The year is 1945. The setting is Los Angeles. When the murder of a wealthy Los Angeles patriarch and the theft of the infamous Hope Diamond is known, a suave and debonair private investigator must solve the murder and recover the stolen gem before the lieutenant and the detective of the LAPD, who finds out about the murder and the theft of the Hope Diamond and suspects the private investigator is behind the crimes, gets him thrown out of the crime-solving business.

SYNOPSIS:

This satire of the film noir genre is set in Los Angeles in 1945. The characters are parodies of the actors and actresses of the film noir genre (like Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Paul Henreid, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth and many others). Also, the plots of "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" are spoofed. The story: A Bogart-esque private eye is hired by a femme fatale, a Mary Astor type, and she is the daughter of the richest man in Los Angeles. She hires him to be the witness at her mansion when her father makes his announcement as to who in the family will inherit the infamous Hope Diamond. He agrees to take the case and the sexy woman pays the private eye his fee. She tells him to be at the mansion at six p.m.

When he gets there, he meets the butler and the maid and then, they go into the drawing room and the Hope Diamond is nestled in a pedestal in the middle of the table. The private eye meets the woman's father, a Sydney Greenstreet type and her twin brother, a Peter Lorre type. Then, at precisely six o' clock, the father makes his announcement and mourns the loss of his wife, who died in a car accident a decade earlier. And just when he is about to name the new owner, the lights in the room mysteriously go out and four gunshots are heard. When the lights come back on, it is revealed that the femme fatale's father had gotten shot and the Hope Diamond has been stolen! So, the private eye spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out who shot the woman's father and stole the fatal gem.

The script is littered with one liners, sexual innuendo, sight gags slapstick and verbal humor and it is has the slang of the 1940s and it is written in the tradition of "Airplane!" and "Scary Movie".

"WHODUNIT?"