Tony Wirt and host Emily J. Edwards have a delightful conversation about the movie CLUE and its impact on them, including childhood experiences, the art of mystery writing, Tim Curry’s performance, rurality and claustrophobia, and humor and grammar jokes. CLUE subverts genre expectations and the “rules” of mystery writing as set up by classic authors such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers. It’s bot a perfect and imperfect mystery movie! Takeaways
- Clue’s impact on childhood experiences
- The genius of Clue’s writing and cast
- Clue’s subversive elements challenge traditional gender dynamics and societal norms
- The conversation highlights the importance of fair play and reader expectations in the mystery genre
Find guest Tony Wirt online!
/ wirter Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction and Love for Clue
- 06:02 The Genius of Clue
- 13:30 The Essence of Clue and Gothic Horror
- 20:00 Tim Curry’s Performance
- 26:43 Humor and Grammar Jokes in Clue
- 32:12 Gender Representation
- 37:17 Snappy Dialogue
- 43:25 Enjoying the Ride
Transcript:
Emily Edwards (00:00.984)
Greetings, gumshoes, and welcome back to Silver Screen Sleuths. I am your host, Emily Edwards, and with me today is an absolutely wonderful writer who has been a buddy on the internet of mine for many, years. Tony, how the hell are you? Good, thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. I’m so excited to chat. I think Clue is one of those movies that just
Tony Wirt (00:16.372)
Good, how’s it going?
Tony Wirt (00:22.677)
yeah, this is gonna be fun. I am… I can talk about this movie forever.
Emily Edwards (00:30.356)
everyone likes. Like I’ve never run into someone who was like, it didn’t do it for me.
Tony Wirt (00:36.938)
See, I have met those people. I, it’s, I know, yeah. But I get it a little bit because I mean, it’s, I think it’s all about expectation. And I think that’s also part of why it didn’t do well at the box office, aside from the whole ending thing, which I’m sure we’ll talk about. But like, so I remember going when I was in, I would have been in second grade. I saw, I saw Clue in the theater.
Emily Edwards (00:38.766)
Where do they live?
Emily Edwards (00:56.727)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (01:03.269)
my gosh.
that’s cute. that’s wonderful.
Tony Wirt (01:07.658)
Yeah, so I grew up in a very small town, like 1500 people, but we did have a theater at the time. It was my first job, by the way. But you know, a single screen, and it wasn’t a second run theater, but it was the absolute back of the line for any movie. So this was, yeah, yeah.
Emily Edwards (01:13.344)
that’s…
Emily Edwards (01:17.527)
my gosh.
Emily Edwards (01:28.051)
Right. They’re like, we’re not going to pay to put it there.
Tony Wirt (01:32.171)
Like, this, it had been out for quite a while at the time, but I was in second grade, I didn’t know. And it was just one of those things where you would go to movies. mean, just no matter what. Like, and my parents brought me to this, I remember. And there probably weren’t a lot of people in the theater, but I remember being the only person laughing. And I was laughing my butt off. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. And it was just one of those like, are you people not getting this?
Emily Edwards (01:43.511)
Yeah, exactly.
Tony Wirt (02:02.066)
Like, but, and it, like.
Emily Edwards (02:04.512)
Second grade Tony is going like, I’m surrounded by idiots.
Tony Wirt (02:07.676)
Yeah, but it was like, mean, my parents thought it was stupid. Their colleagues, you know, of their age type small town people. mean, I don’t know if they thought it was like going to be a real mystery or like kind of a Agatha Christie type. you know, it’s bonkers in all the best ways. But also, if you’re not ready for that or if you’re if you if that’s not your thing, I can see not liking it like.
Emily Edwards (02:14.391)
Yeah!
Emily Edwards (02:21.198)
That’s fair.
It is!
Emily Edwards (02:30.296)
true.
Emily Edwards (02:35.736)
That’s fair.
Tony Wirt (02:36.89)
My lovely wife and I have very differing opinions on movies and stuff like that. So I know going in when there’s things like, you’re gonna hate this. Like, we’re not even gonna bother. Like, it’s, you know. And it’s funny because there is a movie out there that she has never seen that is in this realm that I think she would love if she would be able to go in without the baggage, and that’s Little Shop of Horrors.
Emily Edwards (02:50.2)
haha
Emily Edwards (03:04.846)
yeah. Yeah, that’s one of my favorite movies ever. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (03:06.076)
It’s a movie I’ve loved forever. I showed it to our girls when they were little. We have sung the songs in the car when they were little, much to the annoyance of my wife. And she’s also lumped that in with all the kind of dumb movies I’ve been like, no, this is really funny. It’s like, no, this wasn’t me. And it’s funny because I’ve told her, was like, I honestly think had you not been around us and gone into this one, you’d have loved it. Because it’s good.
Emily Edwards (03:15.084)
Yes!
Emily Edwards (03:25.134)
Okay, not your sense of humor.
Emily Edwards (03:35.659)
It is good.
Tony Wirt (03:35.688)
Like I go, it’s act, I’ve had to explain, like, I have awesome movies and I have good movies. She likes good movies. She does not appreciate awesome movies. But that’s when I was like, no, that’s actually good. It’s silly, but it’s good. And I put clue in that realm too. It is good. It’s not like, know, Con Air is awesome. Face Off is awesome. They are not good.
Emily Edwards (03:43.626)
Hahaha!
Emily Edwards (03:49.515)
Yes it is.
Emily Edwards (03:58.264)
There we go. Yes. Yes. The Rock also. Awesome. Awesome movie. Not a good movie. We have to hold those two things separate.
Tony Wirt (04:03.278)
Awesome movie awesome movie not good But like I put clue in I think clue is genius I think the acting in it is Unbelievable. I think the writing is phenomenal. That is a that is a joke a minute movie on the Level of like airplane or like 30 Rock or something. It is just rapid fire jokes that
Emily Edwards (04:13.688)
I agree. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (04:32.988)
you will miss if you do like you have to watch it 15 times just to hear half of them
Emily Edwards (04:38.029)
Yeah, it’s true, it’s true. Now I want to ask you a question, because normally, and I’ve said this before in other episodes, I ask the guest to kind of pick the movie or something that we’re discussing. And you are better known for thrillers, which do have like a mystery element to them. So why a sort of closed house mystery movie? Just because Clue is great? I mean, that’s a totally valid reason. Okay, cool. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (05:03.582)
Yes, honestly. When you asked me about it, was thinking, okay, was thinking like what movie, and I was thinking a little bit more in the thrillery kind of aspect of like.
