Mysteries, Anybody?
I've been underwater here for awhile (mentally, not the river), letting down everybody I know, and I'm trying to claw my way out, so tonight I sat with Lani and Alastair and talked story and TV and politics and PopD for hours. I need to talk to other people more. I get all caught up in my own mind and there are some dark, dark places in there. Anyway, we were talking about how PopD has, sort of, lost its way. When we started, it was a project for Lani and me to learn about and clarify our ideas about writing romantic comedy. We did that for nine months, after which we really needed a break from The Big Misunderstanding and The Romcom Run, so we started doing short series that were interesting but not really helpful. So talking tonight, we realized that we both really want to understand writing mystery plots better. Or at all, for that matter. Back in the 80s, I did my master's thesis on mystery fiction, so I've been a fan for a long, long time, but writing those suckers is completely different. And so we are thinking about putting PopD on hiatus after the TV pilot series and coming back in September with a shorter (four months maybe?) survey of mystery films, doing the same thing we did with romcom: trying to discover what works and what doesn't, but concentrating on plot this time. So I drew up a list of movies based on my faves, internet faves, and Alastair and Lani's picks (Brick and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) that we would eventually cut to twenty-four or twenty-five. It has some losers and some flaws (somebody else besides Hitchcock must have made mysteries in the fifties) but it's a starting place. Check over the list below and see if we missed anything crucial. Remember, we're talking about mysteries and plotting, so straight suspense really isn't applicable. We want Whodunnits (although the thing they dun doesn't have to be murder).
Here's the first draft of the list. It's divided into decades for no particular reason except that we would like to have a span of time periods. Have at it:
1934 The Thin Man
1935 The 39 Steps (Hitchcock)
1938 The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock)
1941 The Maltese Falcon
1944 Laura
1944 Arsenic and Old Lace
1949 The Third Man
1950 Rashomen
1951 Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock)
1954 Rear Window (Hitchcock)
1954 Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock)
1955 To Catch a Thief (Hitchcock)
1955 The Trouble with Harry (Hitchcock)
1959 North by Northwest (Hitchcock)
1960 Psycho (Hitchcock)
1963 Charade
1967 In the Heat of the Night
1971 Klute
1972 Sleuth
1974 Chinatown
1974 Murder on the Orient Express
1976 Silver Streak
1978 Foul Play
1978 The Big Sleep
1981 Blowout
1983 Eddie and the Cruisers
1987 The Big Easy
1988 Alien Nation
1988 The Presidio
1989 Sea of Love
1991 Dead Again
1994 The Client
1995 The Usual Suspects
1997 LA Confidential
1997 Jonathan Creek
1998 The Big Lewbowski
1998 Wild Things
2000 Memento
2003 Mystic River
2005 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
2006 Brick
2007 Hot Fuzz
2010 Sherlock
Edited to Add:
Or would it be smarter to do mysteries as subgenres instead of chronologically:
Classic Mysteries (as in classic mystery plots)
1974 Murder on the Orient Express
1981 Blowout
1997 Jonathan Creek
2010 Sherlock
Hitchcock Mysteries
1935 The 39 Steps (Hitchcock)
1938 The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock)
1951 Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock)
1954 Rear Window (Hitchcock)
1954 Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock)
1955 To Catch a Thief (Hitchcock)
1955 The Trouble with Harry (Hitchcock)
1959 North by Northwest (Hitchcock)
1960 Psycho (Hitchcock)
Romantic Mysteries
1934 The Thin Man
1944 Laura
1963 Charade
1991 Dead Again
Noir Mysteries
1941 The Maltese Falcon
1949 The Third Man
1978 The Big Sleep
1974 Chinatown
1997 LA Confidential
2005 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
2006 Brick
Comedy Mysteries
1944 Arsenic and Old Lace
1976 Silver Streak
1978 Foul Play
1998 The Big Lewbowski
2007 Hot Fuzz
And wherever these would go:
1950 Rashomen
1967 In the Heat of the Night
1971 Klute
1972 Sleuth
1983 Eddie and the Cruisers
1987 The Big Easy
1988 Alien Nation
1988 The Presidio
1989 Sea of Love
1994 The Client
1995 The Usual Suspects
1998 Wild Things
2000 Memento
2003 Mystic River
