Murder, She Wrote: South by Southwest

TV Movie
1997
1h 40m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

1.1K

YOUR RATING

Murder, She Wrote: South by Southwest (1997)

Crime Drama Mystery

Jessica Fletcher (Dame Angela Lansbury) is attacked on a train when she investigates the case of a missing passenger.Jessica Fletcher (Dame Angela Lansbury) is attacked on a train when she investigates the case of a missing passenger.Jessica Fletcher (Dame Angela Lansbury) is attacked on a train when she investigates the case of a missing passenger.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

1.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 3 nominations

Trivia
The dusty bus stop town location was Piru, California, adjacent to Fillmore. The Piru town's short Main Street commercial buildings were completely vacant, boarded up, and unoccupied. Art Director Mary Dodson created all of the shops, selecting a market, a Southwest Indian tourist shop, a barber shop, gas station, with necessary window and sign decoration. Mary and the decorator made the town come to life for the filming sequence. Several other exterior buildings and sidewalk locations were utilized filling out the filming schedule's use of the town site.

Goofs
Driving through "Aqua Verde" a street sign above can be seen for "Magic Mountain Parkway"

Quotes
[last lines]
Jessica Fletcher: ...It starts with a simple electronic game and an eastbound train.

Connections
Followed by Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For (2000)

User reviews12

Review

Featured review

The best! of the 4 spin-off TV movies from the 'Murder, She Wrote' TV series.

Without a doubt the best! of the 4 spin-off TV movies from the 'Murder, She Wrote' TV series.

Superb styling. A great story that pans out well, with a couple of surprising plot twists at the end. More worthy of Lansbury's dramatic scope than, sadly, the rest of the TV spin-offs, this is one film that is well worth setting the set-top box to record.

With wonderful subtle references to other 'train crime' movies: the film noir 'Double Indemnity'; 'The 39 Steps' (the rural train station at which Jessica Fletcher disembarks is amusingly named 'Hannay' after that film's lead character Richard Hannay); and of course another famous Hitchcock train movie: 'North by Northwest'. Plus there are elements of 'The Lady Vanishes' when one of the lead characters disappears; all the more poignant, of course, as Angela Lansbury herself starred as 'the lady' in the 1978 film version of the 'TLV'!

Indubitably a fun film for die-hard fans of the TV series. And the most watchable of the spin-offs. Maybe this is because it was the first (made in 1997) of the 4 movies. But in any case the other 3 spin-offs in this TV franchise are little more than self-indulgent, rambling & soporific TV 'dross'. This initial TV movie, however, is a more 3-dimensional film.

A well-scripted story in which the plot gives Lansbury the chance to really act. Enjoy. It offers a fun couple of hours' viewing.