Con-Deuce In "The Last of Sheila", movie producer Clinton Green invites six of his friends to join him on his yacht in the south of France for what is ostensibly to play one of his "games". The game starts with Clinton handing out cards to each of the six participants. Written on each card is a secret about one of the other six people and the object of the game is to figure out which secret belongs to whom. Things go awry when Clinton is murdered and it's up to the guests to figure out who the culprit is. They undercover the fact the Clinton's invitation was for more than just to play a game. The setup of "The Last of Sheila" is promising and after a bumpy, confusing start, things actually get going about halfway through but Herbert Ross' direction feels unfocused and unsure which is surprising. This may be due to the difficulties he encountered while filming (the actors and crew apparently were getting nauseous filming on the boat and a set had to be built). In addition, the film doesn't take advantage of the lush locales like Hitchcock did in "To Catch a Thief" and it has been inexplicably photographed with a dusty, dry look that makes everything look drab. This type of movie requires tight direction with a lush touch like the kind that Sidney Lumet provided a couple of years later with "Murder on the Orient Express". The setup feels rushed. We're not entirely sure what everyone's relationship is to one another even after they all get onto the boat. The writers (Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins) may have done this intentionally thinking it added to the mystery but coupled with Ross' muddled direction, it makes the early scenes a bit a mess. But the film eventually starts to come together and seeing the cast trying to figure out what's up is done well. The finale is a bit of a letdown though. The reveal is good and satisfying but only three of the six participants are present and this feels like we've been cheated. On the plus side, the actors are all very appealing with Richard Benjamin, James Mason and especially Dyan Cannon being the standouts. "The Last of Sheila" could have been better but as it is, it is certainly watchable and never boring.

kurt-2000 OK...like any red blooded American male, I could watch, Welch and Cannon all day long doing above average film and TV projects, but this film isn't interesting in the 21st century, even if it was moderately interesting in '73. If you like murder mysteries, then you might find it interesting. But don't most films today require solving a mystery? The comments made by the characters might have seemed intelligent and witty in '73, but I found this film boring. I was interested in seeing it, since Welch was recently bragging about this film being shown at a west coast theater that shows old films and discussion later. That still doesn't make it great, even if some film buffs liked it.Impressive cast, and two of the actors in this film would later co- star in one of my favorite mini-series for television: 'Jesus of Nazareth'.But I can't ethically recommend that someone invest their time watching it.

