Clue: The Proper Ending

The 1985 movie Clue had a gimmick where three different endings were shot and a different ending was placed on different prints. The idea was to try and get theater goers to see the movie in different theaters to see the different endings. The movie did poorly and was pulled from theaters after a short time. However, not wanting to waste the endings, all three were put on when released on VHS with the ending of Wadsworth being Mr. Boddy being touted as the "real" ending. However, none of the endings actually work as is. In all three endings, there are plot holes or mistakes that just don't work. I'm going to list the three endings, why they don't work as is and then propose an amalgamation that is the best fit ending in my opinion.

Solution A: Yvette/Miss Scarlet

In this ending, the maid, Yvette, kills both Mr. Boddy and the cook under orders from Miss Scarlet. Miss Scarlet steps up and kills the motorist, Yvette, the cop and the singing telegram girl. Her motivation is revealed to be that she is stealing classified information and selling it to foreign powers, essentially taking over Mr. Boddy's blackmail scheme.

This is arguably the best ending as it contains the fewest holes viewing-wise. The principle problems actually come with the first two murders done by Yvette. Wadsworth's explanation is that after Miss Scarlet grabbed the gun, Yvette snuck out of the billiard room, stole the dagger, killed the cook and then ran back to the billiard room and screamed. Except that in the following scene, Yvette repeats parts of their conversation. If she had been running off to kill the cook, she would not have heard that conversation. There was also no way of her knowing that Mrs. Peacock had dropped the dagger right near the door. It would seem an unnecessary risk to try and steal a weapon from the room to kill the cook when she could have just grabbed something from the billiard room or the hall.

Another problem with Yvette being the murderer for the first two is that Yvette would have to have been aware of what Mr. Boddy's plan was to tell Miss Scarlet so that they could have planned what to do. Given that Mr. Boddy was already suspicious of Wadsworth, it is unlikely that he would have disclosed any information of what he was planning to Yvette on risk of Wadsworth becoming aware of it. Miss Scarlet could have done things on the fly, but coordination would have been needed to involve someone else like Yvette and that would have taken time and knowledge of Mr. Boddy's intentions.

Solution B: Mrs. Peacock

This is the least likely scenario and one that would have turned off many viewers I would think. In this scenario, Mrs. Peacock kills all six victims, the latter four solely to cover up the fact that the first two would have pointed clearly to her. Mrs. Peacock committing the first two murders works fine, but the other four make no sense. For comedic effect, the four pairs of partners are shown watching each other very closely during the time that the motorist is killed. Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet are the only ones shown to have a clear moment where they are separated, making them the only real possibility. Worse, when the lights go out, almost immediately Mrs. Peacock is shown backing into the furnace. This would mean that after running up the stairs for a second time without Professor Plum noticing to turn off the lights, she then ran back down the stairs to run into the furnace and then back up to commit the three murders. None of these events make any sense.

Solution C: All of them/Wadsworth is Mr. Boddy

This is the "real" solution according to the tape. In it, Professor Plum kills Mr. Boddy, Mrs. Peacock kills the cook, Colonel Mustard kills the motorist, Mrs. White kills Yvette, Miss Scarlet kills the cop and Wadsworth kills the singing telegram girl. When he is revealed to be Mr. Boddy, Mr. Green reveals himself as an FBI plant and kills Wadsworth.

This solution works best for motive and also for how much of the action was staged. Professor Plum and Mrs. Peacock are clearly shown as missing in their respective murder scenes and there is a fairly strong implication of Colonel Mustard in the destruction of the evidence right before the motorist is killed. The problems really rise in the other three murders. Like with Mrs. Peacock, both Mrs. White and Wadsworth are shown in comic scenes upstairs. You can actually hear Mrs. White screaming upstairs while Yvette is walking downstairs to the billiard room. Yet we are supposed to believe that Mrs. White is waiting for her in the billiard room, having been the one to sneak downstairs and turn off the lights. Likewise, Wadsworth would have had to come downstairs to retrieve the gun, kill the singing telegram girl, run back upstairs to get lost and turn the shower on himself, then run back downstairs to turn the lights back on. Possible but not very likely.

There is also the odd factor of why Wadsworth would admit to killing the singing telegram girl if he were Mr. Boddy. He should have been tipped off that the FBI was on to him when J. Edgar Hoover called for Mr. Green. In that scenario, he could have fled after killing the singing telegram girl. Or, should he not wanted to go on the run, he could have hidden the gun so that it wouldn't have been called out to him. Implicating the others in their murders would have kept them in line out of fear of arrest. By process of elimination he should have guessed that Mr. Green was the plant and hidden the gun either on him or in a random location. The other guests were quick to jump on Mr. Green as the one who shot the singing telegram girl and when the gun fails to turn up, he would have been out of metaphorical ammo. Either way, Mr. Green would have been left without any evidence against Mr. Boddy as his network was dead and no evidence of him killing any of them. Wadsworth admitting that he killed the singing telegram girl and exposing himself as Mr. Boddy suggests that he didn't know or suspect that Mr. Green was a plant and could go Bond villain to ensure that the blackmail would continue. That doesn't make much sense either.

The Proposed Solution

Weighing everything out, the best solution is where we take little bits from each scenario based solely off the evidence shown in the movie. Each victim should be taken one at a time.

