Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

It's a decent send-up of old film-noir movies. I thought they overdid implementing old footage. They used so much that they had to write the rest of the movie's plot around it and it suffered for it. Steve Martin is good in it though and has some really funny one-liners. Besides those one-liners it will be an overall forgettable movie.

The jokes in this film noir parody are kinda hit-or-miss and the film doesn't have many laugh-out-loud moments, but stylistically it captures the feel of the genre well. The idea of integrating clips from classic noirs into the film is clever and executed with skill. I'm not much of a noir connoisseur, though, so I probably didn't get as much from this film as someone with more knowledge of the genre.

The use of noir clips is an interesting one that becomes its own joke for lovers of the genre, and it's executed really well. Not quite seamless, but not ridiculous either and the film develops its own tone mixing the new with the old in fun ways. The story is good pulp, not complex but it does what it needs to keep things moving along and set up good jokes. It's a very consistent comedy with few failures, and along with the creativity that makes it well worth watching.

D.M.D.W.P is based on a clever, but rather anemic, gimmick: having Martin interact with old Hollywood stars through judicious editing. Watching him share scenes with Bogart and Lancaster is novel at first, and the footage is generally quite skillfully matched, especially given the technological limitations of the time, but it doesn't really amount to much. It works because of how faithfully it mimics the classic noir style, and prime era Martin is hard to resist, even when the material is thin.

The idea is decent, but I could never shake the feeling that it could have been much funnier. Would have been better if I'd seen the original movies that were spliced into it.

Interestingly, this was made several years before Steve Martin visibly stopped giving a damn about movies.

A cute film made of half original stuff and half clips taken out of context from classic film noir. It's fun to watch, and has a lot of silly puns (his drinking problem, for example).

The big gimmick here--new footage starring Steve Martin is intercut--and sometimes even inserted into--classic film noir footage--adds surprisingly little, and 30 years on, doesn't look or sound that great. But it gets points for trying, and the newer material is generally funny ("I hadn't seen a body put together like that since I'd solved the case of the Murdered Girl with the Big Tits."), with Martin in fine form, a great visual recreation of the old style, and a good Miklos Rozsa score.

The noir imagery is immaculately produced, still sort of impressive and an awful amount of fun. But the film's dedication to the look and feel on noir is also its greatest weakness, since it mostly seems to hold the film back from being truly hilarious. Still, Steve Martin's performance is more deadpan brilliance, and "I haven't seen a body like that since I solved the case of The Girl with the Big Tits" is an all-timer the way "He hates these cans" is an all-timer.

Interesting project with the old noir characters intercut throughout the film. I feel this would have been funnier in shorter format. It stretches out a bit here and there are some fairly long stretches without much humor.

Pretty bad experiment.

Wow, almost every single joke was a huge miss and the snippets of noir films just made me want to drop this and watch those much better films.

Fumbles over it's own ambition in a desperate attempt to make the clips from other movies fit in, searching for the right script and story, but ends up feeling more like a scrapbook with pieces of magazine pasted in, rather absentmindedly, than a carefully crafted jigsaw puzzle. There's one or two decent jokes in here, but even those provide little in way of entertainment.

Been looking to see this one for 40 years! Well, it's actually perfect that I got to it now. Having seen many 40's/50's film noir and detective movies. The movie is a parody of those movies, but it actually weaves scenes directly into the plot. Very creative, funny and outrageous. Big kudos to Steve Martin, Carl Reiner and Rachel Ward. Great soundtrack too!

Interesting idea.

Hilarious

probably good for its target market, but I should probably have seen a couple dozen more noir films before watching

Stylish, but forgettable comedy.

Em honra de Carl Reiner (1922 - 2020) filme #2. Isso é tão delicioso em sua homenagem ao noir, com um timing cômico genial e uma amarração do roteiro de forma que você fique boquiaberto na forma que introduz cenas clássicas, que tudo que tenho a dizer é : Reiner você pôde. DVD Universal.

I barely remember watching this and dont think I watched until the end.

absolutely hilarious, it seemed a precursor to indiana jones, soundtrack was great, completely asbsorbing aswell

Good Movie

Martin is hilarious. Ingeniously interspliced with clips from old Warner Bros. films. Features Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Alan Ladd, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, and others. Its only flaw is that the joke loses momentum by the end of the film.

I really like this noir parody. It's charming and really funny without having to go over the top. Steve Martin is great (just don't mention a cleaning woman around him).

A valiant effort but I didn't laugh, guess I'll have my lips blown off

I laughed out loud at least three times, with enough chuckles spread throughout to recommend this film.

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