Sleuth, Laurence Olivier & Michael Caine Star

I first saw this 1972 film on television at some point during the second half of the 1980s. An acquaintance, who did some acting in local theater, had previously mentioned the stage play to me. The film stars Laurence Olivier as Andrew Wyke, an eccentric writer of crime mysteries and a lover of games, and Michael Caine as Milo Tindle, a half-Italian, half-English hairdresser, who is having an affair with Andrew's wife. Both stars were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1973, but lost to Marlon Brando for his role as "Vito Corleone" in "The Godfather." Joseph Mankiewicz was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director that year for "Sleuth," losing out to the director of "Cabaret," Bob Fosse, and the Music score for "Sleuth" was also nominated for an Academy Award. If you've never seen this film before (or the stage play), you likely will need to see it more than once to really follow it, and to further appreciate the great performances of Olivier and Caine. Be aware, this article deals with the entire film and it's ending!

The film is a bit deep, symbolized by its opening scenes, as we see a lifelike painting of a mansion, which then changes to real life, and as the film progresses, you'll find that telling what is real can be difficult. Then in another symbol of what's to come, we see Milo's car pull up in front of the mansion, which we eventually learn belongs to Andrew. Milo then walks into a maze made of large hedges on the grounds of the mansion. He walks and walks, but cannot find his way through to the center, finally asking Andrew, who is in the center of the whole maze, for help. The two later go inside and we see a house filled with all sorts of games, toys and mechanical dolls. Andrew tells Milo that he knows Milo wants to marry his wife, Marguerite, and that he wants to be rid of her, but he's fearful that Milo doesn't have the financial means to keep her happy, and that she'll end up coming back to him. The film is much about class status, ego and revenge. As for status, when Milo says his father was an Italian immigrant to England, but he wanted himself and his family to "become English," this prompts Andrew to repeat the words as a question ("Become English?) and in a condescending way.

Andrew tells Milo that he has a large collection of very valuable jewels in a safe in the mansion, and that he wants Milo to steal the jewels, so he will have enough money to support Marguerite, thus making sure she will not return. Since the jewels are insured, Andrew says he won't lose anything, but, in order to convince the insurance company and the police that a robbery has occurred, he wants Milo to wear a disguise and actually break into the mansion through an upstairs window. Milo dresses as a clown with long floppy shoes, climbs up a ladder, cuts out a glass panel, reaches in and unlocks the window, then enters the house, although not before first falling down the ladder. The whole thing is hilarious. Throughout the whole "robbery," Andrew, the fiction writer of crime, is giving Milo instructions on what to do to make it all look completely real for when the investigators come later. Andrew rigs up a small explosive charge to the wall safe for Milo and the safe is blown open. Milo triumphantly gets the box of jewels. Andrew says the two need to scuffle and he gets a gun, because he wants the gun fired, so the police will think it went off during the scuffle. Things then turn very serious, when Andrew points the gun at Milo, and tells him, "I'ma gonna killa you," in a mocking Italian accent. He then proceeds to unleash anti-Italian and class bigotry abuse on Milo. Andrew tells the terrified Milo that he has the perfect set up, a man dressed in a clown suit, who has just robbed his house. The gun goes off and Milo, dressed in the clown outfit, tumbles down the staircase.

A couple of nights later, with Cole Porter songs playing on a phonograph, and as Andrew prepares to bite into some caviar on toast wedges, the bell rings and an overweight, balding man is at the door, who introduces himself as Inspector Doppler, from the local constabulary. He tells Andrew he is investigating the disappearance of Milo Tindle. Andrew plays down his knowledge of Milo, telling Doppler he hadn't seen Tindle for "some months." The inspector shows Andrew a note he found at Milo's house, which Andrew had sent to Milo, inviting him to his manor. Andrew admits Milo had been there. Doppler then says a passerby had heard shots fired the night Tindle had been there, but Andrew says the shots were all part of a game the two had been playing that night. Andrew finally tells the inspector what had really happened that evening, and that he had "shot" Tindle with a blank, which caused Milo to faint, but that a short time later, Tindle left. He tells the inspector he had done everything to humiliate Tindle, not to kill him. Doppler finds some dried and even damp blood on the staircase, which shakes Andrew, especially when the inspector follows that by telling Andrew he saw a mound of fresh dirt on the manor grounds. On the way back from the mound of dirt, we see Milo's car hidden in some hedges and vines, something not observed by the two men. Back inside the house, Doppler finds Tindle's clothing in a closet. When the inspector asks if Tindle had left Andrew's house while naked, Andrew tells him that Milo had changed back into his clothes, the very clothes found in the closet. When Doppler lays out the evidence he has and tells Andrew he must take him in to headquarters, Andrew runs off, only to be caught by the inspector, who then peels away his disguise to reveal that he is really Milo. As Milo cleans up, Andrew tells him he was only playing along with Milo's own game, and that he likes the Inspector Doppler character Milo has invented.

