Hooray for Homicide

Season 1, Episode 4
Oct. 29, 1984

In this episode Jessica goes to Hollywood! But first we get to see some of her creative process as she strangles a dummy that kinda looks like a man with a sack over his head. Also. How white is her house?

No really.

Segregation on television really is fascinating. The 'white' and the 'black' shows. We have Family Ties and The Cosby Show. These divisions carried through the 90s and into the 00s. This division still exists today but there are way more shows with multi-ethnic casts.

I want to talk about race later though. Because Jessica Fletcher's first book, The Corpse Danced at Midnight is being made into a movie! By John Saxon no less.

A wild Saxon in the wild.

And he's a sleazy film producer. Which is very against type for Saxon. But not really.

What's he done to Jessica's book? He's turned it into a strange neon lit sex romp in a graveyard with...dancing...and sex. And more sex. He's also cast his live-in girlfriend/meal ticket, Eve. She can't really act, and is also maybe a drunk. It's unclear. But HOLLYWOOD!

Saxon admits that he only bought the rights because the title is kinda kick-ass. He tells Jessica to her face that he thinks her work is terrible and boring and for people who read.

I know it's difficult to take your eyes off Saxon's mighty chest hair but let's play a game. Let's think of stereotypes about Hollywood!

My list is short. Yours could be way longer. Feel free to add yours in the comments. Mine:

• Sleazy producer/director/etc.
• Casting couch/sex for roles
• Dumb actor
• Crass careless handling of 'literature' and writing as art
• Nepotism
• Extravagant/wasteful

We've already checked three of those boxes with Saxon alone. Needless to say, Jessica is pissed. She calls the whole production 'debasing'  and threatens legal action against the studio, her publisher, the universe. She gets a lawyer.

Yes. That is Horshack. He apparently graduated from law school. Of note. The previous episode featured Mr. Kotter. Her sweathog lawyer tells her she can't do anything since she signed away her film rights. Which was really dumb on her part. Even in the 80s books to film was a big time thing. Just ask Stephen King.

Jessica takes the logical step of crashing the studio. There she meets the writer, costume designer, and the stars of the film. The writer is a kinda slobby looking mope. The costumer is English and uppity. The stars are stupid. Horshack's uncle runs the projectors at the studio. Because everyone is in the business in LA. E V E R Y O N E.

Likes graveyards.

She also meets the director, Gomez.

Naturally, everyone hates the producer and Saxon gets bumped off in a fake graveyard. Jessica finds the body, as usual, but becomes suspect number one.

Then the only person of color shows up. And he is super short and wears silly yellow sunglasses and kinda fauns all over the elderly white lady for the rest of the episode even though he's investigating her for murder.

Angela Lansbury is a GIANT.

Why is everyone shorter than her in this episode? Every actor seems to be at least 6 inches shorter then her. Is LA full of super tiny people? Is it a sly commentary on the shortness of actors? Maybe it's just racist.

So Gomez takes over the film and there are claims of artistic integrity thrown about. Then they film that classic J.B. Fletcher scene of the woman dancing in the neon graveyard with zombies.

The whole thing is pretty soulless. It looks more like a music video then the clear riff on Suspiria it's meat to be. CBS was not the place to do slasher parodies apparently.

In one amazing scene we are told that an entire film's worth of costumes were dumped because the lead actress didn't like one outfit. Then we see the really terrible costumes while Jessica pretends they are the finest thing she's ever seen.

Eventually Horshack tackles Gomez, who has a missing button from a jacket that proves the drunkish actress killed her own lover/roommate/producer. Supposedly because he forced her to become a famous actress.

Jessica compliments her acting and the final scene plays out in an oddly sad way for the absolute wacky episode that came before it. Eve tearfully recounts how she actually loved Saxon. How he didn't love her. How she just wanted to live their life, etc. And then Jessica gives her the best contemplative look she can as the credits roll.

If the episode before this was a sort of send up of night clubs and cabaret acts. This episode is the 'film' episode. Looking at it now, it is hard to see that anyone thought this was anything but silly. That these tropes are with us still means they must have roots in reality.

But it's pretty cynical to create these sorts of representations of the thing that you are doing. But that kinda sums up the 80s.