Emily Edwards (05:13.325)
Mm hmm. Because your books are like creepy, like just stay away is like, creepy stalker kid or like, you know, silent. I’m sorry. Now I should have had a list. Yeah. Silent Creek is like the history is coming back to haunt you and like really, really like thriller based stuff. And I was like, this is this is less that.
Tony Wirt (05:19.326)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (05:24.778)
7 Creek.
Tony Wirt (05:34.79)
No, like I said, I first thought I was like, know, Silence of the Lambs definitely has some mystery to it. could maybe do that. that would, I would have, if you, next season, if you want to do another one, I would do that. But it was just a lot of one I couldn’t quite think. And then it just kind of popped me. was like, I could talk about Clue for three hours. So let’s, I’m going to float that one and see what you think. Because also, at that point I had, hadn’t.
Emily Edwards (05:40.919)
Totally.
Emily Edwards (05:46.08)
There you go.
Tony Wirt (06:02.619)
even listened to the show yet so I wasn’t sure what way it was going and I was like if you’re really looking to tie it into writing and all that stuff Clue wouldn’t have been my first choice but I was like if if we can just talk about you know Professor Plum Christopher Lloyd going Shucks like yeah, let’s do that
Emily Edwards (06:03.893)
Yeah, it wasn’t out. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (06:23.185)
Yeah, yeah. cast of this, I watched it every single… It played probably two or three times a week after school when I was a kid on Comedy Central. It was just something that was like, we need a block of two hours to fill before, like when no one’s home. And it was basically like me, middle school, sitting down and watching Clue multiple times a week. It’s just one of those magical movies that you can just turn on at any point.
And you’re like, let me let the talent of probably seven of the greatest comedic actors of all time just wash over you. And it’s a brilliant movie. And down to the casting, I think so much of it is the casting of it. Libby, launched this silly little show by talking about who framed Roger Rabbit and Christopher Lloyd in that.
And that is just, mean, he’s somehow the straight man in this, which is genuinely shocking when you know anything about Christopher Lloyd and how movies work. And you’re just like, really, Christopher Lloyd’s the one who’s going to be mostly serious throughout this entire thing.
Tony Wirt (07:37.948)
Yeah, he, mean, like, like he’s, he’s great in everything he does, but he was a little bit of the, normally you would think in a movie like that, it’s gonna be Wadsworth. He’s going to be the, the straight man that all these characters are bouncing off of. But when you put Tim Curry in that role, it’s just pure chaotic energy that I think,
Emily Edwards (07:50.143)
Yes.
Tony Wirt (08:05.001)
You know, it subverts the tropes a little bit, but also it does make it so you do have to have someone else to almost be a little grounded. And I think it’s funny that as wild as the characters are, they played it so straight that it just, they would pop off with a line, it would, or like, know, when he’s…
Emily Edwards (08:14.84)
to anchor. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (08:24.597)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (08:33.533)
when they’re looking at the negatives and Mrs. White is like, no woman can get in that position. He’s like, yes, they can, I’ll show you. it’s creepy as hell, but it’s done in such a weird, almost clinical way that he was really embodying, he was really getting into the creep psychiatrist, the doctor, but it’s just.
Emily Edwards (08:35.788)
Yeah, Colonel Mustard. Yes.
Emily Edwards (08:49.346)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (09:00.615)
You look through that cast, it’s just amazing. It’s phenomenal.
Emily Edwards (09:04.234)
It’s so amazing. I mean, my one of my favorite actresses of all time, Eileen Brennan, who just brings it every single time. She’s also in a movie that Larry and I talked about in his episode where Murder by Death, where she’s opposite Peter Falk and like just that level of acting there. I love Eileen Brennan. Very similar, very similar. So Murder by Death preceded this by a couple of years. It’s basically Clue.
Tony Wirt (09:21.993)
A very similar movie, really.
Emily Edwards (09:30.082)
but you shove a whole bunch of like stereotypes of PIs and things like that into a house. Same exact concept, it’s the same concept, just different sort of casting what to do with the characters. We’ll get to that, because that’s a hoot and a half. It’s such a weird, that was written by Neil Simon. And this is written by Jonathan, John Landis, isn’t it? Like huge.
Tony Wirt (09:36.157)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (09:52.958)
Well, so I was, it started with him, with Landis. I was reading about, Stephen Sondheim took a pass on it. Anthony Hopkins did a draft. like, they, yeah, I was doing my research before this. It was crazy. And then they brought, the guy that ended up directing it, I can’t remember his name, but he was a Broadway guy, a play guy. And that’s why it is shot like,
Emily Edwards (10:08.15)
That’s awesome. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (10:20.44)
works so well.
Tony Wirt (10:22.833)
It’s almost like shot on a stage or, you know, like as a stage performance. And the actors were talking about because it was all in a studio, you know, it was there was no location. They were able to shoot linearly like in, know. Yeah, and they talked about how that’s why their characters got to kind of grow through the they get to really feel that you’re not like shooting the ending and then shoot, you know, because you have to have this one spot in the sun or whatever.
Emily Edwards (10:26.162)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (10:35.18)
Yeah, like from running one room to another and like the set was just large enough.
Emily Edwards (10:45.389)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (10:49.984)
Yeah, exactly.
Tony Wirt (10:51.687)
But it’s, you know, like, yeah. And did you know the original Miss Scarlet was supposed to be Carrie Fisher?
Emily Edwards (10:58.936)
Did know that. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (11:00.391)
Yes, Leslie Ann Warren was going to be Mrs. White and Carrie Fisher was going to be Miss Scarlet, but then she had to go away for a bit, unfortunately. And but but that’s great because as much as would have loved to seen what Carrie Fisher could have done in that role, if you don’t have Madeline Kahn, you never get the flames and.
Emily Edwards (11:03.616)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (11:09.294)
Exactly.
Emily Edwards (11:17.741)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (11:25.32)
The flames, which was ad-lamped.
Tony Wirt (11:26.557)
That’s, I mean, that’s the one thing that even people who don’t know the movie, they know the flames on the side of your face.
Emily Edwards (11:30.434)
Mm-hmm.
