie a million times like I have, this will no doubt bore you to tears.) In the novel, the cook says that dinner will be ready at 9:30. Who eats that late? In the movie, dinner is served at the more reasonable time of 7:30. The novel also gives us some details of the scenes missing from the movie, but featured in the trailer, like this exchange:

Colonel Mustard: “Why are you screaming?”

Mr. Green: “Because I’m frightened!”

Colonel Mustard: “Of what?”

Mr. Green: “Screaming!” 

Another tiny detail from the novel that didn’t make it into the film is a line about whoever shot the singing telegram girl seeing the headlights of her car coming up the drive towards the house. It makes sense that someone would see the headlights, and thus be alerted that someone else was coming to the house, but I’d never thought of it before. 

Clue the movie is famous for having three different endings, each of which featured a different suspect as the killer. A fourth ending was also shot, and it’s included in the novel. The gist of it is that Wadsworth killed everyone, and then poisoned all of the guests, who will die within three hours if they don’t get an antidote. The police show up, and Wadsworth starts another reenactment of the entire evening, but then steps out the front door and steals a police car. He is then attacked by the police dogs in the back seat. (Presumably, the guests get the antidote in time.) It’s understandable why this ending was cut from the film, but it’s interesting to read. Presumably the film of it is lost, since it’s never reappeared on any of the DVDs of the movie. 

As a Minnesotan, I have to fault McDowell for one error in the book, as he refers to Joe McCarthy as “the Senator from Minnesota,” instead of Wisconsin. (p.67) 

If you’re a fan of Clue the movie, you’ll definitely enjoy Clue the novel. Hopefully you can find a copy somewhere for $2.95.

An Appreciation of My Favorite Movie: Clue (1985)

Poster for Clue, 1985.

The cast of Clue. From left to right, Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, and Eileen Brennan.

The lovely Colleen Camp as Yvette the maid.

Warning: There will be spoilers in this article. If you don’t want to know details about the 3 different endings of Clue, just stop reading here. Or go watch the movie and then come back. 

Confession: Clue is my favorite movie. Why? Well, because it’s hilarious, and because I still find it hilarious even after I’ve seen it many, many times. I first saw Clue at a very early age—not in the theaters, but shortly afterwards on VHS, and it quickly became a staple of my childhood viewing. By the time I was 10 I could quote most of the dialogue. I was also a big fan of the board game Clue, which no doubt helped the movie become such a favorite of mine. Clue wasn’t a hit when it was released in December of 1985, although it soon attracted a small but dedicated following thanks to VHS and TV. 

Recently my wife and I saw Clue again, at the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis. It was a lot of fun to see it on the big screen with a packed house. (I’d seen Clue on the big screen once before, at one of the midnight screenings at the Uptown Theater.) One thing that made the movie more enjoyable for me this time was the guy sitting in front of me who was seeing Clue for the first time, and couldn’t help but utter “Oh my God!” anytime something surprised him—which was often. It was fun to hear such a genuine reaction from someone being introduced to the movie for the first time. 

The writing in Clue is clever and sharp. The screenplay was written by Jonathan Lynn, who also directed, and John Landis. Lynn had a unique vision for Clue, setting the film in a New England mansion in 1954. Rather than make the characters jet-setters, Lynn connects them all to Washington, D.C. and the federal government. During the course of the film we learn that all of the characters are being blackmailed. These are people who are living in moral grey zones—which may make it easier for one or more of them to commit the murders that keep occurring throughout the evening. 

What has also made Clue such a cult classic is the fantastic cast, made up of wonderful, hilarious character actors: Eileen Brennan as Mrs. Peacock, Tim Curry as Wadsworth the butler, Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White, Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum, Michael McKean as Mr. Green, Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard, and Lesley Ann Warren as Miss Scarlet. Clue was responsible for Madeline Kahn being one of my first childhood crushes. (I guess I overlooked the fact that she may have killed all of her husbands.) And there’s also the lovely Colleen Camp as Yvette, the requisite sexy French maid. (Camp won the role in part by showing up to audition in a French maid costume.) 

