Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) is a black-and-white film-noir spoof with Steve Martin you can watch online on iFILM. Director Carl Reiner built the whole movie around one gag: splicing a brand-new character straight into vintage Hollywood pictures.

Private eye Rigby Reardon takes the case of Juliet Forrest, who is sure her father, a cheese scientist, was murdered rather than killed in a mountain crash. The trail leads to a list of "Friends and Enemies of Carlotta" and a tangled conspiracy. The joke is who Reardon talks to. Through clever editing he trades lines with Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Ava Gardner, Cary Grant and Bette Davis, all lifted from their own old films. Rachel Ward plays Juliet, and Reiner himself shows up as the villain.

It is a one-idea comedy that pushes its idea to glorious absurdity, with Martin deadpanning at co-stars who died decades before the cameras rolled. The costumes were the last screen work of the legendary Edith Head. A treat if you love classic Hollywood and don't mind laughing at it. Stream Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) online on iFILM.