I really, you know, that’s one of those things where I love movies where people get to ad lib and you wouldn’t think you would let someone do that in something as something that needs to be as controlled as a murder mystery. But I think it’s such an incredible testament to the director of Jonathan Lynn, who I looked up while we were chatting to just let people play like that and to let them bring the because
Tony Wirt (11:44.712)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (11:59.651)
bring the personality of this movie because I think one of the most wonderful things is about this movie is that you’re not expected to solve it at any point. You are never supposed to know what’s actually happening at the end.
Tony Wirt (12:10.054)
No.
Tony Wirt (12:15.474)
Well, it’s funny because when I was thinking about this, when I was watching it, what I realized, and this in a little way brings it back to the writing, it’s the ultimate pantser movie. know, I said I’m not really a mystery writer. There is some mystery elements in my stuff, but I’m not really a mystery writer. But I have always been amazed by true mystery writers that are pantsers. I do not get how you can start a book and not know who the killer is.
Emily Edwards (12:25.525)
Yes!
Emily Edwards (12:39.053)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (12:42.988)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (12:43.122)
But that’s what this movie is. If you watch the first two thirds of it before they start rapid firing the endings, it could be anybody. It ends up being multiple people. But that doesn’t change anything that happened at beginning. was all set up that it could go a million different ways and then it does.
Emily Edwards (13:00.758)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we’ve witnessed in our lifetimes a lot of movies being based on games and toys and books. And as much as I loved Barbie as like, woo, third-wave feminism, good job, Greta Gerwig. Like, this is a film that actually wildly captures the essence of playing a game of Clue. And I think it’s just a testament to how well it was written by
everyone involved, and I will include the cast in that, to make it feel like anything can be possible. And I pantsed the first Viviana Valentine. I completely was just kind of like, there’s a dead body and I don’t know how he got there. And so I like made that up. And of course you fix it in revisions because you obviously have to, but yeah, I was just kind of like.
Tony Wirt (13:53.586)
Sure.
Emily Edwards (13:56.762)
beats the hell out of me when I was writing it. Second two had to plot all the way through because you have to have a shorter period of time in order to write your second and third books usually. But yeah, like mystery is a very interesting thing because when you talk to people about it, they definitely don’t realize that you like have to know that someone is murdered.
There are a lot of people who really don’t understand the, I hate to use this phrase, but like the craft of writing, where it’s like your characters are always going to behave in a certain way when they’re confronted with that, you know, like, this person, my main character, my sleuth, whatever, is going to behave to finding a dead body in a specific fashion.
They might just go like, I’m a mob boss and my response to finding a dead body is to throw them in the dumpster and hope nobody notices them. Or you have a sleuth who’s just like, crap, I have to figure out what just happened or being confronted with your secret past, you know, showing up, like how is this person going to react to it? Are they going to be super controlling about it? Or are they going to be blase about it? You have to know how your character is going to work with that. And I think one of my favorite things about Clue is that
Every single person in this movie reacts with unhinged chaos and absolutely no logic whatsoever.
Tony Wirt (15:21.096)
It is, is, the entire movie is just a chaos bomb and it’s what makes it so fun.
Emily Edwards (15:24.911)
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s just incredible. I’m trying to think of just the conceit of we have Mr. who is a blackmailer. And I love blackmail as a crime in movies and books. I think it is wholly underutilized because it’s never going to work out for anybody. It’s a bad crime. It’s stupid. Never blackmail people. It’s dumb. It’s always going to come back in your face.
Tony Wirt (15:55.729)
And from the sound of it, that’s what unlocked the script. Like I said, they’d gone through all these writers and it wasn’t until they realized, they all need to be here because they all have secrets. other than that, there was no reason to get all these random people together. And the secrets is what, that’s what kind of, if you want to say motivated them to their unhinged behavior throughout the thing.
Emily Edwards (16:06.488)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (16:12.409)
Right.
Emily Edwards (16:18.499)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (16:21.859)
Yeah, because I feel like the game of Clue comes with like a little booklet and you know, like all the great board games and normally it’s like, know, Monopoly comes with a booklet of explaining all the rules of capitalism and you’re just like, this is boring and you never read it and you toss it out the window. But Clue comes with like a little thing of like, they’re all invited to a dinner party, but it never gives you the motivation of why they would all be there and to have it be like you’re summoned and given.
a secret name. There’s so much tension in that and there’s so much, why are they hidden? Why are they not supposed to know who the other people are? And it’s again, something that just kind of you take for granted when you are aware of the game and then you watch the movie. But realizing it now after having written so many books, you’re like, that is so smart. That is brilliant. What devious jackass thought this?
Tony Wirt (17:19.848)
Yeah, because I mean, even with a silly movie, you have to give the audience enough to buy in. You’re not just opening a board game. There has to be a little bit of a reason why. And they gave enough to just be able to then cut these six geniuses loose. Seven geniuses. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (17:27.767)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (17:38.18)
I know, it’s just seven geniuses. I mean, like even the sub characters of like Yvette the maid, she is doing a job and she does it so well. You you’ve got Lee Ving who was a punk singer just kind of taking on like this ominous role of like smoky guy who’s, you know, like menacing people from the corner. it’s like, I cannot think of a better cast movie than this particular film.
Tony Wirt (17:45.17)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (18:06.536)
Yeah, it’s kind of amazing how, because from what I understand, it wasn’t like a big budget or anything, but the fact that they were able to have such a silly idea and bring in like just that amount of heavyweight talent. Cause I mean, I you think about it at the time, Christopher Lloyd, this is 85. I’m not exactly sure when it filmed, but this was probably just before Back to the Future. But you know, he’d been in taxi, he’d like, you know, Martin Mull coming off of a
Emily Edwards (18:12.163)
Mm-mm.
Emily Edwards (18:20.482)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (18:29.314)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (18:35.449)
Mr. Mom. mean, aside from like the old Furnwood Tonight and all that stuff, like, mean, do you, you know, and obviously, you know, Madeline Kahn just, you know, she’s been in everything. It’s, it’s all just the fact that they were able to pull that cast on a movie that didn’t have much of a budget and probably didn’t have a whole lot of expectations. And then bombed.
Emily Edwards (18:36.469)
Yeah!
Emily Edwards (18:43.449)
Just, yeah.
