♪ Thank you for being a friend
♪ Traveled down the road and back again
♪ Your heart is true
♪ You're a pal and a confidant
♪ And if you threw a party
♪ Invited everyone you knew
♪ You would see
♪ The biggest gift would be from me
♪ And the card attached would say
♪ Thank you for being a friend ♪
Oh, morning, Ma. How'd you sleep?
Pretty good.
I dreamed I was making love to Jay Leno.
That's a strange dream for you to have.
Not really.
It was Monday night, and he was filling in for Carson.
Mornin', all.
Oh, Blanche, honey, how was your date last night?
Oh, unforgettable.
Mel Bushman and I were coming back
from a champagne picnic at Sunset Beach.
We ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, my goodness! What did you do?
You name it.
Blanche, you got a call last night
from something called the Maltese Falcon Club.
Oh, good.
Remember I was asked to select the activity
for the museum staff's annual outing?
Yesterday, I signed us up for a murder-mystery weekend
at the Queen of the Keys Hotel.
You mean, the kind of thing where mock murders are committed
and then the guests try to solve them?
Exactly.
Mmm-hmm. That sounds like fun.
You know, back in Minnesota,
I was known as the Sherlock Holmes of St. Olaf.
Figured out which one was Shinola, did you, Rose?
The hard way.
I sure hope this weekend is a success.
It could give me a shot at becoming
Kendall Nesbitt's new assistant.
Who's Kendall Nesbitt?
Oh, he's the museum's director of acquisitions.
If I got this job, it would mean going to Europe with him
to look for rare paintings and antiques.
Well, if he has an eye for antiques, you should be a shoo-in.
(LAUGHING SARCASTICALLY)
Look who's calling the vase Ming.
There's just one hitch.
I need three more people to get the group rate at the hotel.
I thought hotels always gave you the group rate.
Yeah, sweetheart, but this is for the whole night.
Is there any chance I could persuade you girls to join me
for a murder-mystery weekend?
Blanche, are you kidding?
I have read every word
Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler ever wrote.
Now, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe have become a part of me.
"She had more curves than the Monaco Grand Prix
"and was twice as dangerous.
"Her jewelry was mute testimony
"that Charlie Chaplin wasn't the only tramp
"who hit it big in this town."
You do this on first dates, don't you, Dorothy?
Does this mean you'll go?
Of course we'll go.
Sure, anything for a friend.
What the heck. I'll go, too.
Yeah, like you had a choice.
When do you think the mysteries are gonna start?
You want a mystery? You should have tried
the pink dressing at the salad bar.
Oh, jeez, the mystery continues.
Now, girls, remember, look everyone over very carefully.
Try to figure out who are the real guests
and who are actors pretending to be guests.
It'll help when it comes to solving the mysteries.
Okay, Dorothy.
If that's your real name.
How is that coffee?
Terrific!
Actor.
Blanche, you're wearing my earrings.
Oh, I know that.
But when I asked you before where they were,
you said you didn't know, and now you're wearing them.
Well, Rose, there could be two explanations.
Either I was lying,
or I was wrong about the number of explanations.
Blanche. Oh, Kendall.
Blanche, I must commend you again.
I have a feeling we're in for a weekend
none of us is going to forget.
Oh, I do declare,
your sweet words could charm the mornin' dew
right off of the honeysuckle.
(KENDALL LAUGHING)
That was good, Blanche. Now, do Br'er Rabbit.
I believe the fun is about to begin.
Ladies.
I think I got to him, don't you?
Your eyes are as good as rolled back.
I do believe that things are gonna turn out even better than I...
Oh, Kendall is sitting down with Posey MacGlinn.
She is my main rival for that assistant's job.
Oh, look at the shameless way she's flirtin' with him.
Disgustin'.
You flirted with him.
I'm from the South.
Flirting is part of my heritage.
What do you mean?
Her mother was a slut, too.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I'm sure we all join his son, his daughter
and his new bride, Candy,
in wishing many returns of the day
to our friend and patron for 40 years,
Giles Forsythe.
(GUN FIRING)
(WOMAN SCREAMING)
(GASPING)
My God! They've been murdered!
Does this mean we don't get any birthday cake?
Please, nobody touch anything.
My name is Spade Marlowe.
I'm a private detective
retained by the late philanthropist, Giles Forsythe,
because when an 88-year-old man marries a 22-year-old girl,
he likes to know what she's up to.
I'm sorry to interrupt,
but does anybody but me think the hat's a little precious?
(WHISTLING)
Today was Giles Forsythe's birthday,
and he intended as always to celebrate
by having dinner here with his son, Philip,
a well-known collector of pre-Columbian artifacts,
his spinster daughter, Gloria,
and of course his new bride, Candy.
I've failed to protect my client,
but I am determined, with your help,
to solve these crimes and bring the murderer to justice.
Maybe that bloody dagger will lead us to the murder weapon.
St. Olaf?
Boy, he is good.
Unusual knife.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, cut the cake.
I recognize that.
It's a rare Mayan sacrificial dagger.