1. Mr. Boddy - Professor Plum killing him makes the most sense. It is unlikely that anyone with any medical knowledge would mistake someone alive to be dead. He fires the gun but claims that someone grabbed his hand. He also stays behind in the study and when Mr. Boddy jumps up to escape, he cracks him on the head with the candlestick. Professor Plum is noticeably absent from the kitchen and shows up in the doorway at the end of the scene, near Mrs. Peacock.

2. The cook - Given that two of the three scenarios showed Mrs. Peacock killing the cook, that is the obvious solution. She is missing from the billiard room when Yvette screams and her given weapon was the dagger. What's more, not only did she have motivation but as the cook was once her cook, she could have easily learned from her about the secret passage in the kitchen, shoring up that little plot element.

3. The motorist - This is actually the most tricky one. All the major evidence points to Colonel Mustard. He was his driver so there is motive. Colonel Mustard is also in good position to switch the keys in Wadsworth's pocket, being behind Wadsworth when the motorist is at the door and being the one to tap Wadsworth on the shoulder when he locks the motorist in. He also makes the suggestion that they split up, giving a better chance of breaking away to commit the murder. He is shown separating from Miss Scarlet in the ballroom and while he says he is going to search the kitchen, he is shown later being surprised by the location of the ironing board, suggesting he did not go to the kitchen. Unlike all the other murders, the killer of the motorist took time and effort. They destroyed the blackmail evidence (where a picture of the motorist and Colonel Mustard can be seen) including the tape recording. The murderer also goes to the trouble of wearing gloves, something not seen in the other murders.

So why not just say it was Colonel Mustard? Because then you have to answer the question of how he knew about the secret passage in the conservatory. Miss Scarlet would have known about it through Yvette, making her more likely to be able to go through with it. Of course, it is shown earlier that Colonel Mustard was a client of Miss Scarlet's and he was quite familiar with Yvette. It is possible that she mentioned the secret passage in one of their encounters. Although the knowledge logistics might better allow Miss Scarlet to be the murderer here, I think the bulk of the evidence favors Colonel Mustard for the motorist.

4. Yvette - Up until now, the best solutions have all come from Solution C. Here is where we deviate. The logistics of what is shown on screen rule out Mrs. Peacock and seemingly rule out Mrs. White given her limited mobility shown when the lights go out. What's more, the two planned murders on the first floor make sense for Miss Scarlet to do. With Mr. Boddy dead Miss Scarlet is no longer in need of Yvette as a network operative with Mr. Boddy. Yvette was also the source of the information to Miss Scarlet of Mrs. White's husband's work but he was also dead. Yvette was also exposed as working for her so simple relaying of information via prostitution was also dried up. In short, Yvette was no longer useful to Miss Scarlet. Yvette's behavior in slipping into the billiard room when the lights going out suggests a prearranged signal between her and Miss Scarlet. Miss Scarlet then takes advantage of the meeting by eliminating her operative.

5. The cop - Again, two out of the three scenarios had Miss Scarlet killing the cop so her killing him makes the most sense. It is easy to imagine that Miss Scarlet offered the signal to eliminate Yvette and then took advantage of the opportunity to eliminate the other person she paid off but who sold her out to Mr. Boddy.

6. The singing telegram girl - the telegram girl has always been the oddball in the murder mystery. It is Professor Plum who has the motive to actually kill her but he is never offered. Wadsworth killing her makes some sense as she was the last of his agents and he closed the loop. But given the logistics shown, it makes little sense as to how he could have done it and I think the best solution does not have him being Mr. Boddy. Mrs. Peacock is impractical and with Miss Scarlet having killed Yvette and the cop, it makes the most sense that she would kill her too.

I would change the motive a bit though. In Solution A, Miss Scarlet is suggested to have killed the girl because she recognized her from her photograph. However, as Colonel Mustard destroyed the evidence in this scenario, Miss Scarlet would have had little chance to see those pictures. Given that her affair was with Professor Plum, she would likely not have been on the negatives showing Colonel Mustard and Yvette that everyone did see. So I'm inclined to put Miss Scarlet's murder of the girl as a point of random confusion. The two murders on the ground floor would be suggestive of her. Adding a third random person, whom she would not have necessarily known, would have given legs to the idea that there was a murderer hiding in the house and that person killed the other two, killed the girl and then ran out with the gun. So her death becomes an attempt as misdirection on an unknown rather than any part of a clean up effort.

As for the final wrap up, it would have been a blend of Solutions A and C. Wadsworth was in fact an FBI agent, assigned to track the case of Mr. Boddy, who fingers the first three individual murderers. He then fingers Miss Scarlet for the last three and she pulls the gun out on them. While the motive for all the murders would have been revenge or clean up, Miss Scarlet could still have stepped up to take Mr. Boddy's place as the new blackmailer. It would also keep her motivation to pay the blackmail as shown because Mr. Green is correct and that being exposed as a Madame was not a significant point for blackmail as she could have taken down most of Washington with her. But if the cop or Yvette exposed her to Mr. Boddy as a mercenary spy, that was worth paying him off to keep her hidden. She does overlook Mrs. White being able to pay her in government information, given that her husband is dead, but with five deceased husbands, Mrs. White was probably the one guest who still could have paid Miss Scarlet in cash.

Others would probably come up with their own solutions and little changes could be made here and there, but I think given the weight of information shown on screen that the above solution represents the most plausible outcome of events. Motivations change and the final scene would have to have been fixed, but I think it addresses the most grievous plot holes. At the very least, it leaves you in a position where you can paper over the small ones with head cannon.