Emily Edwards (18:55.535)
Probably not. Like, Mike McKeon, yeah, was probably the most like, because this is pre things like Groundlings and Upright Citizens and, you know, other like major comedy incubators that we have now. Like oftentimes, like if you go back to like Bridesmaids or something like that, where you’re just like, how did they get all these funny people together? And it’s like,
Tony Wirt (19:06.844)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (19:14.243)
They were in Groundlings together and they’d known each other for 20 years in addition to SNL and all of these things. So they knew each other. They know each other’s beats, they know each other’s sense of comedy, they know each other’s punchlines and things like that. But this, these are people from everywhere. And Tim Curry and Michael McKeon are probably the most famous people in the cast. And it’s like, he was Lenny, you know what I mean, on Laverne and Shirley.
Tony Wirt (19:15.684)
yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (19:40.037)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (19:44.656)
It’s just an absolutely mind bending amount of work that went into this in order to pull these people together. And again, it was probably shot in like three weeks. You know what I mean? Like it, but nothing, probably nothing. Excuse me for a second.
Tony Wirt (19:55.589)
Yeah!
Tony Wirt (19:59.098)
Mm-hmm. It’s yeah, like I think I think I remember Tim Curry I mean he’d been in Rocky Horror so he was probably the biggest of them all And they and then he just got to be the you know, the conductor really But I will say that the final what half hour of the show where he was I was reading like an oral history
Emily Edwards (20:09.923)
Hopefully. Yeah, and it’s.
Emily Edwards (20:15.725)
Yeah, of the orchestra.
Tony Wirt (20:28.217)
of this and listening to the cast talk about watching him go through that because you don’t I mean, well, you realize but there is so much dialogue from him. Like he was talking about how he’s having to like read it. He was like memorizing his lines on the drive to the lot and just knowing that he was going to have to sprint around all day long while spouting out this
Emily Edwards (20:38.817)
Yes! No!
Emily Edwards (20:53.289)
Mm-hmm. Yes!
Tony Wirt (20:56.8)
rapid fire dialogue explaining everything. I mean, just physically just yeah, just physically I don’t know how we did it.
Emily Edwards (21:00.141)
Yeah. In a tux. Like, yeah, like, like physically doing that without, he never sounds like he’s out of breath. It’s like the amount of work that he puts into it is just absolutely incredible. I, you know, one of the things is when I first started doing like a newsletter about silver screens loose and like translating movies, you know, mystery movies and why certain ones really hit with us. One of the things that
Tony Wirt (21:11.356)
Yeah!
Tony Wirt (21:26.279)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (21:29.547)
I caught while I was rewatching Clue, just randomly as you do, the beginning when they’re all driving to the location and it is set in Connecticut, which is where I’m from. And I’m just kind of like, I know what part of Connecticut they want this to be in, because my parents lived up there for a little while and it’s very like old money and things like that. And it’s just like annoying.
But I caught one thing that I hadn’t noticed ever before, because I usually watch this when I was between the ages of like 10 and 19, is that the address that they give is Hill House in New England. And that immediately went, fuck, Shirley Jackson’s involved here. And that tie-in to Gothic horror that happens when you mention Hill House.
Tony Wirt (22:14.662)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (22:23.053)
just like put this movie and the script in a whole new light for me. The haunting of the skeletons in the closets. And I was like, why are they so smart? Why are all these people smarter than me?
Tony Wirt (22:28.422)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (22:39.183)
But as someone who writes a lot of things that are very suspenseful, do you like expansiveness when you’re writing things that are suspenseful? Like these people can be in a crowd? Or do you like the closeness of constraining people into a home or a small town?
Tony Wirt (23:02.211)
So I’ve used the small townness and isolationism a little bit to try to add that claustrophobia. Like I think of like for Just Stay Away, I mean it was the book I wrote during COVID so obviously there was going to be, it’s not the most subtle, but it’s a lot of claustrophobia, isolation, and I was using a lot of the, you know,
Emily Edwards (23:11.609)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (23:20.654)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (23:31.193)
as a guy who stayed at home with my two kids, stay at home dadness can be isolating, at times. And I tried to bring a lot of that into it. my, my other books also like, you know, Silent Creek, it’s about a guy coming back to his hometown. tried, I really kind of used that small town hometown is as a prison kind of vibe. That said, I’ve got, I’ve got another book that, I wrote a while back.
Emily Edwards (23:53.912)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (24:01.027)
that has not been published and probably never will be. I kind of I went into the expansion a little. I kind of tried to break out of that like closed-doorness and I even ended up the finale of it ended up being a chase through a giant demonstration that ended up a riot with the like
Emily Edwards (24:04.064)
Hahaha!
Emily Edwards (24:12.568)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (24:28.23)
of the there is more of the like there’s nowhere to hide kind of a like there’s we’re out in the open we’re so I mean it can kind of go either way you know it’s fun to it’s fun to play around but I’ve but I do kind of tend to go towards that like not locked door like you know like this but just that isolating because that’s I’m a people person I guess that isolation is scary to me
Emily Edwards (24:31.172)
Right.
Emily Edwards (24:45.879)
Yeah, but claustrophobia.
Emily Edwards (24:53.103)
Yeah, no, no, I definitely remember when my parents lived in this very rural part of Connecticut and I, it was just, know, Connecticut’s not very big. It was only like 20 miles north of like the big city that I had grown up in. So I would drive down to meet my friends in the bigger city and then I would drive, you know, back north in order to go stay with my parents. This was probably the summer after my freshman year of college. And there was a moment in the hill where, cause it’s all uphill once you go north, you know, there was a moment and I would hit this point.
Tony Wirt (25:06.054)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (25:22.647)
and it would be swamps on either side of the road, which is a state route, but it’s still like very rural, cell phone coverage would cut out and there wouldn’t be no more streetlights. And you’d just be like, well, if someone just walked out of the swamp with like a shotgun and was like, you’re coming with me, I was going with them because there’s no other place to go.
And I find rurality to be terrifying. Like I genuinely am like a big city person. I’ve lived in LA for 15 years and before that was Boston. Like I need people. And so movies like this where they’re like, you can’t leave, it’s raining, there’s no streetlights, it’s set in the 50s, so all you have is paper maps. Like it is genuinely terrifying to me to be like trapped. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (26:07.623)
Yeah, that’s the no escapes, because even in that house, there’s a scene where, I’m trying to remember which character, but they go in the conservatory, I can break through this glass, oh no, there’s Dobermans outside. And even if you get past that, it’s raining, woods, there’s nowhere to go. Well heck, the stranded motorist shows up there, because there was nowhere else to go.
