utgard14 Classic comedy starring Fred MacMurray as a pollster who shows up at a hillbilly family's house looking for another pollster who went missing in the area. He finds himself knee-deep in trouble with the hillbillies, who are a clan of criminals looking for some money that only their dying grandmother knows the location of -- and she only wants to tell Fred. Things get even more crazy when Helen Walker shows up, claiming to be the Bonnie Parker-esque member of the family who recently escaped from prison.It's a very funny movie with MacMurray in rare form as the poor guy who stumbles into a weird situation and can't wait to get out of it. The bit where he pretends to talk to a ghost to fool the dumb twins is priceless. At one point in the movie there's a clever gag where MacMurray's character comes upon an idea involving an organ because he saw the same bit in The Ghost Breakers, which was another Paramount comedy directed by George Marshall. Another great scene has MacMurray doing his version of Dorf decades before Tim Conway. Helen Walker is lovely and does a fine job but her part is mostly a straight one with few laughs. Marjorie Main is wonderful as a sort of dark version of her famous Ma Kettle character. Peter Whitney is lots of fun playing a set of dimwitted but violent twins. The rest of the cast includes Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Barbara Pepper, and a scene-stealing Mabel Paige as the grandmother. It's a good comedy with a terrific cast. Probably could've trimmed ten minutes in the middle but it doesn't hurt the pace too much. Definitely worth a look.

MartinHafer On the surface, I could see someone mistaking this for "The Egg and I" or one of the Ma & Pa Kettle films. After all, "The Egg and I" stars Fred MacMurray and Marjorie Main and is set in rural America--and Main starred in these sequels. But, while the Kettles were a wacky but sweet family, Main and her brood in this film are more like the folks from "Arscenic and Old Lace"--but meaner. In other words, a family of dangerous psychos. This makes "Murder, He Says" a very, very dark comedy--one that might surprise you.Fred MacMurray works as a pollster. He's been sent to look for another pollster who disappeared some time back and the trail ends with Main and her family. Soon it becomes apparent that the family is sort of like the Mansons morphed with the Clampetts--and it appears Fred might be next. The only reason they don't just kill him is that they want to use him to get the secret from Grandma as to where some cash from an older robbery is hidden. Once he learns some clues as to its whereabouts, the family wants to beat it out of him and cannot kill him until they find it. But clearly Fred's days are numbered. A bit later, a woman arrives who claims to be an escaped family member interested in the money. However, she's really not--and is trying to return the money to clear the family name. Oddly, Fred agrees to help her--though she is one wacky and violent lady herself--just not a killer. Then, an unknown person (whose face you can't see) pops in and out of the walls--klunking people on the head. Can Fred survive this house of horrors?! Overall, the film is a lot of wacky, dark fun. Not as great as "Arsenic and Old Lace" (which tended to be wilder and more likable), but still a very unusual and interesting little comedy. In many ways, it plays like a Looney Tunes short or Scooby Doo episode with live actors.By the way, the film makers did a great job in making one actor look like a set of twins--it was the most complicated use of double-exposures I've seen. Also, towards the end of the film, look for Barbara Pepper (the lady with the .45)--she later played Mrs. Zipfel on "Green Acres".

Robert J. Maxwell I saw this as a kid in the Mayfair Theater in Hillside, New Jersey, at an age perfectly suited to being thrilled by the danger and amused by the jokes and slapstick. Saw it again recently and didn't find it quite so enthralling, but then it's harder for anything to set my ganglia aglow these days.Fred MacMurray, in a fine performance, is in the Bob Hope role -- a pollster who visits a house filled with lunatics somewhere in Southern Appalachia. He's swept up in the family's search for seventy thousand dollars they believe to be buried or hidden somewhere on the property. So is another visitor who appears a little later, the innocent Helen Walker.Marjorie Main is the domineering matriarch of the Jukes or the Kallikaks or whatever their name is. "Fleagle," that's it. She's great too, a flamboyant, gravel-voiced old lady barking out orders and wielding a bull whip. She can switch in a moment from impatient anger to cajolery and fraudulent sobs when the situation demands it.Her retarded sons are both played as twins by Peter Whitney. When MacMurray pretends to chat with the ghost of a man they've murdered, one twin asks the other, "You see him?", and the reply is, "Not too plain." Also present are Jean Heather as a still more retarded offspring.No sense going on about the silly plot. The ancient house is falling apart, there are multiple secret passages and hidden corridors through which a frantic chase is pursued -- and for a change the chase is funny. If you want to see failed farcical climactic chases, see "Sex and the Single Girl" or "What's New, Pussycat." But farces are always faced with this problem. How do you frame a climax that is more ludicrous than everything that's come before. Well, it works here. Everyone winds up packed into bales of hay. And it's all without any musical score to cue the laughter.

rgrcpa Boy, is this movie funny. Of course, you have to like slapstick to enjoy it. Nothing subtle at all. I wish I could get this on a DVD somewhere. I would add to my collection in a New York second! There's a lot of running around by the cast. McMurray is as close to early Cary Grant as possible. He acts overly befuddled and Marjorie Main as the mama is type-cast, of course. The family won't let him leave and his situations are crazy. I was reminded of the three stooges antics. It is hard to believe that this is the same guy who paid the insurance murderer in "Double Indemnity." I heartily recommend this movie to anyone easily led to laughing out loud.