I didn't know whether to laugh or cry 4 roll my eyes at this movie as it's very trite and cliched script unfolded a ridiculous story that seems like one of those old fashioned radio plays where the script was written so fast that you had to take everything with a grain of salt to believe in. Old movies did the same thing, and now I find the same ridiculous situation in a movie of the week that starts John Forsyth as a murderess doctor who has had a record of dying under mysterious circumstances as they leave their money to him in their will. Patient Richard Kiley is aware that Forsyth is having an affair with his wife, Barbara Bain, and wonders to Forsyth allowed if he's going to try to kill him as well. Seriously, every ounce of dialogue in this film had me both rolling my eyes and laughing. It seems like it's made up and that because actors are speaking is, the audience will simply believe it.
Veteran character actress Reta Shaw is an automatic scene-stealer and everything that she does, but her character of the nurse who keeps her dog in the office is one of the silliest I've ever seen. The dog howls every time that one of Forsyth's patients dies, just another detail that further puts the nail in the coffin of this silly melodrama. Joseph Campanella is a cop friend of Forsyth's home he goes to visit after bashing Kiley's head in, and it's more absurd that Kiley remains alive, yet unconscious, after Shaw discovers the body and Forsyth returns to the office.
Of course, Forsyth has to have someone to pin the murder on, and that pleasure goes to Wendell Burton as a drug addict bring treated for withdrawals. The way Forsyth sets it all up is just totally unbelievable. This is a soap opera like murder mystery with so many ridiculous twists and turns and details that a plot like this wouldn't even make it onto "Murder She Wrote", and is Agatha Christie taught murder mystery right in, would show this film as evidence of don't let this happen to you. Everybody does all right with their performances, but of course, with the script, I have expected them to be smirking and rolling their eyes at the ridiculousness of it all, but they managed to be professional and get through it. That's 70 minutes of my life that I'll never get back, but I enjoyed it because I was having fun laughing at how absurd it all was.
Veteran character actress Reta Shaw is an automatic scene-stealer and everything that she does, but her character of the nurse who keeps her dog in the office is one of the silliest I've ever seen. The dog howls every time that one of Forsyth's patients dies, just another detail that further puts the nail in the coffin of this silly melodrama. Joseph Campanella is a cop friend of Forsyth's home he goes to visit after bashing Kiley's head in, and it's more absurd that Kiley remains alive, yet unconscious, after Shaw discovers the body and Forsyth returns to the office.
Of course, Forsyth has to have someone to pin the murder on, and that pleasure goes to Wendell Burton as a drug addict bring treated for withdrawals. The way Forsyth sets it all up is just totally unbelievable. This is a soap opera like murder mystery with so many ridiculous twists and turns and details that a plot like this wouldn't even make it onto "Murder She Wrote", and is Agatha Christie taught murder mystery right in, would show this film as evidence of don't let this happen to you. Everybody does all right with their performances, but of course, with the script, I have expected them to be smirking and rolling their eyes at the ridiculousness of it all, but they managed to be professional and get through it. That's 70 minutes of my life that I'll never get back, but I enjoyed it because I was having fun laughing at how absurd it all was.