Mystery Date

In the 80’s the rage in movies was to turn old TV shows into hit movies. Most of them were, in my opinion, pretty bad except for the Star Trek movies. However, Hollywood had struck a cord with the movie going public. What was the next movie success? Why turning board games into movies of course. They tried to with Clue and Mystery Date. With Clue I was hoping for a Murder By Death type of movie but it wasn’t that funny. The concept that they tried was daring. Since the game had a different outcome on who the killer was and the location and motive of the murder. The movie was given different endings and the movie would end differently in each movie theater. The problem was that if you went on Friday to see it at the Village Cinema it may have Mr. Green as the killer in the Den with the candlestick as the weapon. If you had a friend of yours to see it on that same night at the Bijou across town he may see it end with Professor Plum as the killer with a rope in the Kitchen. So you really couldn’t discuss the movie with each other. When it was released on video it was even worse. They had all the endings on the VHS tape. You had to sit through all the endings to decide which one that you liked best. I have no idea how the do it when it plays on television.
Mystery Date was also turned into a movie. The game was played by little girls, like my cousin Rachel. The basis of the game was when you got to the door you had to guess who was behind the door and would be the date for the evening. This movie actually came late to the party as it was released in 1991. It starred Ethan Hawke as Tom and Terri Polo as Geena the object of his affection. Tom is too shy to ask her out but his older brother Craig sets up everything and lets Tom borrow his car. He picks Geena up and they head out on their date. Everything seems set for a perfect evening but Tom is mistaken for his brother who is wanted by a pair of crooked cops, a crime lord (played by B.D. Wong) and a crazy delivery guy (played by Fisher Stevens). I haven’t seen it in quite along time but if I remember correctly it was actually a pretty good film. So if you want to rent a good date movie this is one way to go.