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.

Movie Review: Knives Out

 Daniel Craig plays a master detective, Benoit Blanc, and although not affiliated with the police is called in to investigate the death of a rich author.  He was hired by an unknown person.  The victim is a famous author, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) who takes medication administered by nurse Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas).  However one day the medication is administered incorrectly, resulting in an apparent lethal dose, so Thrombey kills himself with a knife to keep suspicion off Cabrera.  The children of the author include Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans), Linda Drysdale (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Richard Drysdale (Don Johnson).

Thrombey had been disappointed in his progenitors for some time; so had rewritten his will leaving everything to the nurse, whose company he enjoyed.  Ransom was onto this change, and had changed the medication labels so as to trick the nurse to give the wrong medication.  So this sparks a case of blackmail.  Ransom knows the wrong dose was given, and wants Cabrera to give up her claim to the will.  It is only when Craig realizes who hired him that he is able to break the case, but still unable to charge the murderer.

I enjoy a good Agatha Christie, and although this is not an Agatha Christie, it has that feel.  I was completely entertained.  I really enjoyed the character created by Ana de Armas.  She was likable and sympathetic.  The family members were all mostly spoiled brats. 

Movie Review: **** The Fugitive (1993)

"The Fugitive" features Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble who is convicted of murdering his wife, despite claiming his innocence.  It also features Tommy Lee Jones as a federal marshal who heads a team for recapturing escaped prisoners.  Somehow the corrections bus is hit by a train, and the doctor escapes.  This movie has some very dramatic scenes early on dealing with the doctor’s escape from the agents.  He makes his way back to Chicago, where he lived, and takes it upon himself to find the killer, while keeping himself hid.  The key has to do with a one-armed man, who killed his wife, and with whom he struggled the night of the murder.  This requires him to seek information at a public hospital, and in so doing he saves a boy’s life.  This movie has a lot of intrigue, as the doctor gets closer and closer to the killer.  It includes betrayal by friends, and a confrontation in the end.  Chicago police are after the doctor, and things don’t look good for him.  But he maintains his focus of finding his wife's killer.  This movie is based on a T.V. series of the same name and much of the same plot.