In addition to his day job as B’way lyricist/composer, Stephen Sondheim is a brilliant, all but fanatical puzzle addict.* A bent used, with actor/pal Anthony Perkins, in co-writing this one-off screenplay, a decidedly nasty murder mystery amongst the Hollywood set, but with its Agatha Christie bona fides more Hamptons L.I. than Malibu L.A. Hollow, but fun, you don’t have to be a member of Acrostics Anonymous to enjoy watching the claws of movieland’s rich & entitled come out during a shipboard week of parlor games with James Coburn hosting a nightly truth or dare 'character' treasure hunt to find out who was responsible for last year’s hit-and-run death of wife Sheila. Director Herbert Ross, judging his effects perfectly, makes sure we can parse all the plot twists & explanations while getting excellent perfs (James Mason & Richard Benjamin especially fine) other than Raquel Welch whose third-rate movie actress is also third-rate in this movie. All leading up to a real Hollywood ending: cynical, amoral, with a Deal Memo for a heart.
DOUBLE-BILL: Woody Allen took a whack at the form in his underrated MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY/’93.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Sondheim’s puzzle mania may explain the frustrating limit on his immense creative talents. When asked about it, he’d say that ‘they (puzzles) create order out of chaos.’ Art, he would explain, did the same. (From a New Yorker piece on Somdheim & Puzzles.) Perhaps unknowingly, he’s perfectly described the difference between craft and art.
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