The Lady in Question

It is 1938. Elderly and wealthy Jewish-rights activist Emma Sachs is on a plane when stewardess Mimi Barnes introduces herself because they have a common acquaintance. As she leaves the plane, Emma pushes a note into Mimi's hands that says "I'm going to be murdered". Later that night, Emma tells her family (who are used to the comfortable life) that she is going to change her will and use the vast majority of her estate to support those fighting the rise of the Nazi's. Meanwhile Mimi has mentioned this to her boyfriend, theatre director Larry Carter, who in turn has asked his cop friend Detective Tony Rossini in Stamford to take a look in on the Sachs house the next day. However during the night Sachs suffers a massive stroke and dies shortly afterwards. Rossini finds evidence of foul play and turns to Mimi and Larry to help his investigation.

Although this looked like a pretty basic television film I decided to give it a go for some reason. After a bit of a slow start the film gets into the mystery and down to the business of investigating the murder of Sachs. At this point it doesn't suddenly become a brilliant film but it does settle into the stride of a tvm mystery series and it wears it pretty well. The story itself lacks tension and pace but it plods along nicely with an interesting development across the time. It is nothing brilliant of course and it all feels very light and perhaps lacking in almost everything but it isn't actually "bad" and pushes the buttons for those who demand little.

Part of the reason I actually quite liked it was a great little turn the undervalued Mike Starr. He may have little to work with and not excel himself but he does dominate the film and bring much needed energy to the whole affair. Wilder is a nice presence but his performance made me think that really what he wants from his career now is lots of light fare that he won't find too taxing. Jones is OK and has an easy chemistry with most of her colleagues. The general support is not so memorable but they are mostly OK.

Overall this is a gentle and enjoyable mystery film that should please those of us just looking for something easy to watch on a slow weekend afternoon. It doesn't do anything that special but it is quite fun in its own easy way – a bit more energy and urgency would have been good but Starr helps that a bit with his entertaining if unsurprising performance.