''Murder by Natural Causes'' is a 1979 American television film directed by
Robert Day and starring
Hal Holbrook
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor, television director, and screenwriter. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show that he developed called ''Mark Twain Tonight!'' ...
,
Katharine Ross
Katharine Juliet Ross (born January 29, 1940) is an American film, stage, and television actress. Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, one BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. A native of Los Angeles, Ross spent most of he ...
,
Richard Anderson
Richard Norman Anderson (August 8, 1926 – August 31, 2017) was an American film and television actor. Among his best-known roles was his portrayal of Oscar Goldman, the boss of Steve Austin (Lee Majors) and Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) in b ...
, and
Barry Bostwick
Barry Knapp Bostwick (born February 24, 1945) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Brad Majors in the musical comedy horror film ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' (1975) and Mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom ''Spin City'' (199 ...
. It is a crime mystery written by the creators of the
TV series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
''
Columbo
''Columbo'' () is an American crime drama television series starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. After two pilot episodes in 1968 and 1971, the show originally aired on NBC f ...
'':
Richard Levinson
Richard Leighton Levinson (August 7, 1934 – March 12, 1987) was an American screenwriter and Television producer, producer who often worked in collaboration with William Link.
Life and career
Levinson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. H ...
and
William Link
William Theodore Link (December 15, 1933 – December 27, 2020) was an American film and television screenwriter and producer who often worked in collaboration with Richard Levinson.
Biography Early life
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ...
.
Plot
A successful
mentalist
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precogniti ...
, Arthur Sinclair (
Hal Holbrook
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor, television director, and screenwriter. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show that he developed called ''Mark Twain Tonight!'' ...
), preys upon wealthy socialites such as Helen Carrington (
Eve McVeagh
Eva Elizabeth "Eve" McVeagh (July 15, 1919 – December 10, 1997) was an American actress of film, television, stage, and radio. Her career spanned 52 years from her first stage role through her last stage appearance. Her roles included leading ...
) for their money. The movie opens as Arthur is talking on the phone with his much younger wife Allison (
Katharine Ross
Katharine Juliet Ross (born January 29, 1940) is an American film, stage, and television actress. Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, one BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. A native of Los Angeles, Ross spent most of he ...
). She wishes him luck as he departs to give an interview. However, she is in fact in bed with another, much younger man, Gil Weston (
Barry Bostwick
Barry Knapp Bostwick (born February 24, 1945) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Brad Majors in the musical comedy horror film ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' (1975) and Mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom ''Spin City'' (199 ...
). Weston is a would-be actor in love with Allison, and we soon learn she is planning to have Gil kill Arthur by scaring him to death (by overloading his weakened heart). Their plan is to have Weston storm the house pretending to be a burglar – and then point his pistol at Arthur, who would supposedly die from the shock. The night comes and Gil breaks in. Gil presents himself as a journalist there to have an interview with Arthur. He and Gil have a hearty conversation, and it turns out that both men have something on each other. Gil knows that Arthur is a fake and that he somehow knew the information about a killer in a different town. Arthur knows that Gil is not a journalist. Gil is not panicked by that and he uses Arthur's competitive behavior to make him do 50 push-ups to allegedly tire out Arthur's heart. Soon Gil draws the gun, the two men struggle, and Arthur apparently shoots Gil. When Allison comes home, he is distraught by the incident; then Gil (Allison had loaded a blank bullet into the gun) comes behind him, and Arthur stumbles across the house and screams in pain...then laughs and applauds as the two lovers look on.
Arthur has known about Allison and Gil for months, and now ''he'' is out to get ''them''. Then suddenly, Arthur's lawyer and longtime friend George (
Richard Anderson
Richard Norman Anderson (August 8, 1926 – August 31, 2017) was an American film and television actor. Among his best-known roles was his portrayal of Oscar Goldman, the boss of Steve Austin (Lee Majors) and Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) in b ...
) comes into the house. He turns out to be Allison's real lover; Gil was just a chump to do the dirty work. George shoots Arthur, then he and Allison depart. Some time afterwards, Allison returns to the house and finds that Arthur's body is gone. It turned out that Arthur knew about George, too, but Arthur wondered if George would actually go through with murder. Arthur had replaced all the bullets in the gun with blanks.
Arthur next points his pistol at Allison, now loaded with ''real'' bullets, and she asks him what is he going to do. Arthur replies: "I have a suggestion for you, darling...why don't you read my mind?"
Reception
This made-for-TV movie, which first aired on the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
network on February 17, 1979,
was well received by the critics and the viewers alike upon its original release. It holds the rating of 8.0 on the
Internet Movie Database
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
. Its script was later turned into a successful
stage play
A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and intended for theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Reading (process), reading. The writer of a play is called a playwright.
Pla ...
by the same writers.
Releases
This movie was broadcast in syndication a few times and then it was released on VHS.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Murder by Natural Causes)
1979 films
American television films
1970s English-language films