Birds of a Feather

Season 1, Episode 3
Oct. 14, 1984

Gay Panic is defined as:

An overwhelming or overpowering fear of gays, or the fear that they will sexually assault you and/or rape you. This fear is based in the common belief that gays are way oversexed.

It crops up all over the place in our lives. In media it occurs mostly in comedy, but has shown up in such disparate places as Terminator 3 and the defense of Aaron McKinney in his trial for murdering Matthew Shepard.

Seriously. Go watch that scene and tell me that in 2003 that was somehow OK.

Without sounding dismissive, 1984 CBS was not the place to have gay characters. So I suppose we should be thankful that in the 3rd episode of the show they take Jessica to San Francisco and into a drag club owned by Martin Landau.

The club also randomly features Gabe "Welcome Back Kotter" Kaplan as a comedian who sits behind a drum kit and delivers his own rim shots.

Jessica arrives and we meet Victoria. They eat at a weird UK themed seafood restaurant and then decide to crash the aforementioned nightclub that Victoria's fiancee, Howard, works at. Howard is played by Jeff Conaway. He was Kenickie in Grease.

They use Jessica's fame to get into the club. She apparently has had 6 best-sellers and a movie deal...since the first episode. The bitchy gay maitre d' rolls his eyes at this and does his best Stanley Tucci in Pretty Woman, but eventually they get in. Jessica tosses of this great one-liner - "Have you noticed there's something a little strange about this place?" - just in time to watch Howard come running through the place chased by cops. He is wearing a purple dress. HILARIOUS!

Howard performs there. He hated his insurance job but was fired. Took the drag job for $$$. The implications are that he would never do this without the pay. He and Victoria spend a long amount of time making out. A sort of non-porn gay for pay. The other drag performer is also shown in a prolonged kissing scene with a woman.

Despite the premise, the show manages to only offend in a few places. The weird making out while in drag thing and the scene where they arrest Howard and play a bit of a pronoun dance calling him 'he' 'she' 'whatever'. Which is quickly followed by a scene at the police station where a black man in leather calls Howard princess and asks him on a date. Howard responds with a violent threat of a shoe in his mouth. Not only is this gay panic it's racially awkward.

Our bachelor police chief played by Harry Guardino, who was in Dirty Harry. He has an apartment full of plants and swirly art. He has a cat and wears a Save The Whales bathrobe. He admits to being 'nice' when outside the office.

The widow of Martin Landau is shown playing golf in a black pantsuit for no reason. With an attack dog at her side. Jessica tells her her outfit is pretty. Which...it isn't...and why?

The murderer used a pink satin pillow to muffle the gun. And at this point I just sort of rolled my eyes as Victoria and Howard got married and the bitchy maitre d' started balling like a baby. Even the title is a sort of strange code for gays congregating. The gay 'ghettos' of the world, etc.

What's interesting about film is that very gay characters and actors were all over the place. And not always in a negative light. On Soap, Billy Crystal's Jodie, considered the first regular gay character on a TV show, was on TV every week from 1977-1981. You can watch all of the 1977 episode of Maude, The Gay Bar, on YouTube. It's great television.

Modern TV gave us Roseanne's had a famous lesbian kiss with Mariel Hemingway. The Simpsons had an amazing episode with John Waters where Homer thinks Bart has caught the gay. Of course Ellen was and is groundbreaking.

The episode is not terrible on gay issues. There is not a lot of swishing. Aside from the gay maitre d', the gay tropes of TV are mostly not present. You want more but at least something of the culture was recognized and put out there. But did it do more harm then good? If they had left off the weird hitting on in the station bit and made the inspector more obviously gay, I'd call it good.

We don't have time machines, so I'd call it better than most. Which is sometimes, sadly, all you can get.

Substitutiary Locomotion : Angela Lansbury Is So Great

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1954)

By the time that Murder, She Wrote came a along, Angela Lansbury had been acting for over 30 years. 59 with 46 films to her credit: National Velvet, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Long Hot Summer, The Manchurian Candidate, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Last Unicorn.

4 Tony Awards and 3 Oscars nominations. She has never won one though. Which is sad. Let's all Kickstarter to get her one.

That is a dead bird on a hat.
And she is WORKING it.

Of those Tony's the most famous win is for Mrs. Lovett in the original production of Sweeney Todd. That character helps commit insane murders and hide the evidence in meat pies that are sold to the public.

