Alex da Silva Fred MacMurray (Pete) arrives at a backwater town to carry out some market research and find out what happened to his predecessor. He is pointed in the direction of the Fleagle family and he basically never leaves their premises. The Fleagles are a murderous bunch who are after some hidden money.The film is a comedy with plenty of slapstick. It's OK as entertainment but that's all, I'm afraid. There are some genuinely funny laugh-out-loud scenes. Two to watch out for are the Lazy-Susan episode where 7 people sit down to dinner and keep spinning the table around to avoid the plate of poison food. It's funny throughout and ends with a surprise. The second stand-out scene occurs when escaped convict Barbara Pepper (Bonnie) confronts MacMurray and mistakes him for one of her thick cousins. She quizzes him as to where the money is hidden whilst MacMurray is sitting on the real cousin who is inside the chest but whose legs are dangling over the edge making it look like they belong to MacMurray. This scene is hilarious as MacMurray tries to control the legs and throws in a bit of improvisation. I love how MacMurray keeps turning to bash the cousin on the head inside the trunk. MacMurray is good as always taking everything in his stride. Unfortunately, outside of these scenes, the film drags and certain episodes just aren't funny. You end up willing the film to finish and the final chase just drags on.

davetree Custom made for Fifties TV. Ma Kettle with a shotgun, but the gun doesn't make her any funnier--was she ever?--even for late 40's audiences, perhaps still around in Rick Perry territory, it dies on the vine.Predictable, silly, not really a lot of fun even as an historical piece.Most interesting thing was the clever filming of the same-actor twins.But really, a 1/2 hr episode of any "Lucy" show, built along the same nonsense, is funnier. Aside from "history" a waste of time.The hay bales wrapped around people at the end...all of them looked zonked. Was it really hay???! Ho ho Hah hah The ho's and ha's is about at the level of this

MARIO GAUCI I had always wanted to check out this black comedy – a rare thing for Hollywood during this era (off-hand, the only other one I can recall is ARSENIC AND OLD LACE [1944]). However, it's never been available to me until now…so that, in compiling a list of lightweight titles I most wanted to watch throughout the Christmas season, it's no surprise the film ended up at the top of the list. Even so, this has more of a cult than classic reputation – but it was certainly a delight: incidentally, while I'm usually somewhat queasy watching movies centering around hillbillies, their inherent eccentric nature works perfectly within the context of MURDER, HE SAYS' bizarre plot.By the way, the greedy/homicidal-family-after-a-sum-of-money involved harks back to the popular 'old dark house'-type comedy-thrillers – which undoubtedly gives the whole added appeal. With this in mind, the location of the loot being hidden within the nonsensical verses of an old ditty is a much-used device in this kind of picture – as is the presence in the house of both a secret passageway and a mysterious assailant (whose identity actually isn't hard to guess). Similarly, the fact that the moribund crone (justifiably) suspects her relatives' motives and opts to confide in a stranger is particularly reminiscent of the wonderful Sir Roderick Femm scene in my favorite subgenre entry – the appropriately-titled THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932).That said, the original elements here are no less engaging – with the unlikely albeit effectively-handled 'glowing poison' expedient a recurring motif (which reaches its zenith in the hilarious dinner sequence around an inconveniently revolving table). The most side-splitting visual gags, then, both feature bodily contortions: the hero being tied up in a most awkward position to be grilled by the Fleagles and his own later pretense as a midget in order to conceal one of their two identical sons lying unconscious at his real feet! For the record, there's even an amusing in-joke in the film's reference to THE GHOST BREAKERS (1940) – the marvelous Bob Hope comedy-horror vehicle, also made by director Marshall at Paramount! Fred MacMurray makes for an ideal lead – suitably bewildered and out-of-his-depth at first, but who eventually contrives to outwit the crazy clan by employing his 'superior' city-slicker ways. Apart from a whip-cracking Marjorie Main (perhaps the quintessential female hick) and mad scientist(!) Porter Hall as the respective heads of the backwoods brood, the remaining cast members were unknown to me – though all enter gleefully into the offbeat spirit of the thing. The twins were obviously played by the same actor and, unsurprisingly, leading lady Helen Walker turns out not to be vicious/demented after all (since she's only impersonating a convicted member of the dysfunctional family, with the real character herself surfacing towards the end).Maintaining a frenzied pitch virtually for the entire duration (leading to an extended chase finale that's capped by an inventive come-uppance for practically the entire main cast) makes the film seem longer than its 94 minutes – but it's an inspired ride all the way, and great fun to boot. The quality of the copy I acquired (derived from VHS) isn't optimal if still quite passable under the circumstances…at least until Universal (who now owns the film) sees fit to give it a decent – and much-deserved – release on DVD. I guess HD-DVD is out-of-the-question for such an obscure little item and, in any case, I'm not yet willing to give in to the format just yet owing to the undue hassle and expense this would clearly entail!

brujay-1 As a previous comment suggests, Fred MacMurray had the rare talent for both serious drama and comedy that Cary Grant had. (I've always thought James Garner could have been in that circle had he only gotten the right scripts.)In the late '30s and early '40s Hollywood had fun with hillbillies (remember Judy Canova?). This is an example. The genre seems to have been put to bed with Deliverance, which took all the fun out of the backwoods.There are too many set comic scenes in Murder, He Says to relate. It's simply a superb comedy-mystery. I guess my two favorite bits are where a desperate MacMurray pretends to see a ghost and the twins aren't just too sure he doesn't see one. Then there's the fall-out-of- your-chair comic turn where MacMurray sits in a box on the groggy body of one of his pursuers--whose protruding legs have a life of their own. You really have to be there. Why isn't this thing televised more often?