Emily Edwards (26:19.161)
Yeah. Yes.
Emily Edwards (26:26.849)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s so.
Emily Edwards (26:34.101)
Yes. Yes. And they play it for laughs where they’re like all crowded around the door and they’re like, no one’s dead in here. And the guy’s just like, can I use your phone?
Tony Wirt (26:36.388)
So he goes to the murder house.
Tony Wirt (26:43.364)
Yeah. Right.
Yo, the body. Body? No, no, no body. Nobody’s in the library. Those little dialogue jokes that are throughout this, just hilarious. And I will say, again, for the writers out there, the grammar jokes. There are grammar jokes through this whole thing. The whole double negative type thing, and then the…
Emily Edwards (26:50.478)
Yeah!
Emily Edwards (26:54.297)
Hahaha
Emily Edwards (27:09.133)
Right?
Tony Wirt (27:17.902)
when when Mrs. White was talking about her husband threatened to kill her in public it was the why would you threaten to kill you in public? They have they literally have a discussion about the semantics of of their sentences or the yeah and like the the big one is the Colonel Mustard and Wadsworth where they’re where he’s talking about is there am I right in saying that there’s nobody else in the house? No. No there is or no there isn’t you know like and
Emily Edwards (27:23.032)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (27:29.871)
The sentence structure, exactly.
Tony Wirt (27:47.298)
I mean, they go on for a good, it’s a little bit kind of like the, don’t call me Shirley airplane dialogue, but God, it kills me every time. I could listen to it forever.
Emily Edwards (27:52.353)
Yeah, very who’s on first kind of.
Yeah, I know. I think that’s another thing that I genuinely like about this because, again, we’re referencing all these kind of old kind of sticky jokes. It’s very like Borscht Bell, like, come take my wife, please, Rodney Dangerfield kind of jokes. But there is a wonderful timelessness to it that, obviously, this movie came out in…
Tony Wirt (28:14.292)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (28:26.534)
85.
Emily Edwards (28:27.026)
1985, the year I was born. And I’m just kind of like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe how well some of the dated jokes in it still actually… So I have to ask, because you’ve got kids, how did the girls react to this movie when they first saw it? Did they find it funny or did they find it stupid? Okay.
Tony Wirt (28:49.99)
they loved it. I mean, you know, part of that may be that they’ve grown up with me and have been exposed to a lot of good comedy and, you know, like they’ve got a they’ve got good taste. But like I think it was like it was the same for like when I was a kid. Like I said, I saw it in the theater in second grade and I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. And I guarantee I did not get some of the jokes.
Emily Edwards (29:02.797)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (29:17.559)
Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite jokes in this entire thing is Mrs. White saying, he wasn’t a very good illusionist. It’s so good.
Tony Wirt (29:24.834)
Yeah!
But, I mean, even just the frantic energy of Tim Curry running around for a kid, that’s enough. When you see him bounce off that door, you know? when the… When the candlestick… Like, it’s a perf… It’s a… The movie’s a perfect blend of slapstick and witty banter. It’s just… Yeah, I love it. I mean, I think…
Emily Edwards (29:35.951)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (29:40.486)
when he gets hit in the head when the candlestick falls?
Emily Edwards (29:51.051)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (29:57.37)
The greatest joke in the whole thing was one I didn’t catch for a few years, but it was when Mrs. Peacock asks Yvette for the little girl’s room. Is there a little girl’s room in the hall? She goes, Oui, oui, madame. And she goes, no, no, no, I just have to powder my nose. I will laugh at that for the rest of my life. I don’t even have to hear it. I can just think about it. Oui, oui, madame. No, I just have to powder my nose. But that’s one I know I didn’t catch when I was a kid.
Emily Edwards (30:18.526)
It’s so-
Emily Edwards (30:23.545)
No, just need to put it in my nose.
Yeah, exactly.
Tony Wirt (30:27.429)
Because I didn’t know any French, I didn’t know. But it’s just absolutely hilarious. I still think of like, if anyone asks me if you’re alright, I’m gonna say, yep, two corpses, everything’s fine. Every time.
Emily Edwards (30:30.639)
You didn’t know the joke.
Emily Edwards (30:41.743)
Exactly. Two courses, everything’s, yep, every time. It’s incredible. Especially, again, Eileen Brennan is one of my absolute favorite actresses ever. And this is not to discount Madeline Kahn or Leslie Ann Warren, who has an Oscar. Eileen Brennan, to me, is one of those actresses that’s abroad. And I know we’re not supposed to use that phrase, but she is, and I love it, because she’s just like, she’s probably, what, in her
fifties in this movie, and she, forties or fifties, and she’s just walking around like, all the men are paying attention to me, not Yvette. And it’s like, honey, no. They play with the sexual tension of this movie so incredibly well, which a lot of movies, mystery movies, especially, are very chaste. They always just like,
what you know, the divine like, you know, like marriage where you never like, you know, look at someone else. And then like anybody else who ever like thinks about sex is like, they’re gonna be dead in the library. And this movie is very modern for how it treats sex in a mystery connotation. Because like, it’s like when you watch Scream, and they’re always like, well, you’re gonna die because you thought about sex in a horror movie. Mystery movies are the exact same thing. And it drives me nuts. And I don’t like it.
Tony Wirt (31:58.437)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (32:02.767)
Hahaha
Tony Wirt (32:04.826)
Well, the other thing I’ll say is, you know, they really treated the women well in this movie. Because when you watch it, you’ll see the women are, while still crazy, they’re the more grounded and they’re a lot smarter. I mean, you could make a super cut of just Mrs. White not having time.
Emily Edwards (32:12.92)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (32:23.809)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (32:34.127)
for whatever the men are saying in this. And I thought that was, sometimes when you watch, I’ve had a lot of experiences with my daughters being like, hey, you are gonna love this movie. This was from my childhood, we’re gonna watch it, and we flip it on, and it’s like, ooh, ouch. Yeah. So, hun.
