... because the quality of the two halves is a bit uneven.
Playwright Alex Dennison (Robert Preston) is opening his Broadway play with his fiancée, Monica Welles (Lynn Redgrave), in the leading actress role. He wants it to be a success if only for her sake, and the audience loves the play, but the newspaper critics consider it a bust. After the play, Monica says she wants to be alone for the night, but later calls Alex and tells him to come right over. When Alex arrives, the police are there, with Monica apparently having jumped to her death from an upper story window. The authorities rule the death a suicide.
A year passes and Alex returns to the theatre scene with a rough draft of a new play. He wants to do a reading and invites five people who were part of or close to his last production, the one that failed and starred his fiancée. It soon becomes clear that this play is about the death of his fiancée, but in this play Monica is murdered. Alex states that Monica was murdered, and that this reading will reveal the culprit. When this comes to light all five decide to leave, saying that Alex has become obsessed, but there is a cop in the theatre who says he advises that they stay if only to humor Alex and put to rest his theory. And plus suspicion will fall on anybody who does leave. Complications ensue.
Now just about everything I wrote in the second paragraph above is not true, but it appears to be. The denouement is actually quite clever and, like I said, there is a pay-off if you stay until the end. Otherwise, give up on it midway and you'll just feel like your time has been wasted with some rather hammy and ham-fisted plot devices. I'd say the first half is about a 6/10, carried on the strength of the performers and the second half is about an 8/10.
Playwright Alex Dennison (Robert Preston) is opening his Broadway play with his fiancée, Monica Welles (Lynn Redgrave), in the leading actress role. He wants it to be a success if only for her sake, and the audience loves the play, but the newspaper critics consider it a bust. After the play, Monica says she wants to be alone for the night, but later calls Alex and tells him to come right over. When Alex arrives, the police are there, with Monica apparently having jumped to her death from an upper story window. The authorities rule the death a suicide.
A year passes and Alex returns to the theatre scene with a rough draft of a new play. He wants to do a reading and invites five people who were part of or close to his last production, the one that failed and starred his fiancée. It soon becomes clear that this play is about the death of his fiancée, but in this play Monica is murdered. Alex states that Monica was murdered, and that this reading will reveal the culprit. When this comes to light all five decide to leave, saying that Alex has become obsessed, but there is a cop in the theatre who says he advises that they stay if only to humor Alex and put to rest his theory. And plus suspicion will fall on anybody who does leave. Complications ensue.
Now just about everything I wrote in the second paragraph above is not true, but it appears to be. The denouement is actually quite clever and, like I said, there is a pay-off if you stay until the end. Otherwise, give up on it midway and you'll just feel like your time has been wasted with some rather hammy and ham-fisted plot devices. I'd say the first half is about a 6/10, carried on the strength of the performers and the second half is about an 8/10.