Recreation of Noble Minds: Sleuth

When asked by friends and family to name my favorite film, for years I have answered Sleuth (1972). As a kid, I first saw it on TV with commercial interruptions on a Saturday morning (the first, last, and only time I have ever known it to air on cable television). As I did not get to finish the film, my eagerness to know its conclusion turned to anxiety as I learned that Sleuth is a rare movie, not easily found for rental or purchase. It was not until several years later that I discovered a VHS copy for sale at a local Blockbuster that presented the film in widescreen. That copy remained in my personal film collection for years until I made the foolish decision to sell it when I wrongfully believed the original would be re-released on DVD upon the issue of the horrendous 2007 remake. Though Sleuth does exist on DVD as a 1998 release from Anchor Bay Entertainment, a remastered upgrade of the original classic did not happen, nor has it still at the time of this writing (2024), at least as a Region 1 DVD (Canada, the United States, and U.S. territories). Thus, securing a physical media copy of this incredibly rare film (nominated for four Academy Awards in 1973) is not too dissimilar from its characters sleuthing for clues in its cat-and-mouse plot.

Originally a Tony award-winning play by Anthony Shaffer (who also wrote the screenplay for the 1972 film adaptation), Sleuth is an actor’s delight.  The characters of Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier), Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), and Inspector Doppler (Alec Cawthorne – his only listed film credit) are wonderful creations of dueling combatants, each seeking dominance over the other in their deadly-upon-deadlier games of rivalry. To give away any plot twists of the film in this review would be unforgivable, spoiling the fun that Wyke darkly embraces as the “little bit of mayhem [that] cheer[s] one up.” Instead, let it suffice that the film is a significant jewel (jewelry serving in the film as both plot motivation and incriminating evidence) in each of the actors’ famed careers and is so diabolically entertaining because its clever characters convince each other (and the audience too) of the severe stakes of their games. 

The film is a testament to the principle of “suspension of disbelief” as the characters triumph over one another in competitions that require strategy, wit, and imagination. That is to say, the games the characters play in Sleuth provide “no end to the concealment of identity” as all three characters mask their true intentions just as they costume themselves (for instance, Tindle dons a clown outfit as a disguise in the first of the contests). Wyke philosophizes to Tindle, “We know what it is to play a game, you and I. So rare, two people, brought together, equally-matched, having the courage and the talents to make of life a continuing charade of bright fancy and happy invention; to face out its emptiness and its terrors by playing, by just playing.” Tindle, however, is the kind of participant who “[doesn’t] play games for the sport, particularly games of humiliation.” 

Beyond the stakes of the games, namely the hand of the never-seen Marguerite, Wyke’s wife and Tindle’s mistress, Sleuth is a match of ethnicity/class warfare between the British noble/mystery author Andrew Wyke and the Italian immigrant/hairdresser Milo Tindle.  When told that he is nothing more than a “jumped-up pantry boy who doesn’t know his place,” (a quote later employed as song lyrics for The Smiths’ “This Charming Man”), Tindle viciously challenges Wyke to further games-playing, hoping to best the lord in his own manor. To Inspector Doppler, appearing in the second of the film’s tennis-like, one-on-one acting matches (Game-Set-Match), these games are the “recreation of noble minds.”

One fascinating element of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s masterful direction is the emphasis he places upon Wyke’s collection of game pieces, particularly the animatronic Jolly Jack Tar the Sailor. Peppered throughout the film are quick shots of Jack reacting to the suspenseful mystery unfolding before him. After only minutes of polite conversation in the film’s opening, Wyke establishes the stakes by confirming to Tindle, “I understand you want to marry my wife,” a statement that elicits an inquisitive reaction from Jack.  Here, and throughout the film, Mankiewicz has Jack mirror and enhance the audience’s shock at the character statements, actions, and plot twists of the film’s narrative.  As Sleuth shows that the characters do control Jack’s movement, even its audible laughter, with a wired remote, its independent movement inspires the audience to also question the reality of everything they see before them. Are these games for real?

Despite being such a rare film, Sleuth maintains a direct influence on contemporary filmmakers and cinema, especially Rian Johnson and his film Knives Out (2019).  There are multiple homages to Sleuth in the more recent film including a mystery author character (performed by Christopher Plummer), wonderful production design that mirrors Sleuth’s own manor filled with games, a detective (Daniel Craig) who “solved the case with the tennis champ” – a nod to the novel that Wyke dictates, “Death by Double Faults”, and even its own sailor mannequin.

Even in this age of streaming, Sleuth has never been officially available. The answer to this riddle, one that plagued me for years, is found in its fascinating production history, in which its theatrical rights belong to a pharmaceutical company, Bristol Myers Squibb. However, those who wish to view Sleuth can do so via the easy access of bootlegged uploads to YouTube. Still, for those who crave the original physical media, there exist those late-90s DVD copies in the local libraries of We Luv Video and Vulcan Video at Alamo Drafthouse Village (Austin, TX).

I did eventually purchase a DVD copy of Sleuth, finding a copy in a local record store a dozen years ago. I still consider it the crown jewel of my personal film collection due to its rarity and my long affection for its diabolical mystery. I also remember fondly how I tricked the clerk at the record store to sell it to me at a discount versus its enormously expensive price, proving that I am a veteran winner in the game of film collection, that I am a Cinema Sleuth.