Murder by Natural Causes (1979)

Very crafty thriller has adulterous wife Ross plotting celebrity clairvoyant husband's murder to ostensibly inherit his fortune and live happily ever after with her obeying younger suitor Bostwick. But there's more to the plot than meets the eye.Holbrook gives an energetic performance to match the wit and wile of his scheming vixen wife, a rare quality role for Ross as her career began to decline in the late 70's. Dependable second lead Richard Anderson is very good in the important supporting role as Holbrook's loyal friend and attorney, whilst former Hollywood almost-a-star Jeff Donnell has a curious role for someone of her status, as Anderson's faithful housekeeper. The ensemble cast are all terrific and their appreciation of the timing and delivery needed to keep the plot tight and the audience guessing is pitch perfect.This is one of those TV movies they used to make in the halcyon era of the 70's/80's that you'd want to seek out and find on DVD to keep for posterity; not only a great whodunnit- style mystery, but a reminder of the quality of TV movies before networks apparently abandoned the concept for sitcoms and never-ending procedural dramas. Vale TV movies, especially when they're made like this one, an absolute pearler.

"Murder By Natural Causes" is a film that mystery buffs will probably like. However, I thought it was only fair...mostly because the film was too talky and stagy. In fact, it really played like a play. A bit more action or location changes would have helped this one be better.Arthur Sinclair (Hal Holbrook) is a mentalist...and a very famous and successful one. When the film begins, he's on a "Tonight Show" sort of program showing off his mental powers. However, you are never sure how much of this is because he has actual powers or because he is a magician and is really good at doing what's termed 'cold readings'...where he is able to get people to think he has powers because he uses their body cues to make very well educated guesses. Regardless, he's a very smart man and you can only assume his wife is reckless and awful because she's not only cheating on him but arranging for his death.As for his death, that's just one problem with the film. The way they thought to kill Arthur was just WAY too elaborate and there were many possibilities for failure. Sure, there was a backup plan with the wife's OTHER lover...but even this was fraught with possible problems. Things had to work PERFECTLY and Arthur had to be uncharacteristically dumb for the plan to work. But this isn't the only problem. So much of the movie consists of folks talking and talking as well as twist after twist after twist. It all came off like anything but real life...and as I mentioned above it seemed like a play...an old fashioned one. Not a terrible movie...and it was enjoyable...but it could have been more.By the way, the movie makes a slight mistake when they talk about Houdini. They said that he promised to return after his death and his wife had seances year after year to try to bring him back. Well, this is a partial truth. Houdini was a HUGE skeptic and did NOT believe in the supernatural. His request that they hold the seances was NOT to really try to bring him back but to prove you really could NOT bring anyone back. The yearly seance was intended to prove, or at least demonstrate, that seances were crap.

To appreciate "Murder by Natural Causes", first you have to accept its TV-movie limitations: few sets, few characters, pauses for commercial breaks, direction with no cinematic interest. The emphasis here is on the writing and the acting. The script has many clever (but not phenomenal) twists. The main plot device reminded me somewhat of Ira Levin's "Deathtrap" (which was filmed three years later). The acting is top-of-the-line: the term "bad Hal Holbrook performance" hasn't been invented yet, as for Katharine Ross, judging from the three films I've seen her in ("The Stepford Wives", "The Swarm", and this one), she must be one of the most underrated (in beauty as well as talent) actresses of the seventies. (**1/2)

I am in absolute agreement with the other reviewer - you simply cannot top this plot. If there ever was a title for the cleverest script in TV movie history 'Murder By Natural Causes' would win hands down. Yes, there are very few (The Last of Sheila, Guilty Conscience) that are pretty close but this one is as close to perfection as any script of the genre will come. It is no surprise, of course, that the same team that created Columbo is responsible for this movie.Practically unknown, it will probably never be issued on a DVD. What a pity - a textbook script that nobody will remember only because people prefer to watch Dumb and Dumber instead.