SUMMARY: APPROX. RUNNING TIME: 47:00 Min.
First airing on CBS on September 20, 1992, Anthony Pullen Shaw (Angela Lansbury’s son) directed this ninth season premiere off Laurence Heath’s script.
Jessica Fletcher’s (Lansbury) novel, All The Murderers, has been adapted into a high-profile blockbuster film set to premiere at a glitzy Milan film festival – reminiscent of Cannes. Friendly with Jessica, the film’s producing partners: Catherine Wayne and Tom Hiller (Blakely and Desiderio); its up-and-coming director, Jim Randall (Kroeger); leading lady Louise Thayer (Pinsent); and her screenwriter father, Andrew (Coe), are all in attendance. The same applies to Jessica’s famous friend, Marcello (Romero), and a rival film producer, Steve Morrison (Gleason). Also present is Paul Crenshaw (Harper), who bears mutual professional hostility towards Wayne.
Randall and Morrison unsuccessfully try double-teaming Ms. Wayne to release Randall from his binding two-year contract. That way, he can direct Morrison’s upcoming high-profile project. Wayne, to her chagrin, finds that her film’s star (and now Randall’s fiancée), Louise, is hardly inclined to help keep him from being poached from his contractual commitments. More so, unexplained cost overruns exceeding a million dollars from the end of the film’s production has perplexed Wayne, Hiller, and Randall.
With Randall on the phone in another room, someone decides to brutally murder the chilly Ms. Wayne inside her posh hotel suite. Randall is arrested as the crime’s prime suspect, but Louise is the first one to discover the corpse. It’s then up to Jessica and the local police inspector (DiCenzo) to find Catherine Wayne’s desperate killer.
Jessica Fletcher: Angela Lansbury
Catherine Wayne: Susan Blakely
Marcello Abruzzi: Cesar Romero
Jim Randall: Gary Kroeger
Steve Morrison: Paul Gleason
Tom Hiller: Robert Desiderio
Inspector Lombardo: George DiCenzo
Louise Thayer: Leah Pinsent
Andrew Thayer: George Coe
Paul Crenshaw: Robert Harper
Giorgio (paparazzi photographer): Time Winters
Hotel Maid: Grace Kent
Press Agent: Mary Wickliffe
Reporter: Paul Ryan
Other Reporters: Uncredited
Countess: Barbara Pilavin
Party Attendees: Uncredited Extras
Hotel Guests: Uncredited Extras
Milan Policemen: Uncredited
Catherine’s Office Staff: Uncredited
Note: Nearly all of this supporting cast had previously appeared on Murder, She Wrote in different guest roles.
REVIEW:
This formulaic ninth season opener serves up glitzy style without the substance. Aside from wasting Cesar Romero and George DiCenzo in minor roles, the script’s biggest whodunnit mistake is that only the eventual culprit appears remotely suspicious. Working with a decent guest cast, Angela Lansbury’s Jessica Fletcher makes it look far too easy disposing of this tepid case. Specifically, Jessica (and her off-screen London legal team) conducts even the most basic investigative work that the Milan police inspector conveniently overlooks.
Besides telegraphing the culprit and far too little police work, Laurence Heath’s weakly-devised script makes a third glaring blunder. By depicting ‘Catherine Wayne’ as a tough yet otherwise reasonable businesswoman, it negates virtually the entire suspect roster, in terms of any plausible motive to kill her.
Had Susan Blakely’s character been conveyed more as a mean-spirited villainess tempting a harsh fate (no matter how clichéd it sounds), there would at least be some potential for a suspect’s intriguing plot twist. Yet, the closest viewers get to such a twist is the inference that no one sheds an iota of grief over her brutal death – even Jessica just shrugs it off. Instead, everyone comes off as far more self-involved in posed glamour photos for the paparazzi (i.e. the image going into the closing credits).
The victim’s meaningless death spells out how hollow Heath’s underwhelming script really is — and the less said about the ludicrous crime once finally revealed in flashback the better. “Murder in Milan,” in theory, might have been a solid Murder, She Wrote premise. Unfortunately, its vacuous pap fails to generate an ounce of suspense.
BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING: 2 Stars
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