There are many lines that I did not get when I was a child, like some of the following exchanges:

Colonel Mustard: “How many husbands have you had?”

Mrs. White: “Mine, or other women’s?”

Mr. Green: “So it was you. I was going to expose you.”

Wadsworth: “I know. So I choose to expose myself.”

Colonel Mustard: “Please, there are ladies present!”

Colonel Mustard: “Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?”

Wadsworth: “I don’t know, he’s on everybody else’s, why shouldn’t he be on mine?”

Wadsworth: “Professor Plum, you were once a professor of psychiatry specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur.”

Professor Plum: “Yes, but now I work for the United Nations.”

Wadsworth: “So your work has not changed.”

Clue was famously released with three different endings. In newspapers, these were designated as endings A, B, and C, so people would know which theater was showing which ending. Of course, this meant that in order to see all three endings, you needed to see the movie three times, which I’m guessing not many people did. I wonder how the movie was screened for critics? Did they get to see all three endings? (It’s hard to believe that Lynn got the studio to go along with the three different endings gimmick.) 

When Clue was released on VHS, and shown on TV, endings A, B, and C were all stitched together and run continuously. The title cards in between the endings made it clear that ending C was the “real” ending. (“But here’s what really happened.”) 

Let’s talk about those endings, shall we? Ending A, the “Miss Scarlet and Yvette did it” ending, is pretty good, and somewhat believable. Where it runs into difficulty is that there’s not a strong motive for Miss Scarlet to kill the motorist and the singing telegram girl. Honestly, it seems unlikely that anyone would shoot the singing telegram girl, as her death is dependent upon someone having the time to rifle through the blackmail evidence against everyone and recognize the singing telegram girl as the patient Professor Plum had an affair with—and then make the quick decision to kill her. 

Ending B, the “Mrs. Peacock killed them all” ending, is a bit odd, as it just doesn’t make a lot of sense for Mrs. Peacock to have killed all these people, most of whom she had no connection to. However, it does give us this great exchange:

Wadsworth: “You see, like the Mounties, we always get our man.”

Mr. Green: “Mrs. Peacock was a man??”

(Colonel Mustard and Wadsworth both slap Mr. Green) 

Ending C makes the most sense to me, as each guest kills someone they were connected to. It’s eventually revealed that Wadsworth is the real Mr. Boddy, and Mr. Green is actually an FBI agent. It also sets up a pretty hilarious final line from McKean.

Mr. Green’s secret identity does make some sense, since he’s the character we learn the least about during the movie. Rather than have Wadsworth detail the offense he’s being blackmailed for, Mr. Green stands up and outs himself as a gay employee in the State Department. Also, none of the additional people who come to the mansion have any connection to Mr. Green. 

But this leads to more questions about Mr. Green. Why is he posing as a gay State Department worker? Maybe he’s getting information about gay State Department workers for the FBI—as they could be susceptible to blackmail. Or is he a stand-in for the real Mr. Green, who alerted the FBI when he got the letter in the mail? If that were the case, Wadsworth would be a lot more thrown off by the presence of the fake Mr. Green. Also, you can see there’s a picture of McKean as Mr. Green in the packet of evidence that Wadsworth has—which would be impossible for Wadsworth to have if McKean’s character were a stand-in for the real Mr. Green. 

Or maybe the FBI knew there was a blackmail ring in DC, and sent undercover agent Mr. Green to work for the State Department, posing as gay in the hopes that he would become a victim of the blackmail ring, and then they could get more information about the blackmailers. That seems like a lot of work. But, in this case, it ended in a very successful smashing of the blackmail ring—albeit with a very high body count. 

So go watch Clue again. Chances are you’ll see or hear something you haven’t noticed before.