Afoot, the mystery podcast! What makes a mystery a mystery? It’s a genre with a puzzle at the middle, but which takes many forms across all media. We talk books, comics, TV, movies, audio plays, theatre, and more, and stretch boundaries while staying true to the form. Find us on Twitter @afootcast and our reading recommendations and upcoming books at Goodreads.
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episode 12: Forget It, Fake, It's Chinatown
Forty years ago, Neil Simon wrote a pair of parodies in the mystery vein: the 1976 film Murder By Death, which sent up the great movie detectives, and The Cheap Detective in 1978, which took on hard-boiled Bogart characters, like Sam Spade. The two films have a lot in common, including Robert Moore as director, Peter Falk as the Bogie analog, and Madeline Kahn in a wonderful supporting role in each. But the Afoot panel prefers one to the other. Which one? You’ll have to listen to find out.
We have spoiler-free parts of this podcast for each film, so if you just want our overview without any giveaways — hey, they’re parodies, but they’re still mysteries — use the chapter markers in your podcast app or these timestamps:
- 14:03: We start in on Murder By Death spoilers.
- 38:59: We blow the unspoiler horn to start talking about The Cheap Detective, spoiler-free.
- 46:22: Once more, the horn, and we get into the details of The Cheap Detective.
Murder By Death and The Cheap Detective
Glenn Fleishman with David J. Loehr, Erika Ensign, John McCoy and Suzi Steffen
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- I recommend renting at YouTube, which costs less or has longer watching periods for rentals. These two films are $2.99, a 30-day rental, and 48 hours to watch once you start. Murder by Death, The Cheap Detective