Andrew thinks the two are now even with one another, but Milo tells him that is not really the case, as he really thought he was witnessing his own last moments when Andrew pointed the gun at him and then pulled the trigger. He tells Andrew that he really killed Andrew's mistress, something Andrew does not believe, but when he calls her house, he's told that she has been murdered. Milo tells him that he has planted clues around the room, clues that point to Andrew as the killer of his own mistress. Further, he tells Andrew that he has already called the police, and that they are due there in a matter of a few minutes. Andrew scurries about the house, trying to find the four clues, at times seeming to be totally taken by the whole thing, game player and fiction writer though he is. Given hints as to the whereabouts of the clues by Milo's riddles, Andrew finds all the clues just after Tindle tells him the police are coming up the driveway. As Andrew struggles to make himself appear composed to meet the police, we find out there are no police, as this has just been another game by Milo, who has shown himself to be above Andrew at game playing, even though Andrew has considered himself to be the master of games. Milo turns the humiliation on Andrew, telling him that he really talked with Andrew's "supposed" mistress, who told him that Andrew is "pretty much impotent," and that she was more than happy to participate in the deception of Andrew about her "death." As Milo goes upstairs to get Marguerite's fur coat, Andrew loads a pistol, all the while speaking aloud of the plan he has to justify Milo's death, just as if he were writing one of his mysteries. When Milo comes downstairs, he is confronted by Andrew, who tells him he can't let him leave, now that he knows humiliating information about him, and that this time, the gun has real bullets. Milo explains that he really did talk to the police, and that they know of Andrew's games of humiliation and possible homicidal tendency. Milo walks toward the door and Andrew shoots him. Milo falls to the floor, but we hear the sound of a motor, the motor of an approaching vehicle. Andrew opens the door to see the police pulling in. He goes inside, locks the door and sees wounded Milo crawling along the floor. As then we see the flashing blue lights of the police car through the windows, Milo tells Andrew, "Be sure to tell them it was all just a bloody game." With the police pounding on the door, Milo grabs the switch to the mechanical dolls and toys and pushes it, making all of Andrew's collection laugh, spin, flash. Milo then dies. Which man is crazier?

Photo is of the Umbrella Entertainment 2015 DVD 

WORD HISTORY: 
Sleuth-The origins of this word are unknown, but English borrowed the word in the late 1100s from Old Norse^ "sloð" (ð=(e)th), which meant "track of a person or animal." Where Old Norse got the word is unknown. English applied the word to a bloodhound as, "sleuth-hound," obviously for a bloodhound's super sense of smell and it's ability to track something. By the 1800s (mid?), the hound part had largely been dropped, leaving "sleuth," and the meaning "investigator." The less used verb form developed from the noun and means, "to investigate, to act like a 'sleuth'."

^ Old Norse is from the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, and it, or its most prominent descendants: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, influenced, and was/were influenced by, Low German, Frisian and English. Old Norse speakers, collectively called "Danes" by the English, landed and often settled in northern and parts of eastern England beginning in the 800s AD, eventually leading to a number of words being borrowed by English, which often already had similar, related words.

Heston And Olivier Star: "Khartoum," Plus Some History

NOTE: This article contains information about the movie "Khartoum," including its ending. If you have not seen the movie before and if you don't want to know the ending (although the ending is really obvious), please be forewarned.

While the historical "siege of Khartoum" took place in 1884-85, and the movie was released in 1966, and I'm writing this in November of 2014, you will see that the wars and killings centered around this general topic are not new, and they remain with us to this very day.

The movie "Khartoum" was released back in the mid 1960s and was loosely based upon historical events in the Sudan in eastern Africa in the 1880s. Charlton Heston starred as British General Charles Gordon, who a few years earlier had served in the Sudan as part of the Turkish-Egyptian governing authority, and who played a big role in ending the slave trade there, giving Gordon a great deal of popularity among many of the Sudanese. Gordon had become well known to the British public for his earlier role in China, where he led a highly successful force of British, American and Chinese troops in support of the Chinese emperor to put down some rebellions. This earned Gordon the nickname, "Chinese Gordon." Laurence Olivier starred as "the Mahdi," a self proclaimed Sudanese religious and military leader, whose name was Muhammad Ahmad. The Mahdi led a rebellion against the governing powers of the Sudan (see more below), and thousands of Sunni Muslim Sudanese who believed him to be the true successor to the Prophet Muhammad, flocked to his cause.