Irie212 When it was released in 1973, "The Last of Sheila" hit me like a shot of Johnny Walker red (the preferred snort of the Hollywood heiress played by Joan Hackett). Then, a few months ago, it turned up streaming on Netflix. I watched it again and enjoyed it so thoroughly that I chose it several months later to watch with a house guest– a friend who knows so little about movies that, during "Dial M for Murder," he asked, "Who's that actress?" He enjoyed it, too, enough to discuss it afterward–- something I applaud even though I agree with this pithy bit of dialog spat out by a magnificent James Coburn: "We don't want this topic to degenerate to the discussion phase." "Sheila" is a murder mystery that begins with Sheila herself getting killed in a hit-and-run. That happens before the opening credits. Then her marvelously malevolent widower, a movie producer (James Coburn), sets out to nail the killer. He invites six Hollywood friends for a Mediterranean cruise on his yacht. Once on board, he involves them in an elaborate game to play as an amusement. They don't know it, but the real point of the game is diabolical: to find out who killed Sheila, because Coburn knows that one of them ran her down. It happened during a party that they all attended, and they all had motives. Indeed, the point of the movie, in a way, is that everyone in heartless Hollywood has a motive to kill everyone else. Upon arrival at the yacht, he hands each of the six a card on which is written "You are a…" followed by a personal secret, something "not too light": Shoplifter, Homosexual, Ex-Convict, Informer, Little Child Molester, and Alcoholic. (S,H,E,I,L,A— though the players don't notice that because they haven't yet seen each other's cards).The game involves everyone finding out the others' assigned secrets, and first up is the Shoplifter. Each player is given the same clue– a key with "Sterling 18K" stamped on it– to find out who has the Shoplifter card. With that clue they are ferried to shore to find the answer. Without giving too much away, I can say that the Shoplifter card was assigned to James Mason, but one of the women characters was actually arrested some years earlier for shoplifting a fur coat. She therefore realizes that something more than a harmless game is afoot. The card she holds, Homosexual, is obviously someone else's real secret.Before it's all over, three characters are dead, courtesy of two others, and there are two additional murder attempts, perpetrated by separate players with separate motives.The screenplay is altogether unique, co-authored as it is by two very famous men, neither of whom wrote any other screenplays, alone or together: Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins. The plot is entirely consistent with the friends' fondness for elaborate game-playing. Their dialog is brisk, witty, and delightfully vicious. Except for the predictably wooden work of Richard Benjamin, the performances are sparkling. Dyan Cannon grabs her juicy part with both hands, while Raquel Welch delivers her juicy parts in a bikini. Ultimately, though, the movie belongs to the two Jameses, Coburn and Mason. Mason's character– who shares many traits with Humbert Humbert, including the most obvious– is an aging director who ultimately unravels the mystery.Saying more means revealing more, and Sheila's tangled web is best woven before a viewer's eyes without advance knowledge. The only thing I will add is that the film was shot on location on French Riviera. The principal murder takes place in a wonderfully gloomy old site which, I suspect, is the fortified monastery of Ile Saint-Honorat, near Cannes. Gamesmanship is evident even in that choice: a suitable spot for an unholy picture about Hollywood.

jzappa The Last of Sheila, a star-packed murder mystery written by Broadway legends, really doesn't start or even progress with much momentum at all, but when the true wheels of the actual murder puzzle start turning, it pulls a lot of palpable tension and sharp dialogue out of nowhere and does the job. It doesn't help that first half that I was tempted to turn it off, but the fact that the intrigue ratcheted up at the precise moment when I was going to is what saved it by a hair's breadth. And I'm glad I stuck it out. It proved itself worthwhile.The movie comes out of a fine heritage of murder puzzles from such as Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith. In fact, it's a little rare to see this material showing up first as a movie. It feels like the sort of story that would start life as a play. Bringing seven people together and then doing the old "one of the people sitting here amongst us is a murderer" schtick is inherently stagy. Nevertheless, it functions well as a movie, perhaps since the screenplay has as much to do with characters as with crime. The movie was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, and they flaunt an apparent sense of showbiz manners and dialogue. They've also play Name That Tune with us: We can enjoy speculating who the bitchy agent was motivated by, or the director on the skids, or the centerfold, each played respectively by Dyan Cannon, James Mason and Raquel Welch, two out of three of whom kept me watching purely just to watch.I like the concept of a murder mystery set among showbiz types because Hollywood is often thought to be shy about death and shrink from it. Genuine sorrow seems quite rare. The movie opens as a watchful-waiting stratagem concerning Coburn and the killer, which is latently intriguing though it rambles too far away from the point of tension and plays more like a '60s romp than an expository double-blind. Yet it makes a striking hairpin halfway through. And it actually is a game to them; they don't spend time mourning when somebody dies, just clean up the blood and tally one more loser against their competition for a win. And yet it's barely started until just two of these characters spend a great deal of time deliberately hammering out the true significance of the clues, a scene so tight, well-acted, well-written and loaded with sharp wit that it makes the whole package worth it.A better part of the performances are pointed and mercenary, and very good, particularly James Mason with his typical cultured obstinacy. Dyan Cannon as the agent. Joan Hackett is beautiful and tender, and Richard Benjamin treads a fine line between voice of reason and a screenwriter trying to think in formulas. Coburn is always entertaining owing to his sheer presence and it's interesting watching an Ian McShane so much younger than anyone my age is aware he ever was. Welch is quite wooden by comparison, but as I said before