1973 - THE LAST OF SHEILA, puzzle film/murder mystery

 No lover of mysteries am I the most annoying thing about them is you really have to pay attention.  At what time did Colonel Mustard go into the library?  The least suspicious person in the room is always the guilty party.  Important information is always held back from the reader until the very end of the story etc.

With that in mind The Last of Sheila is an entertaining story.  The Last of Sheila has an all star 1970's cast and was filmed in the south of France which is not the worst way to spend time on a film location.   James Coburn is a movie producer who's wife is killed in a hit and run during one of those wild Hollywood parties they supposedly are always having.  There are 6 suspects, a talent agent played by Dyan Cannon, an actress played by Raquel Welch and her husband played by Ian McShane and a screenwriter and his wife played by Richard Benjamin and Joan Hackett and James Mason a washed up film director.

 

Coburn's character is a puzzle playing freak who has invited them to his yacht for a cruise where he has arranged a series of real life puzzles during the cruise which will ultimately reveal the killer of his wife.  As is to be expected things don't really go the way he planned, such is life in the movies.

The film was directed by Herbert Ross who usually filmed Neil Simon comedies.  But the real auteurs behind this film are the witty screenwriters, Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.  They clearly must have enjoyed themselves developing the elaborate clues that they scattered throughout the film.  While The Last of Sheila is a murder mystery one of the bigger mysteries about the film are who these characters are actually based on.  Fans of this film have been speculating about that puzzle for some time.  After watching the film I would have to admit this is a very clever and entertaining film.

The film was written by award winning Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim along with mister "Norman Bates" himself, Anthony Perkins\.  The running time is 120 minutes.

1972 - PLAY IT AGAIN SAM, a really good Woody Allen film not directed by Woody Allen

Haven't seen this film in years and re-watching it was a real surprise.  The now familiar and still clever idea of having the ghost of Humphrey Bogart return to help the impaired love life of Allen's nebish character still works very well.  There is a lot of funny stuff in this film.

Allen "opened up" his stage play and most of those scenes work pretty well.  But the big improvement here was setting the film in San Francisco instead of New York, and having Herbert Ross, a fairly decent director of musicals and comedies shoot the film.  Ross brings a real professional approach to the film with none of the primitive technique that Allen had as he coped with learning how to make films in his early features.  

The cast which includes Allen's old crony Tony Roberts and his one time girlfriend Diane Keaton who works very well with Woody, they were in the original Broadway production, so they certainly knew their characters.  Also, this is Woody Allen early in his career and his "nervous Nellie" neurotic Jew shtick was still pretty fresh and even watching it today very funny.

 85 minutes, written by Woody Allen