Movie Review: ***^ The Last of Sheila (1973)

 The Last of Sheila script was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.  It starts as a bunch of friends having a week long party aboard a yaht, but turns into a murder mystery.  The host is Clinton Greene (James Coburn), a movie producer.  The guests include Alice Wood (Raquel Welch) and her manager husband, Anthony (Ian McShane); screenwriter Tom Parkman (Richard Benjamin) and his wife Lee (Joan Hackett); Christine (Dyan Cannon) who is a talent agent; and director Phillip Dexter (James Mason).  A year earlier at a similar party, Greene's wife was killed by a hit and run driver.  He has devised a game in her honor in which he divulges secrets of members of the party.  This gets him killed on the second night.  He had distributed cards with a secret to be revealed to each of the party, "You are a shoplifter, you are a homosexual, you are an ex-convict, you are an informer, you are a little child molester, you are a hit and run driver."  But it turns our one of the company had changed his card from "you are an alcoholic" to "you are a hit and run driver,"  Lee admits she was the hit and run driver.  She had been drinking.  She also admits to killing Greene.  She ends up dead from apparent suicide the next day, having cut her wrists.  

The case is apparently resolved, but to Dexter something does not seem right.  Greene had said the slues were available without leaving the boat.  He notices a picture taken the first day.  each person is below a letter of the boat name, Sheila.  Except the card, hit and run driver does not match.  That person is under the A, for alcoholic.   He presents his information to Parkman, accusing him of changing the card, and being responsible for the two murders.  He had framed his wife for the murder of Greene, as he was already dead when she accidently struck him.  He admits to doing it as he was unhappy in marriage and was to inherit her $5,000,000.  Christine overheard this, and she and Dexter agree to keep quiet if he uses the inheritance to fund their next picture.  

This movie is very entertaining.  He has a very good cast.  However the story was a bit confusing with the murderer not being the murderer.  There is a book based on the movie, but I noticed it is very expensive as a collector's item.

Christmas Movie Review: Christmas in Conneticutt (1992)

This is a very interesting made for tv movie about the a TV cooking show.  Elizabeth Blane (Dyan Cannon) is the star of a cooking show, but in reality she can't cook.  They take the show to Connecticut, to host Jefferson Jones (Kris Kristofferson) who has been a hermit of late, but in his duties as a ranger, rescued a youth stranded in the woods, and his a hero.  The problem is the story lines on the show are all made up.  Blane does not have a family, is not married, does not have grandchildren.  However all these are provided for her.  Her assistants and her husband take up the spot as Blane's children.  They don't have children of their own, so they borrow a couple children from another family.  Blane's producer (Tony Curtis) plays her husband.  So we have put into play a farsical situation.  This gets worse as Blane and Jones seem to develop a thing for each other.  
When the Christmas show plays (live) the assistant is stranded in a snow bank.  She does all the cooking, and the food is not prepared.  The first section of the show goes wrong, and so the producer says to Blane, be yourself.  This results in her exposing herself and the show as a fraud.  It ends with Blane and Jones ones kissing.  They are all fired, but in the end, honesty created big numbers.

Arnold Schwarzenegger directed.  This is a remake of a 1945 movie.