Emily Edwards (32:35.693)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (32:52.719)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tony Wirt (32:57.955)
Back then, it was considered funny if a woman thought she should get a job or you know, just like there’s like, there’s like, ooh, but yes. Yes. Well, I mean, even even to the point of like, this is getting later, but having to explain in the sandlot, you play ball like a girl. Both my daughters who were playing were in like T-ball softball at the time were just like. What? Like.
Emily Edwards (33:04.345)
Exactly. It’s like, she’s there to be his ornament and do nothing else. Yeah, exactly.
Emily Edwards (33:17.858)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (33:22.691)
High level sports. Yeah.
Dad?
Tony Wirt (33:27.781)
What does he mean by that, Dad? And I’m like, yeah, so. But there’s a lot of that. And it’s so great when you can revisit something that you love like that and you’re like, this holds up. This isn’t terrible. And like, know, Mr. Green being gay, like, they didn’t play him as a stereotype in that. It was, know, I they were obviously talking about the lavender scare and all that stuff, but, I, you know.
Emily Edwards (33:41.358)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (33:46.296)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (33:51.819)
No!
Tony Wirt (33:57.358)
I’m a straight dude, I do not mean to speak for gay people and saying these are good representations or however, you know, how people should feel about it. But they didn’t make a lot of, you know, gay jokes about him. That was, him being gay was never a punchline except for the very end of the last episode where he said, I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife. But that was more of an undercover cop joke, I think.
Emily Edwards (34:02.979)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (34:09.964)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (34:15.733)
Exactly. I think so too. Like, the joke is that Martin Mull’s character as Colonel Mustard doesn’t like gay people. That’s the joke, is that like the existence of a gay person makes the guy from the military, you know, even though he’s been sleeping with, you know, Miss Scarlet’s, you know, sex workers, like, but like the concept of a gay man makes Colonel Mustard uncomfortable. And that’s the joke, not that.
Tony Wirt (34:29.764)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (34:38.18)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (34:45.731)
Professor Green, or Mr. Green is gay, is not the joke. And it’s like, and I really appreciate also how much all of these actors were willing to be terrible people, because a lot of people don’t want to play an asshole. And every single person in this pot is a rancid ingredient. They’re all awful, except for maybe Miss Scarlet. And I really like that gender dynamic too.
Tony Wirt (35:12.461)
And the only reason she’s not awful is because when they’re going around, she’s the only one that absolutely owns why she’s there. I am a madam. I provide a service. That is why I’m being blackmailed. Heck, you are one of my clients. And she just owns it completely.
Emily Edwards (35:20.555)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (35:32.611)
love that about this movie, especially because even though we’re watching it in the 80s through now, it’s set in the 1950s, which is, you know, obviously a period of time that I like writing about because it was so screwed up. It’s not even funny. It is like the worst era of America.
Tony Wirt (35:41.315)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (35:53.221)
Did you know, I thought of you when I saw this, did you know that they had the cast watch His Girl Friday to get the banter, the rapid fire banter and just kind of the vibe and talk of the era? But yeah, when I saw that I thought of you.
Emily Edwards (36:00.463)
tatter.
Emily Edwards (36:07.457)
Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. it’s, you know, for me, I write a lot of dialogue in books. And it’s easily, you know, it’s the best way to move plot forward to me. It’s just like, but again, maybe it’s because I’m from outside of New York City, but like everybody talks all the time. Like my husband’s from Texas and he doesn’t have an accent really.
Tony Wirt (36:20.485)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (36:32.227)
But he once asked me like how I knew that he wasn’t from the Northeast. And I was just like, you talk too slow. I don’t know what to tell you. Like you talk way too slow. You’re clearly not from the Northeast. I clock that like he doesn’t have a draw or anything, but it’s like, sorry, man, it takes you two and a half minutes to put out a sentence. Like you talk way too slow. And they get the pattern of this. especially because they’re all DC based.
And I like the idea that they take all these characters from DC where there’s like all this stuff happening and throw them into the wilds of Connecticut. And it’s just like, God, they thought about everything in this.
Tony Wirt (37:12.485)
Yeah, and it’s so impressive because the dialogue is so snappy. And I know it’s hard. It sounds dated in the right way. Like I said, it’s supposed to be kind of that old school, you know, mystery, noir-ish kind of whatever. But to be able to hear and react that fast is…
Emily Edwards (37:17.856)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (37:25.645)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (37:40.299)
It’s awfully impressive. mean, they just, you know, their delivery was just phenomenal. And that’s what makes it so fun to watch.
Emily Edwards (37:45.54)
Yeah. It really is. And now one thing that we kind of brought up at the top of the hour that I want to delve into this with you a little bit is because we mentioned that it’s like, it’s not a movie you’re meant to solve. Like the whole thing is obfuscated really, really well. All the murders, you know, it’s very cozy in that almost all the murders happen off screen. You don’t see anybody get stabbed or shot or poisoned. It’s a lot of cutaways. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (38:08.163)
Mm-hmm. It’s a lot of cutaways. see a… Mm-hmm. Yep.
Emily Edwards (38:15.181)
You know, or it’s like they hear a shot from the other room and the wonderful scene of them like running like gazelle to go, you know, look at the shot and stuff like that. So it’s very cozy. It takes place in the country. It’s a locked mansion. You never see, know, sex is alluded to. It’s not really shown unless it’s meant to be like a joke where they’re making out with the dead. That’s true. And Miss Scarlet’s too. Like lot of boob work in this movie.
Tony Wirt (38:32.9)
except for a vet stress.
And Miss Scarlet. Yeah, I mean, I’m not gonna say the witty banter was the only thing I liked about that as a second grade.
Emily Edwards (38:45.295)
Yeah
Emily Edwards (38:48.687)
I love it. Again, this movie is revolutionary about sex in mystery movies and mystery canon, and I really, really love that. But one of the things that gets brought up a lot, and this is something that’s relatively new, is that mystery readers have been reawakened to the concept of the fair play mystery. And there were rules that were set up by all the mystery writers in the Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh.
Dorothy Sayers era where they’re like, these are the rules that mystery plays by. And the number one thing is that it has to be fair play, which means that all of the clues in order to solve the mystery are there on the page if you’re paying enough attention. And I don’t know about other mystery writers, but I have been asked about this several times by people on social media.
in the last year or so. And they’re like, is it a fair play? If it’s not a fair play, I won’t read it. You go on Reddit and it’s like the second someone suggests a book, is it fair play? If it’s not fair play, I won’t read it. And I’m just kind of like, I have never once thought about whether or not I should put all the little breadcrumbs in order for you to solve it into the text. I’m sorry. Just, I’ve never done it. Sorry.