Which is all kinds of messed up. And pretty amazingly opposite what she would become more well-known for. Of course - J. B. Fletcher.

Of all the films I listed above, my go-to is Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I know. Silly town. But hear me out.

It's a musical, it's live action with animation, she's a witch, the dad from Mary Poppins plays a con artist, they fight NAZIS WITH RE-ANIMATED SUITS OF ARMOR.

You watch this 10 minutes of greatness right now:

She's got J. B. Fletcher eyes.

The film won an Oscar for the Special Effects. Those suits of armor are basically puppets. Shoes dance folks. That is old school film making. Those things happened on a set somewhere. It was nominated in the Best Song category but lost to the theme from Shaft. Which...fair enough.

Whenever I'm under the weather, I curl up on the couch and watch it. Angela Lansbury cha chas with a fish and wins a trophy for it. She has a cat named Cosmic Creepers. This movie will make you smile like only a Disney film from the 70s can.

Also. Can we all agree that she was a hot lady and is still fierce as shit? Because...I mean, look at her.

Deadly Lady

Season 1, Episode 2

Oct 7, 1984

Jessica Fletcher types as a storm rages outside. There is a knock at the door. A murderous thief? A vigilante from justice? It's Ethan, the friendly fisherman here to check in on Jessica. To make sure she's OK since she's alone in her house. Which is shown to be in the middle of the block in a well populated town. Eye roll. It is so hard being a lady! Taking care of yourself. SO. HARD.

In the pilot Jessica had two female friends, they have been replaced with Ethan and Sheriff Amos Tupper. Both men.

Howard Cunningham or Father Dowling
or the Glad Sandwich Bag guy

She sort of flirts with Ethan. The flirting is strange in a Moonlighting kinda way. The episode ends with an odd freeze frame of them driving away as they discuss "fishing". It is one of the few times the freeze is not of Jessica's face:

Ethan - "You'll want me to bait your hook won't you?"

Jessica - "You always do, don't you?"

That weird double entendre is very much in line with the almost farcical comedy that gets shoe-horned into the drama of a murder investigation. But is an outlier. After this point very little of the comedy is so overtly sexual. And never directed at Jessica.

Re-watching this episode I was struck by how much they point out Jessica's dead husband. This topic is addressed all the time but it is usually in passing. Here we are treated to a long scene where Jessica and her would-be gardener Ralph discuss their spouses. The conversation ends with her giving the gardener her husband's pipe.

Jessica Fletcher as a zombie.

Over the course of the conversation about dead spouses we see Jessica become vulnerable. And for the second time in as many episodes we see her fall for a guy. Preston Giles ended up being a killer, and Ralph will be murdered by his own daughter.

From here on Jessica has no true romantic leads that we see. There are certainly moments of flirting, but it is always implied to be in jest. She becomes the embodiment of the sexless elder. The crone. Atropos manipulating the world about her and deciding the fates of men.

It isn't much of a stretch considering that Jessica is a writer or murder mysteries. A woman who finds herself endlessly surrounded by dead bodies that she must untangle the stories of. This week the Earl sisters are the main suspects:

Nancy - Hair by Paul Mitchell

Maggie - Shirt by LL Bean

Nancy is the youth. The youngest. She hopes to be a fashion designer. Her ex-fiance shows up magically as her father is killed. When meeting Jessica for the first time he refuses to tell as story saying, "You're a lady so I won't repeat it."

Maggie, the overly prim middle daughter. She falsely admits to killing the father but then actually kills him. The whole thing is very Jan Brady. She wanted more love. She apparently helped with the father's business and lived with him, cleaned, cooked, etc. A sort of justification for the murder.

Lisa is the socialite. Her husband wears a suit and tie the entire episode. For no reason. She has a fur coat. He is VERY condescending. He says his wife has a "fevered little mind" and calls Jessica a "sweet old gal".

Grace seems to be the eldest. She looks like a librarian. We are given nothing else of her character except that her husband ran off with another woman.

Lisa - Coat and Hat by Falcon Crest

Grace - Glasses by Annie Hall Collection

These 4 sisters represent variations on female stereotypes in media. Youth, Prim, Socialite, Librarian. They are portrayed as a tight circle who cover for each other and equally hated their father. When a pair of pink shoes show up on the beach it is implied any of the sisters could have worn them, they share clothes. Even though they are clearly costumed VERY differently.

