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After all the crazy plot twists at the end, the detectives drive off thinking there was no real murder after all, the corpses were faked and everything was just a joke. However after they are gone it is revealed to spectators that the »Lionel Twain« in the big plot-twist-scene was actually Yetta, the cook.
Does this imply that the detectives were tricked and that there actually was a murder? And if yes, who killed who?
The movie is a spoof/sendup on the who detetive/whodunit genre. The final "reveal" doesn't make sense and that's kinda the point.
A straight-forward reading of the movie would give two possible answers to your question. Either there were no murders or Yetta killed Lionel Twain and Bensonmum and impersonated them at the end. I originally saw the movie on cable TV when it first came out so the version I saw contained an extra scene not in the theatrical version or many subsequently televised versions that shows the departing Detective Wang & Son running into Sherlock Holmes & Watson who asks Wang for directions to Twain Manor. In other words, the entire scenario is about to be replayed with a different set of Detectives which to me implies no one was killed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_by_Death#Deleted_scenes
Again, the final scene isn't suppose to make sense and that's the point.
I think only bensonmum was murdered. In the beginning of the movie, bensonmum is seen talking to "lionel twain" who's voice is only heard but you know it's truman capote speaking because, like james earl jones, capote had a very unique voice. Later on, bensonmum is seen talking to yetta the maid. So in a couple of separate scenes, bensonmum is interacting with both "twain" and yetta. BUT, at no point in the movie are yetta and "twain" seen together at the same time. Which means that, in my own conclusion, means that yetta and twain were the same person throughout the whole movie and bensonmum was the victim. Yetta was than able to impersonate bensonmum just the same as she impersonated twain, who, if jessica marbles is correct, died 5 years prior.
And the note about her being deaf, mute and unable to read english, that was just a big fat lie, and probably a test to see if bensonmum was truly blind.