That could prove to be significant.
Undoubtedly the weapon used to kill Mrs. Forsythe,
but obviously her husband was shot.
Then there must be a gun.
South side?
Uncanny.
Do you mind?
Go right ahead. You won't find anything.
What I believe they refer to as a purse gun,
and it's been recently fired.
I don't understand.
Ladies and gentlemen,
you now have enough clues to solve these murders.
Who did it, how and why?
The butler did it!
I'm a maitre d'.
Thank you. The maitre d' did it!
Philip did it!
Gloria did it!
It was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.
Oh, she says, "The butler did it," and I'm the idiot?
The answer is obvious. They both did it.
Oh, now, if Miss Smarty solves the crime,
she'll make a big impression on Kendall,
and I can just kiss that job goodbye.
Philip was a collector of pre-Columbian relics.
Candy had her throat cut with a Mayan dagger.
He killed her.
The gun was in Gloria's purse.
She killed her father.
Nice try, ma' am, but Philip and Gloria are innocent of those crimes.
Perhaps, but they are both murderers.
Sit down, Dorothy. Don't make a fool of yourself.
Would you care to explain?
In the first place, it is unlikely that Gloria murdered her father.
Statistics show that patricide
is overwhelmingly a male crime.
Although daughters frequently murder their mothers!
If Gloria had killed her father,
would she then have tried to conceal the weapon in her purse?
Ladies and gentlemen, I think not.
That gun was obviously planted in her purse
to pin the murder on her.
I've got it!
A maitre d' is some kind of waiter.
On the other hand, Philip would never pick
a Mayan sacrificial knife as a murder weapon.
Too obvious.
But it would be no problem for his sister
to sneak the weapon out of his collection.
This woman's pathetic!
Oh, big news. Tear out the front page.
Notice that the dagger was found to the left of the victim.
A throat...
A throat is almost always cut from behind.
Not part of the show, people. Not part of the show.
Being right-handed, I would slash from left to right.
But from the fact
that the murder weapon was dropped to the left of the victim,
we can deduce that the murderer is left-handed.
Notice that Gloria, like most left-handed people,
wears her wristwatch on her right wrist.
I think it is painfully clear
that Philip and Gloria both planned murders,
and each meant to pin it on the other.
They knew that the lights would be turned off
when the cake appeared because that happens every year.
Coincidence? Ha!
Siblings often think alike.
You've given us a who, a how and a "Ha."
But what about why? What's the motive?
When a 22-year-old marries an 88-year-old,
chances are she's not after his body.
Oh, boy.
Gloria and Philip were both afraid
that Candy would persuade the old man to change his will,
and they both hoped that pinning the crime on the other
would make them the sole inheritor.
Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,
the who, how and why.
Dorothy, that was a real Tour de France.
Thank you, thank you, Rose.
Girls, guess what?
Kendall just told me he needs to be alone with me.
What did you do?
Well, what else? I gave him my key to our room.
Now, let me have yours, Rose.
You can bunk with Dorothy and Sophia tonight.
But we were gonna be roomies.
Either you're bunkin' with them,
or you can sleep in the closet.
Closet? Give me that key.
(KNOCKING AT DOOR)
Coming, Kendall.
Oh.
Compliments of Mr. Nesbitt.
Well, how sweet. I'll take it.
No, no, no. I've got it, ma'am.
Oh, my God!
(GASPING)
It's all right. What is this all about?
He's dead!
Blanche, calm down.
This is undoubtedly just another part of the mystery weekend.
Oh, yeah? He looks pretty dead to me.
All right, Ma, give me your mirror.
What for?
Every morning I hold it under Ma's nose.
If it fogs up, I start the coffee.
No breath.
Oh, my God. He's dead.
Oh, God.
I'm Vaczy, hotel security. Nobody touch anything.
You say no one was in the room but her and the victim?
That's right, sir.
He's dead, all right.
Steak knife right through the heart.
That must be what killed him.
St. Olaf?
It's like I'm wearing a sign.
I want everybody out of this room.
I'm clearing it till the police get here.
And nobody leaves the hotel, especially you.
As of now, you're the only suspect.
If they put me in prison, I'll be brave. I can handle it.
Blanche, you don't understand.
They'll put you in a women's prison.
(BLANCHE GASPING)
Don't let me go, Dorothy! Don't let me go!
Honey, you are not going to go because you are not guilty.
I understand you can have anything for your last meal.
Just ice cream, if you want.
I think I'm gonna be sick.
You're not helping, Rose.
It's almost as though you believe Blanche is guilty.
Well, she lied about my earrings,
and she took them.
I mean, deceit, then theft.
Isn't murder the next logical step?
St. Olaf, right?
Face it, Dorothy. Blanche was discovered in a locked room.
Only she and the victim had keys.
I mean, give me another explanation.
The trouble is, I can't.
Oh, come on, pussycat.
You figured out that mystery at dinner.
Oh, Ma, that was a game. This is life.
Oh, that's right. You've never been good at life.