Sudan, or "the" Sudan, as I use (I must have been taught that in school long ago, and it therefore sounds more natural to me), had a complicated relationship with Egypt, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), and Britain. The region had long been linked with Egypt, but much of Egypt and the Sudan was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The British got involved in Egypt in the early 1880s, and this brought calls for the use of British forces to quell the uprising led by the Mahdi, something the British government did not want to do. The Sudan was garrisoned by Egyptian troops, but with some British officers. The movie depicts the British government's resistance to sending troops and instead asking General Gordon to go to the Sudan in an attempt to satisfy those calling for military forces to be sent, and to evacuate British and Egyptian military, governmental and business personnel from the region. Remember, this is a movie and not a documentary, and as such, actual historical events are not always followed, but rather depicted in some fashion to generally represent the historical events, and then too, there is always the need for any film to make money, and thus scenes are often added for tension and to get people interested to pay to see it.

Khartoum was the center for the administration of the Sudan and Gordon arrives there to jubilant crowds, for his reputation is so powerful, people feel they will now be saved from the Mahdi's takeover. While Gordon prepares a defense of the city, he also tries to get the British government to change its policy and to send troops. The movie shows Gordon going to meet with the Mahdi on a couple of occasions during the ten month siege of Khartoum, although that likely never happened in real life, but historically, the two leaders did exchange various communications. Gordon wants the Mahdi to allow the Egyptian troops and administrators to leave unharmed, but while the Mahdi wants Gordon to leave, he will not permit the Egyptians to leave, as they are marked for death. The Sudanese population will then have to submit to strict Islamic law or be executed. Meanwhile, back in Britain, the public wants British troops sent to the Sudan to "save Gordon." The government relents and finally thousands of troops are sent to Egypt, where they spend time training for the hot climate and rough terrain. The government really hopes this delay will force Gordon to abandon Khartoum, save himself, and join these British forces in Egypt, something, however, he will not do. Historically, Gordon had strong, but somewhat out of the ordinary, Christian religious beliefs, and the religious element of his life is depicted in the movie. In his last meeting with the Mahdi, the two use their religious views against one another, as each essentially condemns the other to death as the will of their views of God (Allah).

The pressure on the British government becomes too much, and the troops in Egypt are given the order to move into the Sudan. The Mahdi organizes his attack on Khartoum and gives the order for the assault. The Egyptian troops put up a valiant defense, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy, but in the end the Mahdi's forces overcome their resistance and enter the city. Gordon, who is in his residence, goes out to meet the Mahdi's forces. As he appears at the head of some steps, the soldiers cease fire and grow silent. Gordon descends a few steps and one of the soldiers throws a spear which kills him and his body topples from the staircase. Gordon is beheaded and his head is put atop a long pike and carried to the Mahdi, who is terrified by its sight, as he had ordered that Gordon not be killed (historically true). The idea here is, the Mahdi was an astute leader, and he knew that killing the famous Gordon "could" bring substantial British military forces against him. The narrator tells us the British troops arrived just two days later (true), but that the Sudan suffered terribly in the aftermath of the Mahdi's victory, although the Mahdi's rule was short lived, as he too died just a short time later, and the narrator says, "Why, we shall never know," but with the implication that Gordon's religious "threat" or "curse" to the Mahdi in their last meeting had been fulfilled. Historically, how Gordon died is not really known, but the scene in the movie was not "invented" by the filmmaker, but rather was taken from some accounts and from a famous painting depicting Gordon's death. The actual final battle was not really as seen in the movie, as one of Gordon's own men opened one of the gates to the city, allowing the Mahdi's forces to enter. Many of the Egyptians were killed in the fighting, with survivors being executed, and some Sudanese were executed, with the total number being in the thousands. The Mahdi did indeed die just a few months later, "presumably" from typhus.  

The following were consulted for this article:
"Gordon of Khartoum-The Saga Of A Victorian Hero" by John H. Waller, published by Atheneum, 1988.
"Gordon of Khartoum" by Peter Johnson, published by Patrick Stevens, 1985

WORD HISTORY:
Ennet-This now largely British dialectal, but generally antiquated word for "duck," the waterfowl, goes back to Indo European "anet/anat," with the meaning "waterbird, waterfowl." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "anuth," with the same meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "ened/enid," which meant "duck." This later became "enede," before the later version, "ennet," which is also at times written "annet." Other forms in the Germanic languages are: German "Ente," Low German "Aant," Dutch "eend," West Frisian "ein," Danish and Norwegian "and," Icelandic "önd," Swedish "and," but also "an."