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I had to watch this a second time to appreciate it. The story is not the most impressive; but the concept is. Steve Martin plays a detective in a parody of classic film noir. The movie features actual scenes cut from several films and blended with precision. These skillful splices feature some of the great names from old time Hollywood. Names like Cagney, Douglas, Davis, Crawford and Bergman.

Martin really shows his talent and ability to make a scene imitate reality. His comedic wit is sharp as a switchblade. His co-star is Rachel Ward, who can vamp or play coy with the best of them. Along with directing, Carl Reiner has a cameo part.

Swift directing, with superb lighting and shading made this black and white crime comedy shine.

Dead Men.. maintains a delicate equilibrum between a re-enactment and an original script. On one hand, Carl Reiner offers a comedy which compilates several film noir classics (the strongest influence seems to come from the Maltese Falcon)and makes fun of their profound grim atmosphere, but without ever loosing its self-esteem. On the other hand, it combines at least a dozen scenes from those movies with stand-ins in order to establish a believable (physical) interaction between actors who differ 40 years in age.

Steve Martin would play the same kind of unwilling comedian in Plains, Trains & Automoblies. His voice-over definitely was an inspiration to Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun series. Along with Dragnet (1987), both owe, of course, a lot to the police serials from the 50's.

This movie is mostly suited for classic film buffs such as me

Rigby Reardon, private eye, runs the gauntlet of hoods, femmes fatales and crazed Nazis as he investigates the death of beautiful Juliet Forrest's father. Who are the mysterious "Friends of Carlotta"? And why does Rigby keep dressing in women's clothes? And where did Juliet learn to do that trick with her lips? This celebration of the black and white movies of the 1940's and 50's is a very clever and very amusing film. Extracts from celluloid classics are skilfully spliced into the action (check out the architectural detail on the doorframe in the Alan Ladd sequence). The film is a vehicle for Martin's comic talent and he carries it off beautifully. Rachel Ward as Juliet is terrific: she can hold her own with the screen goddesses who so liberally populate the film (Bergman, Davis, Turner and Crawford all make inserted appearances). A project like this could easily have come a cropper, but thanks to the brisk direction of Carl Reiner (who has a great cameo) and Steve Martin's ability to dominate the screen, the movie is a resounding success. It's also very funny.

Starring Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, and Carl Reiner. My first time watching this comedy/mystery; I liked it enough. I appreciate the decision to film it entirely in black and white; the reasoning for this primarily being because of the several "cameos" by such stars as Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster. The writers really did their research. Bits of movies with some of Hollywood's most illustrious stars like Stanwyck, Cagney, Crawford, Lake, Lana Turner, Bette Davis, Bogart, Laughton, Price, Ladd, Bergman, Cary, Kirk Douglas, Gardner, and Lancaster were incorporated into the movie's plot.

It was interesting to see classic Hollywood actors "co-starring" with Steve Martin. I thought that was an original and ingenious idea. I thought it was funny how Veronica Lake's character was named "Monica Stillpond." I quickly figured out who they were talking about once they said her name.

Actually, most of the vintage-clip characters are more or less playing themselves-- When Martin calls up hysterical Barbara Stanwyck from Sorry, Wrong Number, he explodes "Listen, you phony fruitcake!", Ingrid Bergman from Notorious is "F. X. Huberman" and James Cagney in prison from White Heat is Cody Jarrett who won't talk to anyone but his mother (or Martin in disguise). And of course, the line where Charles Laughton from The Bribe asks "And do you know who I might be?", Martin replies, "...The Hunchback of Notre Dame?"

I remember when this movie came out in 1982, when B/W movies were still "the Late Show" trivialized on television before the VCR and Cable movie-rennaissance came along, and nobody got the jokes. That is why it flopped. Most knew that old movies in general were being featured, but only about 10% actually knew which movies, and--as it was Martin's first movie after "The Jerk"--most just focused on the comedy scenes where Steve pours coffee or shaves his tongue.

I first saw this in the theater with my dad, at the age of 13, when it was first released - he was a huge fan of classic movies and usually suffered through the stuff he took me to. Not this one - we were both in hysterics, and I'd have to say I owe my huge love of classic Hollywood (and global) cinema to this film. CITIZEN KANE it may not be but no matter - I dug the humor and the atmosphere at the time, and even then was aware of how much work this must have been.

I still watch this one on occasion, and it is the rare comedy that has held up very well with the passage of time - critics at the time seemed to write it off as a stunt, but I've noted that at least a little reevaluation of DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID has occurred over the years. The performances - as both a spoof and a love-letter to film noir - are top notch, with Steve Martin at his best here. The dialog gets deep into Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett hard-boiled private-eye stylishness, serving up gumshoe-with-dame clichés just juiced up enough to give Steve something to run with, while still offering an a solid story. The finale is magnificent, Martin and Carl Reiner jousting their way through an avalanche of every two-bit dime-store whodunnit game-over cliché to ever grace the big screen, cheap alibis falling like drunken angels across the naked city as the big heat descends... Or - ahem -something like that...