To return to the fate analogy. Nancy is key to unmasking the true killer. They pretend to arrest her to unmask her ex-fiance as a con artist and to lure her sister Maggie into revealing too much. She is spinning thread, as it were.

There isn't really an analogous Lachesis in this episode, though it is of note that Lisa wears only white the whole episode and is seen plotting with her husband over the fate of her father's fortune. Which would, in turn, decide the fate of her sisters. Lachesis was always shown in all white.

Also of note: This is the only time a woman is shown in the Cabot Cove police office. And she is shown cleaning a gun in an incredibly sexual way.

Grandma Fletcher

Murder, She Wrote opens with a scene from a bad murder mystery play. After a few moments the scene ends, the lights go up and the director calls a reset. Then there is a small burst of applause. The camera spins around and we see three older women.

The trio is identified as the refreshment committee from the PTA. One is Jessica Fletcher. The director thanks them and ushers them outside where Jessica reveals who the killer in the play is. The director is appalled.

Her long explanation reveals everything about herself. She is sharp-witted, observant. Later in the episode a reporter gives away the ending of her book, Jessica is horrified. To her, the two  reveals are very different. She can reveal because she figured it out. The reporter read the answer. It is hypocritical but key to the character. Jessica is the one who explains things.

I titled this post 'Grandma Fletcher' because this sort of busy-body, my-way-or-the-highway sentiment reminds me of my Grandmothers. Always firm, but always with a smile. The rightness could never be questioned. Hypocritical on things, but in a way that was almost passable. I see a generation in the character.

We see Jessica riding a bike, waving to every single person in every single shot. Cabot Cove is shown to be friendly, small, idyllic.

She catches fish. She paints her house. The smallness and not city-ness of the place is clearly defined. It is fishermen and high school students who come up to their 60 year-old teacher to talk shop before class.

The opening ends with her jogging up to her house as the phone rings...

Jessica Fletcher runs prettier than you do.

Her nephew, Grady, calls. He gave her manuscript to a publisher. She claims she is a teacher not a writer but the camera zips ahead a few months - best seller! Jessica is heading to New York, by train, to meet her new publisher.

The use of the train seems to put the role even more in the past. Angela Lansbury was 59 when the first episode aired. Younger than my mother is right now. The strange aging of the character into a vague late in life space would be continued throughout the run of the show. It is never clear how old Jessica is meant to be. She is permanently 70ish. Maybe.

When Jessica briefly meets the publisher she says he looks pale. That he needs to eat more apples. Then there is a weird montage of interviews where she is berated by snobs. Her quip, "You know, back in Cabot Cove the only thing we have with claws is lobster, and we eat them" is the stuff of every homespun saying ever uttered. In the first few seasons she uses many variations of 'back in Cabot Cove'. It eventually gets dropped as the character gains success and the show moves into a long-running formula.

For the rest of the episode she is at the right place at the right time: she trips a thief with a giant magic wand; she tries to keep a drunk woman from driving;  she makes a concoction of eggs, sugar, milk and a ton of other stuff to get wine out of a satin dress when club soda would do.

Shocking. That velour jumpsuit...

She is the first on the scene when a body is found floating in the pool. While the cops are questioning and searching Jessica is looking in the garden for clues. She is the classic busy-body. If this were a sitcom she would be the Ropers.

She becomes a voice of authority in every room she enters. The police ask her opinion without any prompting. She is smarter than everyone to a degree that is almost laughable. That the episode revolves around a Sherlock Holmes costume is appropriate. There are not two better busy-bodies who magically know the secrets of murder than Holmes and J. B. Fletcher.

I don't want to paint all Grandmothers in a negative light. And I know she is not technically a Grandmother. I look at her fondly because she is based on a generation of women who grew up during WWI and WWII. When seeing the minutia was a part of life. A part of understanding the world around you. You saw something, you said something. You looked out for yourself and each other. Because there were bad guys out there and they wanted to ruin it for the rest of us.

And we live in a time like that now. We are prepping a new generation of J.B. Fletchers as we speak. The heightened alertness of the war on terror. The constant fear of another war. The gun debate. The immigrant debate. The neo-culture war. I wait for all of us to reach our vague-70s so we can start solving crime.