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Sep 21, 2021 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) is your stereotypical film noir gumshoe: he’s got dusty office and a cynical world view, a drinking problem and the traumatic childhood to back it up. His scummy life’s turned topsy-turvy when into his office walks a dame like no other: Juliet Forest (Rachel Ward), the heiress of a noted scientist who died recently under mysterious circumstances. Rigby takes not only the case, but a personal interest in the comely client. When each of the leads in her daddy’s untimely death turn up dead one after the other, Rigby begins to suspect the case might involve a bigger conspiracy than anyone could have imagined.

How do you follow up The Jerk (1979), one of the funniest movies ever made? The answer is, you can’t. Still, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid does an admirable job of attempting it. Director Carl Reiner teamed back up with leading man Steve Martin for a movie that pays tribute to the film noirs of the ‘40s and ‘50s not only through parody, but by comically incorporating clips, Forrest Gump-style, from nearly twenty different old-timey crime films.

This collage approach to comedy is where this funny movie falters. As a gimmick, it occasionally works – Dead Men goes so far as to make Humphrey Bogart a significant supporting player, by compositing several of his famous characters into one unreliable, drunken partner for Rigby. This sort of silliness is when the film clips land. Unfortunately, most of the clips are badly shoehorned in – Martin’s interactions with their recorded lines feel ham-fisted and over-written. The movie gives off an impression that less would have been more when it comes to these; perhaps if only Bogart or Lana Turner had been given roles in this film the schtick wouldn’t become tired so quickly. Otherwise, the send-up of film noir has plenty of laughs – when the film is approached purely as a Steve Martin comedy, and the comic is allowed to chew on the cheesiest lines imaginable.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray edition makes the black-and-white cinematography look fantastic. (It’s a bit weird now to watch the low-quality movie clips that were originally inserted into the film when so many of these films have been restored in the past 30 years, but that’s no fault of the label.) Extra features include a new commentary by Allan Arkush and Daniel Kremer, and a host of promotional spots for the movie—these are all wonderful, allowing Martin to ham it up in a ’40s movie trailer voiceover style. (The best of the bunch is his “Buttometer” clip, which pays tribute to William Castle’s style of movie theater gimmickry.)

(www.kinolorber.com/product/dead-men-dont-wear-plaid-special-edition-blu-ray)