History WMG / Clue

(''...I may have had to study this film in middle school, and while I will '''forever''' adore it, this '''REALLY''' stood out to me when having to guess who actually could have done it. There are multiple other issues with the "true" ending, but this to me was the most egregious.'')

->'''Mrs. White''' is a fastidious maid representing the patient's [[SuperOCD compulsive need to clean and organize]].

* This cliche is the reason why the name of the butler in the Clue VCR game is [[PunnyName Diddit]].

* This is why we don't play Clue, Sherlock. It's not possible for the victim to have done it.
** I do not know if that was based on a scene from the show, but it doesn't seem entirely likely to be there. Mostly because they play Cluedo and generally have Dr. Black. Of course, some media references Mr. Boddy as being Dr. Black's nephew from America, so it would give him quite a good motive. Might even give all the guests a motive to kill him in turn, for having ruined their lives by having people wrongly suspect them of being murderers.

According to Wadsworth, Mrs. White snuck downstairs from the second floor, turned off the power to the house, grabbed the rope, then waited in the billiard room to kill Yvette.

However, when the power goes out, we see White upstairs screaming her head off in a child's room. We continue to hear her in the very next shot, which shows Yvette making her way downstairs from the attic. When we next see Yvette, she slips into the billiard room where her killer is waiting. How could White '''possibly''' go downstairs to shut off the power, go back upstairs to scream, return downstairs to '''beat''' Yvette to the billiard room, kill Yvette, then return one last time to the same spot in the child's room on the second floor '''WITH NOT ''ONE'' OF THE OTHER ROAMING KILLERS SEEING HER?!'''

(''...I may have had to study this film in middle school, and while I will '''forever''' adore it, this '''REALLY''' stood out to me when having to guess who actually could have done it. There are multiple other issues with the true ending, but this to me was the most egresious.'')

It '''is not possible''' for Mrs. White to have killed Yvette.

While Yvette is making her way down the stairs from the attic to the billiards room, you can very clearly hear Mrs. White screaming upstairs in a child's room. The preceding shot literally shows you where White was, then cuts to Yvette. When we next see Yvette, she sneaks into the billiards room where her killer is waiting. How could White '''possibly'' get to the room before Yvette without having been seen? To make matters worse, the next time we get a good look at where White is, she's back up in the kid's room, seemingly returning to the spot she had been in prior to Yvette's murder.

To make a long story short, ([[CallBack Too late!]]) White physically couldn't have done it.

*** This would even work with the change in his demeanor at the end: while he was really gay, it was the fussy, effeminate stereotype of gayness that was being faked, and in actuality he was StraightGay or even ManlyGay (to go with the need to keep his orientation hidden in those times). And if he was being blackmailed for something else and was innocent of that, he could still really be gay but have his claim of innocence be true.

And I don't mean they're all plausible, I mean the three endings all occur. Professor Plum killed Mr. Boddy, Mrs. Peacock killed the cook, Colonel Mustard killed the motorist, Miss Scarlet killed Yvette and the cop, and Wadsworth kills the singing telegram girl. This is because when they realize they've all been blackmailed, they all decide to get rid of the problems on their finances (their blackmailers). Mr. Boddy wasn't the only person blackmailing people, the victims of the murders are responsible for blackmailing their killers. None of them knew any of the others were running around the mansion killing people, which is why there is always surprise when a new victim is discovered. Also, if all three endings happen, where do three guns come from? Simple - two people brought guns with them and one person had the one provided by Mr. Boddy. Thus, the 1+2+2+1/1+2+1+1 confusion.

When we first meet Prof. Plum, Wadsworth reveals that Plum used to be a psychiatrist who specialized in treating "paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur." After the singing telegram girl's body is found, Plum reveals that she used to be his patient. Is it any coincidence that a known homicidal lunatic just happened to show up at a house where multiple murders were committed that night? Col. Mustard was actually correct when he suggested that there might be someone else in the house. The telegram girl had been hiding out, and snuck through the house, making use of the secret passages, turning the power off when necessary, to kill the various victims. She then snuck out of the of the house in the dark, turned around, rang the doorbell, planning to show up at the end so that she could masquerade as a totally innocent bystander. [[spoiler:Wadsworth]], recognizing her as Plum's former patient from the photographs from earlier, realized what she had done, and realized that she would get away with it, and so shot her as punishment.

