Product Details

• Actors: Maury Chaykin, Timothy Hutton, Bill Smitrovich, Mimi Kuzyk, Colin Fox
• Directors: Bill Duke
• Writers: Paul Monash, Rex Stout
• Producers: Delia Fine, Howard Braunstein, Michael Jaffe, Susan Murdoch
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• VHS Release Date: May 30, 2000
• Run Time: 94 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767025512
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,490 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Rex Stout's famous rotund detective, Nero Wolfe, who solves mysteries without leaving his New York brownstone mansion, has once again been reborn. The first in a series of cable TV movies stars Maury Chaykin, the gently unnerving actor from Mystery, Alaska and Dances with Wolves, as the "seventh of a ton" gourmand, aesthete, and orchid lover, who turns cranky when something as mundane as a client disrupts his well- ordered schedule. One such interruption, a street urchin with the fantastic story of a woman wearing garish gold spider earrings held at gunpoint in a car, warrants little more than routine inquiries until the boy is murdered, run down by the same car. The outraged Archie (Timothy Hutton), Wolfe's legman and personal secretary, goads the leery investigator into taking the case. The plot is a tangle of illegal aliens and blackmail with a little murder on the side, but a sense of camaraderie keeps the film humming. Chaykin is a marvelous Wolfe, wry, prickly, and fussy with a shrewd sense of character, while Hutton's Archie is a smart-talking con man with a heart, all natty patter and cocky demeanor lifted right out of an old-time newspaper movie. It's a handsome film, effortlessly re-creating 1950s New York with a sepia-tinged color scheme, and the promising start of a series of made-for-cable features. --Sean Axmaker

Product Description

A& E proudly presents THE GOLDEN SPIDERS, an intriguing and clever mystery adaptation based on Rex Stout’s "Nero Wolfe" classic. One of the best- known, best-loved characters of the mystery genre-and the hero of seventy-two novels written by Mr. Stout between 1934 and 1975—Nero Wolfe, is the eccentric, ingenious detective who always solves the crime. In this first episode to be adapted from the "Nero Wolfe" canon, Nero relentlessly pursues a ruthless murderer on a serial path. His only lead? A reckless car. Famous for keeping his cool, Nero leaves the legwork to his hard- working and bemused assistant, Archie Goodwin. But when Archie and the police are totally stumped, Nero swoops in to solve the endless string of mysteries. Eventually the sleuthing duo zero in on a mysterious woman with golden spider earrings—and a riveting trail of clues. Starring Maury Chaykin ("Entrapment") as the unflappable Nero Wolfe and Oscar-winner, Timothy Hutton ("Ordinary People") as his assistant, Archie Goodwin, THE GOLDEN SPIDERS features a series of mysterious murders, a fascinating gallery of suspects, and a crafty summation by Wolfe that once again pins the murderer to the crime.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nero Wolfe Lives, May 31, 2000

By 

John C. Robbins (Northern, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have seen several adaptations of Nero Wolfe novels over the years, including the horrid failed TV series in the late 70s or early 80s. The movie GOLDEN SPIDERS comes very close to capturing the true nature of both Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe. When I started watching the movie, I thought, here we go again, another failed attempt at putting these guys on the screen. Tim Hutton and M. Chaukyn really surpized me. They really had the characters down and even though I have read GOLDEN SPIDERS several times and knew the ending, I could not take my eyes off the screen. BRAVO. It is about time somebody did a good job adapting Nero Wolfe to the screen. Any screen. I especially liked the fact that the movie was set in the time frame of the original novel (late 50s I think). Excellent movie. MAKE MORE IN THE SERIES PLEASE!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Worthy Beginning for an Undeservedly Short-Lived Series, December 1, 2002

By 

George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A small boy comes to Nero Wolfe with a problem, then dies violently. Wolfe has a few dollars given him by the boy's mother. Archie Goodwin cajoles him into spend the money, but no more, seeking the boy's slayer. His efforts bring him another person in need, who gives Wolfe a check for $10,000.00 to help her in a certain matter. She refuses to elucidate exactly what she wants, but says she will explain after making a few inquiries on her own. She also dies violently.

Wolfe doesn't really know what the woman wanted him to do to earn his money, but he decides that she would not be displeased if he used it to solve her murder. He is immediately beset by lawyers seeking the return of the money to the woman's estate.

Wolfe fends off the lawyers and Inspector Cramer as he tries to solve the murders with almost nothing to go on. He does have a similarly executed third murder to consider, a pair of golden spider earrings, and a half-dozen or so suspects. He makes an assumption, acts on it, "stirs things up" a little, almost gets his confidential assistant Archie Goodwin arrested for blackmail, gets his ace operative Saul Panzer blackmailed, and gets his loyal-but-not-so-smart operative Fred Durkin tortured. Wolfe's brain can concoct the most Byzantine situations, but Archie's brawn must oftentimes carry them through to fruition. As Fred undergoes torture, Archie steps in and saves the day by delivering a performance worthy of Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry."

With Archie's help, Wolfe uncovers a scandal, hands a gang of thugs over to Inspector Cramer, and earns his fee by not only solving the woman's murder but also clearing up the matter she wanted him to handle in the first place. All good fun, and one of the more action-oriented of the Nero Wolfe stories.

I missed the original airing of this made-for-TV movie and had become comfortably familiar with Archie, Nero, Inspector Cramer, and the other regulars on the series before viewing this first effort. As the actors were just becoming familiar with their roles, the interplay among the characters wasn't quite as fluid as it became in later episodes. Saul Rubinek was slightly miscast as Saul Panzer, but the series corrected that error by moving him to the character of Lon Cohen.

TV drama seldom has the quality of the Nero Wolfe series. I mourn A&E's decision to cancel it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fan approved!, July 21, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Anyone who has read even one Nero Wolfe mystery, knows that the mystery is only the half of the story. The other half is the wonderful development of the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin relationship, with it's mutual respect, understanding, and antagonism. Holmes has his Watson and Poirot has his Hastings. A hero is not a hero unless he has a witness to his heroism, and a genius is not a genius unless he has the same. But Goodwin is not as awestruck as Watson, or as befuddled as Hastings. He knows exactly how lazy, irritating, ethical, and brilliant Wolfe really is; and he knows what his own (unofficial and unspoken) job really is -- to goad Wolfe into working in order to pay the bills associated with his household and habits (ie. orchids and eating).

This movie did a masterful job of portraying not only an intriguing mystery, but in really delivering the complex Nero/Archie interaction in all it's verbal and nonverbal expressiveness. The casting of the other characters (notably Saul, Orrie, and Inspector Cramer) was perfect as well.

I had misgivings before watching it -- after all, most movies compare poorly with their print predecessors. I have read (and own) all 70-plus Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout, and a few of the (much inferior) attempts by other authors to carry the torch after Stout's death, so I have pretty strong views on what's important in dramatizing them.

Nero Wolfe fans, be assured -- this movie gets it. Write, call and email A&E and **BEG THEM** to make more. If you need to, also beg Maury and Timothy to agree to star in those roles again.