Tony Wirt (40:05.571)
I don’t see, I think clue is actually a representation of how I think it should be. I think things need to be fair, but it is also not my job to drag you along. Like if you take the movie, for example, there are three endings to the movie. What comes before that? There are definitely clues in there you can see.
Emily Edwards (40:20.067)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (40:32.642)
But even in the three different endings, nothing contradicts anything. And I think that’s the big thing. You can’t… I think after Gone Girl came out and then the whole twist reveals, like this is definitely in the thriller space, has become such an expectation, such a thing. You see books that end with twists that can’t happen. If I’m reading a first-person book,
Emily Edwards (40:36.751)
Exactly. Yes.
Emily Edwards (40:44.676)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (41:02.212)
and in the last chapter you reveal that my POV character was actually the murderer, that is unacceptable to me. Because you have lied to me. And unreliable narrator is one thing. If you’re good enough, you can pepper enough things back there where you look back go, no, maybe I should have clocked that. But you can’t lie to the reader or to the audience. That is…
Emily Edwards (41:08.482)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (41:14.914)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (41:22.968)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (41:28.013)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (41:30.196)
That’s what I look at as a fair play thing. I don’t have to… I don’t have to hold your hand through the whole thing. I don’t have to be like, okay, look in chapter four for a clue. Look in chapter six for a clue. You know, I don’t want to string readers long, but I think your only obligation is you just can’t lie to them. You have to… when they look back, they can be like, I see how it fits in now. You know, even if they were like, I wouldn’t have clocked it. Okay, good. Then I win, I guess. Part of it.
Emily Edwards (41:31.799)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (41:35.491)
Guess it. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (41:40.045)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (41:52.654)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve read a couple of mysteries by more, much more classic mystery writers, like modern classic writers who actually make an appendix of like, here are all the clues to explain how, yeah. And I was just like, wow, first of all, that must be so tedious for your editor. And second of all, like, that is how I kind of clocked that like,
Tony Wirt (42:09.492)
really?
Emily Edwards (42:22.093)
the mystery readership might’ve changed a little bit in that like people are now really obsessed with proving that they’re maybe smarter than the author, you know, of just kind of like, I need to show you that I caught everything before you meant for me to catch it. And I was like, whatever happened to having fun?
Tony Wirt (42:40.938)
I will say this, look, I don’t know about you, but if I look back at my bad reviews, a lot of them are, I knew it was gonna happen. Okay, I mean, it’s a thriller. It’s not necessarily supposed to be a huge reveal at the end. Sometimes you can just enjoy the ride. And that, if you’re gonna be an, it takes talent to do that.
Emily Edwards (42:47.918)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (42:51.693)
Yep, same here. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (43:01.186)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (43:10.762)
and the best of them can write a story that you know how it’s gonna end, you would, you finish it like, that was amazing, I loved it. Everything does not have to be a surprise, especially if you’re not in the, I mean obviously if you’re in a mystery, you have to solve a case. But everything doesn’t have to be some big reveal, some big twist at the end. I I always use Blacktop Wasteland by Sean Cosby as the ultimate example of.
Emily Edwards (43:25.656)
Right.
Emily Edwards (43:36.193)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (43:38.656)
I don’t want to say it’s a cliche, but the whole book is one last job, guy gets pulled in, you know, like that, that’s been done a million times. Right. But it also shows how amazing of a writer that man is that he can drive you on this journey of like, yeah, you, you can probably know how it’s going to end. But we’re going to have a hell of a time doing it. And yeah.
Emily Edwards (43:47.309)
Yeah, it’s a framework, not a cliche. There’s a different thing, yeah.
Emily Edwards (43:54.977)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (44:00.72)
You’re going to be exactly you’re going be gripped the entire time and you’re not going to want to put down the book. I finished one recently.
Tony Wirt (44:08.162)
But I’ve heard a lot about, there is more of a reader expectation of, I, of like, I did an event last year with a lot of romance and fantasy writers. And because of that, I got like thrown in social media algorithm wise to like the romance and fantasy. And they really, really have expectations of.
Emily Edwards (44:34.68)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (44:35.487)
I want this and this and this and this and if it doesn’t have this I’m not gonna read it. And I am not here to tell people what they want to read but that also sounds boring to me. Like I just… I don’t… I don’t know…
Emily Edwards (44:43.951)
Yeah. It’s hard because at least with the series that I have out, you know, they’re very classic noir mysteries. So there’s expectations of it. And I really enjoy meeting those expectations. But I think one of the things that people can be kind of obtuse about when it comes to mysteries is that the mystery is not always the who done it, like who did the murderer. You also need the how catch them, which like
Columbo does really, Columbo is the quintessential, like, how do you catch the person that you know did this? And then there’s also just the wonderful question of why. So I also have a number of scathing reviews of like, well, I knew who the bad guy was in, you know, the first Baby on a Valentine. And I was like, yeah, I didn’t hide the fact that this guy was a schmuck. Like the why is the question. And I thought like, I thought I did okay, kind of like getting.
Tony Wirt (45:16.93)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (45:34.21)
Yeah!
Emily Edwards (45:39.81)
out there of like, why is this happening? Again, allusions to it everywhere. But like, you know, I think Clue is one of those wonderful movies where it’s like, they again, all three endings, absolutely brilliant, totally know why that failed at the box office, like through and through. So you saw it in the original run. you, do you know what ending you saw like the first time you saw it?
Tony Wirt (45:39.895)
Absolutely.
Tony Wirt (45:59.519)
I give them credit for trying.
Tony Wirt (46:05.284)
So, yeah, I am pretty sure we saw the final ending, the everybody ending. Although, and I don’t know if this is a Mandela effect, I think that, I feel like we saw all of them in the theater. Which the only thing, because it was so far removed from release, I swear I read somewhere that they started showing them all in the theater.
Emily Edwards (46:14.679)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (46:24.789)
yeah, so like you might have.
Emily Edwards (46:34.606)
I believe you’re right.
