They tell everyone's backstory in the confession scene, but they don't tell his....what is a boy or a girl? hmmmm
shareI think the early scene of Philip directing the dog food commercial answers that one.
shareThe big question that bugged me was, how everybody downplayed the fact that there was a child molester in their midst and not seem to care a bit. Is a
child molester really in the same league as alcoholic or shop-lifter? Why didn't we see Philips feel ashamed the least after the disclosure of his secret? What made the writers decide to pick that man for the hero part of the story - somebody we want to sympathize with?
In the same line, why did none of the group feel repulsed by the fact that they played a game on the expense of a dead person. It surely was a good laugh for everybody - cheers to Sheila!
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Last movie watched: The Last Of Sheila (7/10)
But Philip did feel ashamed that's why he was the one who turned the propeller on hoping to kill/ injure Clinton so the game would be stopped and his secret wouldn't be revealed.
I would agree that by today's standards it's odd that no one seemed very shocked but that's the point of the story, they all had their own secrets, they all had questionable morals that's why they were willing to play a game at the expense of a dead woman just to get better billing on a movie!
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When they try and match people with their cards to find the killer, Phillip insists that he was charged with a crime in order that people will think he is the ex-convict and not the killer. This is a clever plot device because we are lulled into suspecting Phillip's desperate defence could be a way of diverting suspicion from him as the killer.I don't think of it as a clever plot device. Philip's claim to have been arrasted once and thus deserving the ex-comvict card only lasts for seconds until Anthony points out that this is something completely different.
Another reason is the 'little child molester' card. I thought it was great writing how this card was not noticebly odd until Phillip pointed it out and then it was obvious. The writers needed to describe a person's secret self, beginning with the letter 'L' and for the first and 2nd words to fit together and the 2nd and 3rd words to fit together. But the three words together should not fit, except this should not be so noticeble that the audience would see it before Phillip pointed it out.Sorry, are you talking of the term "little child molester"? What's the deal with the second and third word fitting vs. not fitting together. I don't get it and I don't think it bears any significance for the plot. Or doesn't it?
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I think what a lot of people miss in this film is the idea that Hollywood people protect everyone else's secrets, so their own secrets will be protected. It's not the crime you've committed, but the amount of power you wield which determines your value. You can even be a child molester is your films make money.
shareWhat made the writers decide to pick that man for the hero part of the story - somebody we want to sympathize with?
I always thought that the little girl on his knee while he's talking to his wife, Joan Hacket's telling him "you were always so nice to me" when talking about her childhood, and Mason's having played Humbert Humbert in "Lolita" were all clues to his crime and the sex of who he was interested in.
It seems like he is actually supposed to be a likeable character, something I'm not sure the film maker's could have maintained if his crime was gone into in detail.
"Mason's having played Humbert Humbert in "Lolita" were all clues to his crime and the sex of who he was interested in."
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Oh, I wish I would have known that! It would have helped me be less confused about what Mason's secret was. Apparently other people had the same confusion. On the DVD narration narrator Richard Benjamin spoke up over the scene where James Mason was holding a little girl in his lap, saying "This is a Clue!"
Flanagan
On an historic note, back in 1973 the name "child molester" didn't have the same shock value as "pedophile" today.
Comedians would crack jokes about elderly millionaires marrying 40 year younger girls as being child molesters.
In addition, pedophilia was not in popular consciousness. The revelations about RC priests, Scout leaders and other formerly respectable members of Society abusing the children placed in
their care had not become media fodder, and the cases that WERE
reported were seen as aberrations and rare (boy, do we know
different today!).
Come on lads, bags of swank!
Is Mason's character really guilty of such a crime? I thought the fact was that Clinton was just playing games by making up unsavoury secrets that just happened to fit the name of the boat. It is a coincidence that Alice actually turns out to be a shoplifter that Tom exploits to muddy the waters and murder Clinton and his wife.
shareI don't think they are meant to be coincidences at all. In fact, six such coincidences would be too ridiculously convenient and tidy to swallow. Clinton clearly knew that there was a homosexual (bisexual actually) and an alcoholic on board, and his clue for shoplifter was actually to dress up as Alice (Raquel Welch), so he knew that secret too. He was a control freak in a powerful position in the industry, and I think we are meant to believe that he knew all the secrets that he used in his game.
If the wonder is gone when the truth is known, there never was any wonder.
Not a coincidence. Sheila was a gossip, and she's the source of Clinton's information. This is why Clinton knew about everyone's secret.
Jesus, Sondheim is devious.
Yes, Joan Hackett thanking Mason for having been "kind" to her when she was a child actress is definitely a clue about his unsavory past.
sharecouldn't you say the 'kind to me as a child' is proof that he actually ISN'T a child molester? Because why would she have GOOD memories of him?
the only dialogue about it is
And Philip here?
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He can kid his way along
with some witty child molester jokes.
what does that mean?
and he didn't do the long speech everyone else did
I don't know if we were supposed to think he was really a fiddler or not
Reading this thread, I've learned that if a child sits on your lap, it means YOU ARE A CHILD MOLESTER! If you are kind to a child, it must be because YOU ARE A CHILD MOLESTER!
What a bizarre bunch of hysterical puritans everyone has become.
His clue for Homosexual was to dress up as Alice because Alice had the Homosexual card (the clues were to who held the cards, not who had the actual secrets). But, yes, Clinton picked the secrets to correspond to real secrets the people had (but no one getting their own secret). Alice knew this because she knew the first two cards played corresponded to secrets she and her lover had.
There is also another clue to the Tom-Clinton relationship in their scene in the confessional when Clinton flirts with Tom (easily assumed as the kind of joking men do sometimes if you’re not getting it). Who would be the homosexual if not Tom, though? Anthony is Alice’s husband and can’t be her secret lover. It could have been one of the women (which would probably make more sense nowadays) but the hand seems to not be female. That leaves Philip or Tom.
Philip actually does turn out to be the one who helped Alice with her shoplifting issue. Was she underage? Was she his slip? She declined to tell Tom who helped her because of his jealousy issues. Philip was nice to Lee as a child (actually suggests he didn’t molest her or I doubt she’d feel so fond of him—but she had a powerful father). Are there just rumors because Philip works with kids a lot? He was desperate to take some other secret (although not hit-and-run driver). Did he have an incident and get therapy? It would have been good to have gotten his story. Perhaps it would have taken away any sympathy for him, though, too.
Everyone seemed to know about Kevin Spacey molesting people, but did nothing about it.
shareI'd say from the earlier scene of him directing it was a girl. A great film but it is odd how they seemed to skate right past that 'card'. Or maybe the version I watched edited it out?
share