Word: shaffer
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...Anthony Shaffer's 1970 play, which he adapted for the 1972 film, Andrew Wylie is an aging writer of mystery novels, living well but not comfortably in a home whose gadgety furnishings reflect his obsession with game-playing. The reason for Andrew's discomfort: his young wife is having an affair with her hairdresser, Milo Tindale. Enter Milo into Andrew's lair. The older man has an attractive, illegal proposal for Milo that could make them both rich and happy. But that's just a teaser to Andrew's much darker scheme - one that will bring a policeman to inquire...
...Shaffer was a kindred spirit to Mankiewicz: a cunning wordsmith with a playwright brother; his identical twin, Peter, wrote Equus and Amadeus. Like Mankiewicz (and Pinter, for that matter), Shaffer was fascinated by the ability of language to reveal, conceal and distort the workings of a person's mind and desires. In Sleuth he created a Chinese-box plot that on the surface was a very theatrical mystery, but at heart was a parable of sexual envy and English class hatred. Again, right up Pinter's dark alley...
...people in a room (that is, on the stage) and not let them out till the bitterness erupted and the blood flowed. Such was Pinter's craft and nerve that the audience felt as caged as the characters. It just made sense to let him loose on Shaffer's one-room play about two devious men playing killer tricks on each other...
...especially indebted to Anthony Shaffer's play and film Sleuth, in which the wily perpetrator revels in elaborate gamesmanship, with a soupcon of sadism and a killer of a kicker. The talking doll in Saw is a direct descendant of a toy that the Sleuth perp uses for malevolent effect. In a 2001 interview, Shaffer said he was inspired to write his mystery after taking part in one of Stephen Sondheim's maniacally elaborate treasure hunts. One clue directed players to a nearly deserted town near a lake. When they found the pertinent clue, a hand jutted...
...credit for a lot of things I shouldn't. That was another SEIU organizer named Jono Shaffer...