Produced at the peak of the American New Wave, “The Last of Sheila” (“Sheila”) was the work of three unlikely collaborators, two of whom had never and never would again work as filmmakers. They would be Broadway composer Steven Sondheim and actor Anthony Perkins, known best as the lead in “Psycho.”
Close friends Sondheim and Perkins co-wrote the screenplay, something of a modern-day riff on Agatha Christie, containing a half-dozen or so Hollywood insider archetypes who all, in some form or fashion, are easily capable of being disagreeable and committing murder.
Before They Do It to You
While there are bits and fragments of deadpan and sarcasm scattered throughout “Sheila,” most of it is played relatively straight. It’s part scavenger hunt, part parlor game, and a little of “cutthroat,” a three-person billiard match where the object is to pocket your opponent’s balls while they’re doing the same thing to yours. Or, in other words, standard Hollywood operational procedure.The movie starts in earnest a year after the death of Sheila (Yvonne Romaine), the wife of power broker Clifton (James Coburn). Sheila left a party in a huff and was soon mowed down by an unidentified, likely drunk hit-and-run driver.
We can’t tell if Clifton is still grieving or relishing impending revenge as he assembles and sends out invitations to six people he wishes to join him on a week-long Mediterranean yacht trip in the South of France.
Among the attendees are socialite Lee (Joan Hackett) and her talentless screenwriter husband Tom (Richard Benjamin), the thespian-challenged bombshell actress Alice (Raquel Welch) and her aloof manager husband Anthony (Ian McShane), and has-been director Philip (James Mason) who is so far down on the pecking order, he’s currently making dog food commercials featuring preschool-aged children.
Arguably the most interesting member of the lot is Christine (Dyan Cannon), a vicious (is there any other kind?) agent who fears nothing and nobody and is impossible to read. While everyone else arrives at the yacht harboring palpable tension, the jovial Christine is loaded for bear and ready to par-tay.
All present (including Clifton) were at the party on the night Sheila died, so each had opportunity, if not also motive, which makes sense as she made her living as a gossip columnist.
Clifton’s game plan is simple. He hands each guest a different card accusing someone in the group of a crime that forms the anagram SHEILA. You are a Shoplifter, you are a Hit-and-run driver, you are an Ex-convict, you are in Informant, and you have been Arrested. The “L” card appears to be missing.
A Whodunit a Tad Wanting
As whodunits go, “Sheila” is, well, let’s put it this way: Longtime Christie fans are likely to find the plot a tad wanting. The movie is not as good as the 1974 version of “Murder on the Orient Express” or “Death on the Nile” from 1978 but is far better than the recent Kenneth Branagh-directed remakes of those same films.There are no holes in the plot, and it is clear Sondheim and Perkins were shooting for some cheekiness but, because of the reliance on “inside baseball” entertainment industry stock characters, those not enamored with all things show business going in might find the entire enterprise a bit cliquish and inapproachable.
Regardless, watching a cast of (then) Hollywood A-listers playing spoiled D-list brats getting what-fer in a foreign land will give many viewers cause to snicker and revel in seeing them receive their just desserts.
