MovieChat Forums > Clue (1985) Discussion > Mr. Green's 'orientation' makes no sense

Mr. Green's 'orientation' makes no sense

posted 5 months ago by avortac4 (3478)
2 replies | jump to latest

So we're told Mr. Green is gay, and that's why he's blackmailed.

However, it turns out, he's NOT gay, but he's some kind of agent and is gonna go sleep with his wife in the end.

Now, what kind of sense does this make from the blackmailer's point of view?

Think about the chain of events that have to occur for all that to happen the way shown in the movie.

1) Mr. Green would have to know that if he pretends to be gay, he will be blackmailed by Mr. Boddy. How would he know that?

2) Mr. Boddy would have to find out he's 'gay', although he's not openly so, not that he's it at all, but Mr. Boddy can't find out that part for some reason.. so he would have to find out JUST enough to figure out he's 'a closeted gay' (kinda hard to find out if they're hiding it, right?), but NOT enough to find out that he's actually just PRETENDING to be a 'closeted gay'? HOW does that work?

I mean, how did these two come into contact with each other, how did Mr. Green know Mr. Boddy would blackmail him if he pretended to be gay, and why would he PAY him to not tell anyone something that's not true, wouldn't that be an enormous amount of money just to be an undercover agent so he can participate in the whole mysterious game that he also couldn't have known was going to happen, so he can kill Mr. Boddy?

Wouldn't it have been about 187 times simpler to simply assassinate Mr. Boddy more directly instead of this ridiculously convoluted plan?

It just doesn't make any sense that he'd be blackmailed for something he's only pretending to be, and that he could pretend to be it so cleverly that no one else figures it out, except Mr. Boddy, and yet he can't figure out it's just a lie anyway?

Can you imagine the briefing room for the agents when they decided to catch Mr. Boddy?

"All right, so one of you will pretend to be gay and thus lure Mr. Boddy to blackmail you, then we will pay the money for an extended period of time, until Mr. Boddy's butler will invite our agent to a big mansion for some kind of trap for Mr. Boddy, and that will be your opportunity to murder Mr. Boddy, so he can't blackmail you anymore, even though the reason for the blackmailing is a lie. So, who wants to do this?"

I mean, could it BE more convoluted and uncertain and weird compared to a simple operation where you just have an agent follow Mr. Boddy and use a sniper rifle or something?

What agency would ever come up with this kind of plan? Just how many things do have to perfectly coincide in a miraculous way for any of the plan to make any sense?

Also, why choose something like 'orientation' for the blackmailing lure? Is that really the best an agency can come up with when it comes to blackmail?

None of it makes any sense.

[–] Sandman81 (1501) 5 months ago

There's a lot of possibilities for how this could work. Of course, we are going with the assumption that Mr. Green was an undercover FBI agent in all 3 endings.

1) There was a Mr. Green who was gay and worked for the State Department. Mr. Boddy found out and started blackmailing him. When he received the letter, he freaked out and went to the FBI. Realizing that there were several people being blackmailed by this man, they sent an undercover agent in Mr. Greens stead, in order to get the evidence to bust this mysterious Mr. Boddy.

Now you might ask why Mr. Boddy didn't realize that the man at the house was not Mr. Green. Perhaps he never actually saw Mr. Green. He had an informant who told him about Mr. Green, just like he did with the other five guest. And when the real Mr. Green went to the FBI, the informant was arrested, which is why he was the only informant not at the house.

2) Another theory to explain why there wasn't an informant for Mr. Green, was there wasn't one. They knew of a mysterious man named "Mr. Boddy" who was blackmailing high profile people in the DC area but could never get a victim to testify against him. So they set up one of their guys with a job at the State Department, and sent an unanimous tip to Mr. Boddy that he was gay. So Mr. Boddy sent a letter to Mr. Green telling him that he had evidence of his secret and he better pay to keep it quiet. Then when the invitation to the party came, they knew that was their chance.

3) Or maybe they figured out who the informant was first, and needed to find out who he was working for. So they sent their agent in undercover, he hit on the informant, and the informant told Mr. Boddy. Now they have a direct connection to Mr. Boddy, and can try to figure out who he is. The party was their opportunity.

Obviously they didn't anticipate the murders, including who they thought was Mr. Boddy. And being gay in the 1950's was enough for some employers, including the government, to fire someone.

[–] cv1cv (383) 4 months ago

Avortac4 is either (A) a troll trying to waste everyone's time with such idiotic comments, or (B) the stupidest person on these message boards. Look at his posts. He doesn't think anything in any film makes sense. Don't feed the troll. Don't comment after my comment.