Laugh... or I'll blow your lips off!

Starring: Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, Reni Santoni, Carl Reiner and special appearances by Alan Ladd, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Burt Lancaster, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart to name a few noir stars.

DML Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★ - perfect

"Carlotta was the kind of town where they spell trouble T-R-U-B-I-L, and if you try to correct them, they kill you." - Det. Rigby Reardon

Why watch this? This Steve Martin comedy stands alone for its incredible creativity.

Plot Summary: This black-and-white comedy-mystery parodies and pays tribute to classic film noir. Private eye, Rigby Reardon, is hired to investigate the death of a wealthy scientist. He interacts with a host of seedy, even murderous, characters in his quest to solve the crime.

Dad's Preview: Martin's SNL skits were getting stale. His first movie, The Jerk (1979), just failed to wow me. Then he releases this comedic treasure - Wow. The film's who-done-it plot consists of inter-spliced scenes from many of Hollywood's most famous noir films of the 1940's. We follow detective Rigby Reardon as he encounters gangsters (Burt Lancaster, Alan Ladd, Vincent Price) and femme fatales (Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Bette Davis) on his way to solving the big case. Rachel Ward fogs up the camera as his sultry cohort. It's so good, many of you will never guess that Martin's scenes interact with actors who have been dead for years.

Aspen Film Society; Universal Pictures