Bear with me on this: Of the six victims, Boddy, the cook, the motorist, the cop, the singing telegram girl, and Yvette, three of them, the motorist, the cop, and the telegram girl, could have been killed by anyone. Only two people, however, had the opportunity to kill the cook: Yvette and Mrs. Peacock, as they were the only two who were alone at all during the interval in which the cook was killed. You will note that in both of the two scenarios in which Yvette did not kill the cook, it was Mrs. Peacock. However, whoever killed the cook had to have known about the secret passage from the kitchen to the study, in order to get back from the kitchen to the study without being seen, as explained by Wadsworth. Yvette could easily have known about the passages, just as Wadsworth did; if nothing else, remember that she was already at the house when Wadsworth arrived, suggesting that she would have had plenty of time to search the place and find the secret passages beforehand. So really, only Yvette could have killed the cook, and therefore only Yvette could have snuck back into the study through the secret passage to kill Boddy with the candlestick. As for who killed Yvette herself, it was clear that she was meeting someone she trusted, according to some pre-arranged plan. That means that it had to be her employer, Miss Scarlet. What must have happened is that when Wadsworth contacted Yvette to get her to work as the maid at the party, she must have then informed Scarlet. Between that and the letter, Scarlet must have figured out what was going on, and decided to use the opportunity to get rid of Boddy and his informers, while taking over Boddy's role as blackmailer.

Mr. Boddy is the devil and the Jehovah's Witness/[[spoiler:FBI chief]] is an incarnation of God ("The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"/"You ain't just whistlin' dixie"). Each of the house-guests is reliving the guilt for their crimes, and go to hell or heaven depending upon whether they are murdered or confess to the murder. Each time they are caught without freely confessing, however, the whole scenario begins again ad infinitum. Possibly Wadsworth may even be a representative of Death himself. Mr. Green is in fact an Angel sent as Heaven's emissary to watch over the whole affair - hence his constant claim that he didn't do it, his servile personality and his [[spoiler:seemingly fluid sexuality]].

The real Mr Green could have gone to him for help, getting the FBI involved and the sting set up. The Mr. Green we see in the movie might have been so twitchy because he's undercover.
* Alternately, the real Mr. Green doesn't even look like the FBI agent from the movie. The FBI got wind that a man from the State Department was being blackmailed, and discovered upon questioning him that the blackmailer didn't know what their victim actually looked like: the blackmailer's evidence in Green's case was illicit love letters, not photos. When the real Green received the invitation to Hill House, they infiltrated an agent of the right age and general physical type into the gathering in the true extortion-victim's place.

* It was already broken. None of them know the house and nobody had previously been in the ball room.

The NE-SW path is below the ground floor, whereas the SE-NW path is above the ground floor. (or vice versa)

The whole thing is an elaborate murder mystery party...only Wadsworth forgot to tell everyone they were supposed to be acting.

[[WMG: [[MeaningfulName Mrs. Peacock]] is either a DragQueen or a [[{{Transgender}} transgender woman.]] ]]

...He was not faking his homosexuality. He used this as an opportunity to keep up his cover by [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow pretending to pretend to be gay.]] (Doesn't the non-sequiter line "now I'm going home to sleep with my wife" smack of HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday?)

[[WMG: [[{{MeaningfulName}} Mrs. Peacock]] is either a DragQueen or a [[{{Transgender}} woman.]] ]]

[[WMG: [[{{NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast}} Col. Mustard]] got his nickname from [[{{ColonelKilgore}} his excessive use of mustard gas]] ]]
* Mustard gas was not used in WW2.

[[WMG: Mr. Boddy [[{{ThanatosGambit}} wanted to be killed]] ]]
The entire evening is a BatmanGambit, trying to goad one person into killing him. He avoids the legal complication/stigma of suicide and sends someone he doesn't like to jail. He [[{{FramingTheGuiltyParty}} plants an envelope of evidence]] just to make sure.

[[WMG: Mr. Boddy and the suspects are all [[{{SplitPersonality}} Multiple Personalties]] or [[{{ImaginaryFriend}} hallucinations]] of the same person.]]

->'''Mrs. White''' is a fastidious maid representing the patient's [[{{SuperOCD}} compulsive need to clean and organize]].

->'''Prof. Plum''' is either a SadistTeacher representing the patient's bad school life, his [[{{DrJerk}} resentment toward therapists in general]], or simply a transference avatar for the doctor treating him now.

->'''Mr. Boddy''' is the patient's self-image, a scared and reclusive victim who feels [[{{ChewToy}} the universe is out to get him.]]

[[WMG: Mr Green has a twin brother, who was actually the one being blackmailed for being a homosexual]]

[[WMG: In the film's third ending Mr. Boddy was blackmailing J Edgar Hoover]]

He's both being blackmailed for (past, or else they have an open marriage) homosexual activities ''and'' HappilyMarried.

* Landline phones don't get power from the same power lines as the house. Telephone lines are separate lines and they provide enough power (a few volts) for a phone to work. This is still true today, presuming you have a non-cordless phone and an honest-to-bob landline, which hardly anyone does anymore. TLDR cutting the house power wouldn't affect the phone. And besides, the cop *does* notice when the hook is depressed by the person with the lead pipe, cutting the call.