Assassinio per cause naturali

It happens occasionally that I stumble upon the IMDb pages of made-for-television movies, usually from the 1970s, with incredibly high ratings and almost exclusively praising user-comments. I'm intrigued by those titles and promptly seek them out to watch next. Not necessarily because I'm convinced they truly will be great, but to try and capture the experience & emotions of all my fellow reviewers. For you see, most of the hyper-positive ratings and reviews are based on fond memories. Fans who watched the films on television, often just once and at a very young age. The films haven't been shown anywhere since and never got released on DVD, but they made an everlasting impression.

Please, do believe me when I state that I DO NOT consider those ratings and reviews invaluable or overly subjective. Quite the contrary, I'm often jealous that I was born in the wrong decade and truly wish to have been able to experience the glorious era of genuinely intelligent and qualitative movies for free on cable television! And - just to be clear - many of these TV-movies are REALLY good, like my most recent discoveries "One of my Wives is Missing" and this "Murder by Natural Causes".

The sadly forgotten gem "Murder by Natural Causes" is a tour-de-force collaboration of excellent writing (courtesy of the team behind "Columbo") and even better acting. What starts as a simple story about adultery and a banal conspiracy to murder an unsuspecting husband unfolds into a convoluted thriller with surprising twists and sardonic characters. Revealing anything about the plot would be a shame, but I guarantee you'll be glued to the screen and guessing. The unearthly beautiful Katharine Ross plays a role that is quite out of her comfort zone, but I've never seen her so sexy. Hal Holbrook, who's always been underrated in my opinion, is fantastic as the charismatic showman with a niftily constructed mind-reading act.

I ran across this movie, which I had seen before and got hooked again! I wasn't planning to watch it but it is such a good show and Hal Holbrook is masterful! This is a show that you will enjoy again and again (even though you know the ending).

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.

I have to this one gets very suspenseful and has a couple of unexpected turns but the ending came a no big surprise but played a little differently than I guessed.

Hal Holbrook was the real star of the show (and such an underrated actor), but are also awesome performances by both Katharine Ross and Barry Bostwick. The three of them took center stage for a while but Richard Anderson showed up to give another super performance. Everyone in this film is very convincing.

If you are married to a mentalist who has a good detective on his side then I don't recommend cheating on them, you might be left with three alternatives.

8/10

Probably the best of the Levinson/Link made for TV movies. They take the audience by the hand, and lead them completely in the wrong direction. I would defy anyone seeing this for the first time, to pick the ending. This is great "edge of the seat" stuff, but don't miss a word of the dialogue, especially the last 20 minutes, as there are more twists than a corkscrew.