TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, we head to a Lake Tahoe casino to witness the flabbergasting powers of The Great Calamari... the Great Castellaneta... the Great Caligari... (what?) oh, The Great Cagliostro! This master of hypnosis is our victim for DEATH CASTS A SPELL.
In front of hypnotized witnesses, the Great Cag-- uh, the hypnotist (José Ferrer) in question is found dead in his hotel room after a demonstration for members of the press. A shattered pane of glass makes one think it could've been a murderer via the balcony. Professional busybody and mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is stumped, but she has her assistant editor Joan (Diana Canova) to bounce ideas off of.
So, who did it? There are only so many options! One of the hypnotized? The beautiful casino owner's wife (Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas!) or her hot-tempered husband (Robert Loggia)? The sexy, former stripper assistant (Elaine Joyce)? A reporter (Murray Hamilton) with an axe to grind?
Brian Kerwin, Elvia Allman, Conrad Janis, and Robert Hogan round the cast out in this curious take on the locked-room mystery trope featuring scenes of Jessica Fletcher speaking like a Park Avenue snob and a barfly whilst under hypnosis, once again being sort of very famous, and impulsively hopping on the back of a motorcycle. There are WAY too many characters, but we'll try to sort it out!
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