If you've never read a Rex Stout Nero Wolfe novel, this is a passably amusing bottom-half-of-the-double-bill picture, moving quickly (except for several scenes in a row that are all talk, when all the exposition is dumped on us) and with quite a few laughs. If, however, you're a Wolfe fan, this will be very dispiriting, with the characters changed to make them far less appealing. Instead of the dignified, aloof Wolfe, Edward Arnold is full of faux-bonhomie, laughing all the time at his own jokes and speaking to Archie in a rude and haughty way. Archie, who in the novel is highly intelligent (just not brilliant, like Wolfe), sophisticated, and attractive (his girlfriend is very rich, beautiful, and clever), is here clumsy and not very bright, and has a low-comedy Brooklyn girlfriend whom he plans to marry and to honeymoon with at...Coney Island!
More generally, the problem with the movie is that it is one of those comic mysteries, which are always as unsatisfactory as they are unnatural--murder is not usually regarded as funny; it is sad and frightening and not something to make people rush around telling jokes. The ending in the novel was much better because it was genuinely terrifying--I could hardly breathe while I was reading it--but the ending of the movie is just one more gimmick. The original ending could not have been used because the real terror it inspired would have been out of place in this lightweight movie.
Review of Meet Nero Wolfe