Tony Wirt (46:35.779)
So I think we saw them all in the theater. I was actually looking at did that ever happen? I give them credit for trying. It’s a cool idea. yeah, obviously you know, for those who don’t, if you happen to watch the original release, in the paper it would say…
Emily Edwards (46:44.642)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (46:48.751)
That’s a really cool idea.
Tony Wirt (47:00.799)
ending A, ending B, ending C. And the thought was people would go multiple times and all this stuff. What happened was everyone got like, not FOMO, but like the paralysis by analysis, like, well, I don’t want to go to the bad one. I want to go to the good one. And they didn’t know which ones were good. So they just didn’t go.
Emily Edwards (47:18.935)
I know, it’s so sad.
Tony Wirt (47:21.325)
But it shows why a movie like that would bomb the theater, but then once it’s on HBO seven times a day, like it was when I was a kid, you get to see them all there and it’s it’s great, amazing chaos.
Emily Edwards (47:26.392)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (47:33.274)
Yeah. Just from like a practical idea, I cannot imagine how expensive it was to then go back and be like sending out two more reels worth of like footage to be spliced in and edited by like the projectionist. Cause this was when they’re still dealing with actual physical film in order to, you know, project the movie. And I’m like those poor like projectionists who probably had to splice in the other two endings.
Tony Wirt (47:51.008)
yeah.
Tony Wirt (47:58.497)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (48:00.196)
for like whatever theater they, my God, I cannot imagine how expensive and onerous and how many theaters were probably just like, screw it. I’m not gonna show this movie anymore.
Tony Wirt (48:08.418)
I well like I said, I used to work at a theater. Those reels would come in gigantic heavy metal canisters. And I remember our projectionists, like, you know, they would splice things to get, it’s, yeah, it’s nuts. Yeah, yeah.
Emily Edwards (48:16.729)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (48:21.241)
Yeah. And they’re flammable as hell. That’s the other thing that you don’t smoke in the projection room. You will die. That’s nothing about it being an enclosed space and everything to do with the fact that you will go full in glorious bastards at the end. is so dangerous. But I’m trying to think of like another like a little thing we could talk tad about with this movie, because just it’s one of those films that I think
Tony Wirt (48:28.244)
No.
Emily Edwards (48:51.201)
it will awaken you to the love of the mystery genre without it being didactic. I think, again, mystery can get, especially if you are introduced to mystery through Agatha Christie specifically, you can’t shit on Dame Aggie all that often without people being like, who the hell are you? And the thing is, like, who the hell am I? But she was writing in a very specific time and place. And I think that even
Tony Wirt (49:08.546)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (49:21.025)
Agatha Christie was fairly conservative for her time and place. She has a very specific view of who are the good people in society, who are the bad people in society, what is a sin you should be murdered for, you know, like all these sort of dalliances and like she does not like black people, she does not like Jewish people, cops are great in Dame Agatha Christie’s, you know, worldview. And I think to have something like Clue,
that is very, it’s talking about communism, good, bad, we don’t know. Like, you know, it’s taking a fair, just a red herring. I love this movie. You know, like the fact that Ms. Scarlett is an unapologetic sex worker, the fact that Ms. White sees nothing wrong with the fact that her husband is taking bribes. Like this is very unusual for a mystery or thriller, you know, suspense thing where…
Tony Wirt (49:56.173)
It’s just a red herring.
Huh?
Emily Edwards (50:16.791)
the rules of appropriate action are very well defined in the genres that we write in.
Tony Wirt (50:24.576)
Yeah, mean heck, Ms. basically admitted to murder before, to being a murderer before she got there. Went through five husbands.
Emily Edwards (50:31.661)
Yeah. Yeah. Mrs. Peacock, where she’s just like, it’s fine that my you know, my husband is is an ambassador and just takes money from people all the time.
Tony Wirt (50:37.686)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (50:42.676)
It was funny because I that was one thing for some reason that I don’t know if I wasn’t looking for us. But when I watched this just the other night, just to kind of refresh myself, because it been a little bit. But that was something I clocked that I never noticed for us were when they said you are, you know, taking bribes. And she was like, that’s fine. Like, I don’t know what the problem is. Mrs. White was like, you know, what you say, husband should be like Kleenex, soft, strong, disposable. It’s like.
Emily Edwards (50:51.982)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (51:09.315)
Yes. And disposable. Yeah.
Tony Wirt (51:11.69)
Yeah, mean, these people were all kind of just like, it was only the men that were ashamed of what they did. The women were kind of like, yeah.
Emily Edwards (51:17.263)
That’s true. Yeah, ooh, you’re gonna hit me with what I actually did and don’t apologize for, which again, so subversive, even for 1985 when women were supposed to be like the moral superiors, like the moral like betters and like tell the naughty boys about how they’re supposed to act. you know, even more, and I love the fact that Colonel Mustard is the one that they all universally hate because he was more profiteering. They’re like, we draw the line.
Tony Wirt (51:21.524)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Wirt (51:30.368)
Yeah.
Tony Wirt (51:42.369)
Yeah!
How many soldiers died because their radios didn’t work?
Emily Edwards (51:48.205)
Yeah, yeah. they all even, you know, even down to they don’t even really mind that they’re being, they don’t like that they’re being blackmailed, but they’re like, we get why you’re doing it. And look at this house.
Tony Wirt (52:01.386)
Yeah, we get to have shark fin soup and monkey brains.
Emily Edwards (52:04.449)
Yeah, and monkey brains and stuff like that. And truthfully, the communism symbolism in that is just to die for. They’re eating Chinese monkey brain soup. And then the two guard dog breeds are German Shepherds and Dobermans. And you’re just kind of like, god. You really went into the meta-annoying details of this. It’s one of it is. It’s absolutely perfect.
Tony Wirt (52:20.066)
Doberman’s.
Tony Wirt (52:28.706)
That’s why it’s perfect.
Emily Edwards (52:31.789)
Like, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to discuss this with me. Tell everybody about your books that we have glanced upon in our chat, where they can get you, where they can get it, where they can find you and stalk you on the internet.
Tony Wirt (52:46.242)
So I’m on Instagram at Wirter, W-I-R-T-E-R. I’m on Blue Sky at Tony Wirt. And my books are available wherever you get fine books or mediocre ones too. Silent Creek is my latest release, came out last October. I always kind of pitch it as Hoosiers meets Cape Fear.
Emily Edwards (53:10.852)
Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. That’s awesome.
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