Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
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.
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.
Customer Discussions
Look for Similar Items by Category
Look for Similar Items by Subject
|
