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IMDb > Clue (1985) > Trivia
Clue
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  • Prof. Plum indicates at dinner that he works for the World Health Organization, part of the United Nations Organization. This means he works for UNO WHO.

  • Three endings were shot, and a different one shown at each theater. All three are included on video. The DVD, however, aside from all three endings, also offers the option to play the movie with one randomly selected ending. In some cities, the newspaper print ads indicated which version ("Ending A", "Ending B" or "Ending C") was being shown at each theater.

  • Miss Scarlet reads to Professor Plum the directions to their dinner date while she is in his car after he picked her up. She says that they are headed for "Hill House," which is the name of the house in Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting (1963/I).

  • The parquet floor in the Hall resembles the 'Clue' game board.

  • There are few departures from the original board game; in the movie the hall has been transformed into part of the playing board and has been replaced by the front doors. This was probably done so that the rooms didn't have to stand alone.

  • Eileen Brennan also starred in the film adaptation of Murder by Death (1976), Neil Simon's parody of murder mysteries.

  • Differences in two weapons in the film include that the revolver in the board game is most commonly a pepperbox revolver (an early 1800s revolver with the six bullet chambers jutting out from the main gun parts). However, it is changed to a regular .38 caliber revolver to possibly keep up with the modern time period the film is set in. The lead pipe in the game was also bent at an angle, to emphasize the fact that it was (possibly) used in Mr. Boddy's murder; the film shows it completely straight.

  • The first movie based on a board game.

  • The mansion in the movie, "Hill House", was named after the producer of the movie, Debra Hill.

  • Madeline Kahn ad-libbed the short monologue about her hatred for Yvette the French maid.

  • The screams heard when the characters rush to the maid in the billiard room are not from the actress playing the maid. They are from the actress playing Miss Scarlett, from the scenes where the dead body of the cook and the live body of Wadsworth fall out of the meat locker.

  • There is an inscription over the fireplace which reads "Nouveau Riche Oblige".

  • The color of each characters car is the same color as their playing piece in the game.

  • The term 'Schtupping' is actually a crude German/Yiddish word for the sex act; this is why Madeline Kahn's character in Blazing Saddles (1974) is named "Lilly Von Schtupp" for rather obvious reasons.

  • The actor playing Mr. Boddy is the front man of the alternative rock band Fear, and was chosen because his name is Lee Ving - Mr. Boddy will be 'LeaVing' soon.

  • Kellye Nakahara's movie debut.

  • The line "And monkey's brains, although popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often to be found at Washington DC" in two endings.

  • During the scene in the kitchen at the beginning of the movie where Wadsworth is checking on dinner, you can see the Senator McCarthy hearings playing on the television. Thus another of the movie's references to the communist scare during the 50's.

  • The murder scenes from the movie are an adaptation of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians.

  • In the theatrical trailer, John Morris' score is not used. In it's place is Elmer Bernstein's score from Airplane! (1980).

  • The song Evette is dancing to in the beginning of the film, "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" is the version recorded by Bill Haley & The Comets, only it is sped up. This trick was also used in "Airplane!" in which the BeeGees song "Stayin' Alive" is also played in a sped up version.

  • In the board game, only Professor Plum and Corlnel Mustard any identifiable backgrounds given their titles. All of the other characters' backgrounds are left ambiguous. Hower, on some editions of the board game, the covers show Mrs. White dressed as a maid.

>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<

Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.

  • SPOILER: The painting behind Mr. Boddy's chair in the dining room depicts Mr. Boddy in a butler's uniform, foreshadowing the revelation in Ending C that Mr. Boddy was the real butler.

  • SPOILER: Originally, there were endings in which each character killed off everyone once, and then the ending where they all did it. However, the final cut would have made the movie over two and a half hours, and director Lynn thought it to be excessive, hence the three endings that are in the final cut.

  • SPOILER: When walking through the hall to the library, Col. Mustard pauses to look up at the chandelier that later in the film, almost kills him.

  • SPOILER: There was actually a fourth ending scripted and shot, in which Wadsworth committed all the murders out of a twisted need for perfection in his life. He reveals that he poisoned everyone with a slow-acting toxin in their drinks. It ended with Wadsworth being killed by dogs as he attempted to escape by car from the house. The rather grim nature of the ending is probably why it was never released. It was never shown because the film makers thought the ending would have been too obvious - it only survives in the novelization and the storybook, which features but a single photo from that ending (the Chief punching Wadsworth in the stomach).

  • SPOILER: The line, "Communism was just a red herring," is said in all three endings (twice by Wadsworth and once by Miss Scarlet).

  • SPOILER: When Wadsworth cuts the power to the house during his solving of the mystery, it represents the point of divergence of the three endings.

  • SPOILER: We learn that Mr. Green is being blackmailed because he is a homosexual working for the government. Later on, J. Edgar Hoover calls the house. In "Ending C" where everyone is guilty, we learn that Mr. Green is really an FBI agent sent in to infiltrate the blackmailer. In a couple of ironic twists, J. Edgar Hoover has long been suspected of being a homosexual and in the 1950's, Hoover started a case called "Operation: Babydoll" in which he gathered intelligence on possible homosexuals working in the federal government.


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