Without a Clue (1988) Without a Clue

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A 1988 mystery comedy directed by Thom Eberhardt, written by Gary Murphy and Larry Strawther, starring Michael Caine as Reginald Kincaid (the alcoholic actor publicly performing as Sherlock Holmes) and Ben Kingsley as Dr. John Watson (the actual mastermind whose stories were ghostwritten under a pseudonym). The film inverts the canonical Holmes-Watson relationship: Watson is the brilliant deductive mind, "Sherlock Holmes" is a hired actor who can barely play the part, and the running joke is the gap between the public legend and the offstage management of it.

The film was a Christmas-week 1988 release that underperformed at the U.S. box office but found its audience on cable and home video, where the inverted-premise gag and the Caine/Kingsley double act proved durable.

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