But what if we reconsider the treadmill? Siskel’s primary criticism is that Clue is an exercise in futility, a whodunit with enough answers to render the question obsolete. Even the film’s very premise is something of a punchline. When Wadsworth shouts the literal rules of the game— “That’s what we’re trying to find out. We’re trying to find out who killed him, and where, and with what”—he is subsequently clocked in the head by a falling candlestick. In that moment it’s not the answer that matters, but the mounting mania and undercutting silliness of it all. What if, Clue seems to ask, futility isn’t an Achilles’ heel? What if it’s the point? The result is a film that honors its source material and transcends its limitations.

Not only an homage to the game, Lynn and Landis’ adaptation is simultaneously a murder mystery, a screwball comedy, and a Cold War farce. Clue begins in true “dark and stormy night” fashion; on a rainy New England evening in 1954, six strangers, brought together by identical cryptic invitations, make their way to the eerie Hill House mansion. Clue, being first and foremost a game about murder, necessarily creates an atmosphere of suspicion and finger-pointing. Even before anyone has been killed, the main characters seem to have nothing but disdain for one another; they shoot each other dirty looks (especially at the accident-prone Mr. Green, who’s spilling champagne and shark fin soup left and right) and resent any nascent nosiness about their personal and professional lives. One can’t help but link the tense, paranoid environment to the Cold War-era setting. In the film’s opening moments, the cook is watching the Army-McCarthy hearings on TV as she prepares dinner. The rest of the film is peppered with references to the political subtext of the era, whether it’s allusions to the arms race or a phone call from J. Edgar Hoover (“He’s on everybody else’s [phone], why shouldn’t he be on mine?”)

Much like the Cold War policies of the time, the farcical hijinks in Clue are largely caused by the dissemination and withholding of information. First, there are the secrets based upon which Mr. Boddy is blackmailing the guests: Colonel Mustard is a war profiteer; Mrs. White is the (strongly implied to be) mariticidal widow of a nuclear physicist; Mr. Green is a closeted homosexual working for the state department; Mrs. Peacock accepts bribes on behalf of her senator husband; Professor Plum is a philandering psychiatrist working for the World Health Organization; and Miss Scarlet operates an escort service in Washington. In keeping with the times, Mr. Boddy’s reason for blackmail is pure holier-than-thou patriotism. Wadsworth explains, “He believed that you were all thoroughly un-American.” Then there are the additional victims to contend with, all killed by an unknown assailant as the night unfolds—the cook, Yvette (Colleen Camp) the maid, a passing motorist, a police officer, and a singing telegram girl. Each of them is connected in some way to the six guests. It’s only at the end(s) of the film that we learn who knows who and why.