How can I be accused of murder?
I am a Devereaux.
Things like this usually happen to people named Petrillo.
I take offense at that.
No one in my family ever, ever left a body to be found.
Okay, I'm Lieutenant Alvarez, Dade County Homicide,
and here's what I got.
At around 9:45 last night,
this guy went to Room 405,
carrying champagne ordered by Nesbitt.
He was admitted by Blanche Devereaux and discovered the corpse.
Now, Ms. Devereaux and this dead guy had the only two keys.
Forensics say that the cause of death
was a stab wound inflicted by a steak knife.
We know Ms. Devereaux had steak for dinner.
Given these facts, unless somebody has something else,
we got enough to make an arrest.
My, my, Mr. Officer.
I do declare, your sweet words could charm the mornin' dew
right off the honeysuckle.
Blanche, not now.
If not now, when?
Blanche Devereaux... Wait, wait!
You haven't established a motive.
You want a motive? I'll give you a motive.
That woman gave Kendall her room key.
I saw her do it.
Her plan was to seduce him
to insure that she would win the job as his assistant.
Then she got the other key to the room from that woman there.
She--She rushed up to the room.
She tore off her clothes.
That's Velcro.
It just gives the illusion of a tear.
She flung her dress on the bed.
She slipped into a negligee and awaited her prey.
What she didn't realize was the reason that Kendall went to her room,
the reason Kendall ordered the champagne,
was to let her down easy.
He'd already promised the job to me.
And the reason he went to her room,
rather than having her come to his,
was that I was sharing his room.
Slut!
When Kendall told her the truth,
she flew into a jealous rage.
She plunged the steak knife into his chest.
That tramp murdered my lover!
I know Blanche Devereaux, Lieutenant,
and this tramp is incapable of committing murder.
Okay, we got a motive, we got a weapon,
and we got one suspect with no alibi.
Blanche Devereaux, I'm charging you with murder.
You have the right to remain... Wait, wait!
Why would she bring a steak knife
to what she thought was a romantic liaison?
It could've been for anything.
I'm not familiar with her sexual proclivities.
What, are you a rookie?
You still haven't answered the question
of how somebody else got into the room.
What if there was a knock at the door?
Nesbitt might have assumed that it was the waiter with the champagne.
That is speculation.
But one more point.
The hotel security chief cordoned off the room,
so the only people who saw the room after the murder,
other than you and your staff,
were the waiter, the security chief, and the four of us.
So?
So when Miss MacGlinn was reconstructing the murder scene,
she described Blanche's dress being slung over the bed.
It was. I saw it.
But Miss MacGlinn could only have seen it
if she'd been there prior to the murder.
(BLANCHE GASPING)
I think I see now how it happened.
Last evening, at dinner,
when Miss MacGlinn saw Blanche give Kendall Nesbitt her key,
she was furious.
She dropped a steak knife into her purse.
Big deal, I took a whole place setting.
Not now, Ma!
And when she felt that she wouldn't be missed,
she slipped out of the dining room and headed upstairs.
Kendall had let himself into Blanche's room
while she was in the shower
and was making himself comfortable
when there was a knock at the door.
Thinking it was the champagne, he opened the door.
Posey was there.
She accused him of two-timing.
He denied it.
Posey pulled out a steak knife,
plunged it into his chest
and left the room before Blanche could discover her.
Jealous rage was the motive, all right,
but Blanche wasn't the murderer.
There's your murderer, Posey MacGlinn.
Well, Miss MacGlinn, what do you have to say now?
Dorothy Zbornak, you've stuck your nose in for the last time!
(DOROTHY SCREAMING)
(GUN FIRING)
(GRUNTING)
Posey MacGlinn,
I charge you with the murder of Kendall Nesbitt.
Lieutenant Alvarez, I don't think that'll be necessary,
as I seem to have recovered from my death,
but I would like to thank the Maltese Falcon Club
and, in particular, Blanche Devereaux
for giving us a weekend we'll never forget.
Thank you for coming.
So wait a minute.
You mean those guys were all in on it?
I was in on it, too.
Oh, come on, you were not.
Oh, all right. I was not.
Damn it, I just hate to be the brunt of jokes.
Funny, you don't mind being the brunt of limericks.
That's different. That's poetry.
Wait a minute. There's one thing I don't understand.
When I checked to make sure that Kendall was really dead,
why didn't his breath show up on your mirror?
Simple. The mirror had been sprayed with defogger.
But who could have done that?
I did.
The people at the club asked me to.
Well, Rose, why would you do such a cruel thing to me?
Well, Blanche, there could be two explanations.
Either I was getting back at you for taking my earrings or...
Oh, who are we kidding? That's why I did it.
This whole thing is just unbelievable.
Kendall, you're not dead,
and I didn't kill anybody.
And I didn't take any silverware.
Does this mean I'm still in the runnin' for the job?
Of course you are.
Oh, well...
So this was all a mockery, a sham.
No crimes were committed at all.
What a load of fun.
Pussycat, help me carry my purse to the car.