The clown magician was used as a prop in the 1972 film 'Sleuth' starring Michael Caine and Lawrence Olivier, adapted from the play by Anthony Schaffer. The crime writer Andrew Whyke (Olivier) invites hairdresser Milo Tindle (Caine) to spend the weekend at Cloke Manner, his country house eccentrically furnished with theatrical props and automata. Whyke uses the pretext of staging an insurance robbery to arrange Tindle's murder, in revenge for an affair Tindle is having with his wife. Tindle is apparently shot (although only with a blank), but returns in the second part disguised as Inspector Doppler to investigate the circumstances of the supposed murder. Doppler's identity is revealed and Caine's chatacter is shot by Olivier at the end of the film. He dies cluctching the electric control for activating the automata, which are all set off at once, and the sound of the music alerts the police (already at the door) to Whyke's crime.

Grace Thompson's mechanical music collection was used extensively for the film; the clown magician appears throughout, including the final sequence.