Sleuth (1972) on Netflix
PG19722h 18mCrimeMysteryThriller
Andrew Wyke, a crime novelist in a country manor filled with games, invites Milo Tindle, his wife's lover. Andrew suggests Milo stage a robbery of his jewelry so Milo can support Marguerite.
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- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.9/1053,323 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
Andrew Wyke writes successful crime fiction and lives in a country manor filled with games and mechanical figures. He invites Milo Tindle, who runs two hair salons and is the lover of Andrew's wife, Marguerite, to the house. Andrew explains that he wants Milo to take Marguerite off his hands so Andrew can be with Téa, his mistress. Milo's salons are not yet profitable, and Marguerite has expensive tastes. Andrew proposes that Milo steal valuable jewelry from the manor and let Andrew claim insurance money for the loss. Milo agrees, and Andrew begins leading him through a plan to make the theft look real.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sleuth (1972)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To keep the ending a complete surprise, the opening credits list fictional actors in roles that do not exist, among them Alec Cawthorne as Inspector Doppler and Eve Channing, named after characters from Mankiewicz's All About Eve, as Marguerite Wyke.
- Playwright Anthony Shaffer had hoped Anthony Quayle, who played Andrew Wyke on stage in London and on Broadway, would keep the role, and wanted Alan Bates as Milo Tindle, but director Joseph L. Mankiewicz chose Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine.
- Sleuth was the second film with practically its entire cast nominated for Academy Awards, after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966, and the first in which exactly all of the film's actors were nominated; only Give 'em Hell, Harry! has matched the feat.
- Laurence Olivier told Stephen Sondheim that he based his performance as Andrew Wyke on Sondheim, whom playwright Anthony Shaffer had partly taken as inspiration for the original play's love of games.
- When Michael Caine asked Laurence Olivier how he should address him, Olivier said it should be "Lord Olivier" but that he could call him "Larry". Anthony Shaffer said Olivier treated Caine as an assistant at the start of filming and a full partner by the end.
- Laurence Olivier's New York Film Critics Best Actor award was a compromise after voters deadlocked between Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in The Godfather, following a Stacy Keach plurality for Fat City, and the rules were changed to require a majority.
