Murder, She Wrote (TV Series) The Dead File (1992) User Reviews

"When You Get Caught Between Cartoon and New York City, Arrests May Hasten You to Find that Glove"

[WeatherViolet · 7/10 · 24 March 2010]

Paige Kindle (Diana Bellamy) operates the New York City-based "Empire Feature Syndicate," which provides comic strips to subscribing newspapers on a daily basis, and which represents "Hatterville."

Stan Hatter (Harvey Fierstein) creates the comic strip "Hatterville," which personifies animal characters in whodunit Mystery story lines.

Teddy Graves (Kris Kamm) serves as Stan's assistant cartoonist, since his arrival from Montana, while he is also proficient enough to land his own contract, but remains with "Hatterville."

Ben Watanabe (Rodney Kageyama) performs the task of lettering the strips of six artists, including "Hatterville," as he makes his nightly rounds from studio to studio to complete his tasks.

Dayton Whiting (Patrick Macnee) creates the comic strip "Biff Banyon" but claims that Stan Hatter has lifted his ideas, and so he hires veteran reporter Jerry Bozell (George Furth) as detective, to shadow Hatter's studio and to report upon his every move.

But events begin to turn sour for the "Hatterville" production team and for "Empire Feature Syndicate" once bogus strips slip passed editors for printing, to implicate various celebrities of illegal behavior.

Lieutenant Peter DiMartini (Jon Polito) is suspended from NYPD after "Hatterville" portrays him as a corrupt police officer who takes bribes from "Three Moose Ear Gang" for illegal narcotic trafficking.

Roger Melton (Robin Gammell), a Wall Street Financier with a reputation for dishonesty, is portrayed as a corrupt duck, who has swindled millions from other domesticated animals.

Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), the famous Mystery author, is portrayed in the strip as "Jessica Fox," who turns the tables on Lieutenant Peter DiMartini and Roger Melton, by naming them as guilty for the crimes alleged in the fictional strip.

When Jessica arrives in NYC after a three-week stint in Italy, she learns of her objectionable comic strip portrayal, and is counseled by her defense attorney, Russell Yorke (Mark Roberts), once she innocently faces a series of lawsuits for her purported role in the creation of "Hatterville" and her alleged plot to blackmail other celebrities in the process.

A series of meetings follows angry operatives around the city, as Lieutenant Peter DiMartini receives a blackmail note containing lettering pasted from last Tuesday's "Cabot Cove Gazette," for which Jessica maintains proof of her innocence, for she has just returned from Italy, and hasn't stopped by Maine since.

Dayton Whiting secretly meets with Roger Melton to sell information gathered by Jerry Bozell for a steep price, in order to pay Jerry Bozell and to suspend his services.

A livid Paige Kindle also meets with the incensed Roger Melton, Jessica and Stan Hatter, who maintains his innocence, especially after a body is discovered on the sidewalk one morning (after the audience sees the victim bludgeoned by a Reuben Award).

Sergeant Martha Redstone (Susan Kellermann) arrives to investigate what she perceives as a suicide, and then vituperation escalates into major battles between feuding police officers, and among a wide slate of homicide suspects, including Jessica, who manages to approach the situation with a clear vision, on the trail of "The Dead File."

The cast is rounded out by John Apicella as Sid The Doorman, Mark Eric Howell as Waiter, David Ault as Policeman, Neal Kaz as Van Driver, and Mell Lazarus as Cartoonist.

This episode represents the first acting credit by Mark Eric Howell, the first television role for David Ault, and the only acting credit to date by Cartoonist Mell Lazarus, creator of comic strips "Miss Peach of the Kelly School" (1957-2002) and "Momma" (1970-present).

This also marks the first of two "MSW" appearances for Jon Polito, the second of two each for Diana Bellamy, Robin Gammell, Neal Kaz and Patrick Macnee, and the third of three "MSW" guest roles for George Furth.

George Furth, acting in film and on television since 1962, and Diana Bellamy, acting since 1982, have unfortunately since passed.

Three, Six, Nine: George Furth in "No Laughing Murder" (#3.18) as Farley Pressman, "Dead Letter" (#6.06) as Fred Owens, and "The Dead File" (#9.05) as Jerry Bozell.

Comic book capers, fun episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 8 April 2023]

Jessica appears in a comic strip as a cartoon character, Jessica Fox, in it she accuses several people of misdemeanours, and faces a hefty lawsuit, her first mission, to confront the artist.

It's a cracking episode, it's an amusing one, but has two interesting aspects, the murder of course, and the goings on with the comic strip.

Wonderful characters, from The Lieutenant to Hatter, they are all so well acted.

Two of my all time favourite actors appear here, namely Patrick Magee and Harvey Fierstein, two actors I didn't think I'd see appear in the same thing, but here you go, both were terrific here, as was George Furth.

It looks very slick, it has that glossy look, maybe it was shot on film.

8/10.

Everybody's suing everybody...whoopie!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 19 May 2023]

My summary is not much of an exaggeration. In "The Dead File", Jessica is threatened with a lawsuit as are many of the main characters in this episode. So why is everyone so sue-happy? Well, a comic strip has recently appeared in which the character looks like an animal version of Jessica and it makes all sorts of scurrilous and unsupported accusations of REAL people! Some think the originator of the strip did it or that he was assisted by Jessica, but the bottom line is that someone is stirring up a lot of problems AND, not surprisingly, someone soon ends up dead!

I think the biggest surprise is to see Harvey Fierstein playing a man who has four ex-wives! Otherwise, it's a pretty good episode and keeps you guessing.

The law, she is a harsh mistress, yes? NO!

[tadimaggio · 1 September 2020]

Back when I was a practicing attorney, I lost count of the times that I had to deal with clients who responded to my proposals for witness preparation and trial strategy with "But that's not what Blake Carrington's attorney did on 'Dynasty' " "But that's not how Sam Waterston handled it on 'Law and Order' ". It's surprising that I can still WATCH a TV show with legal themes. But in this episode of "Murder, She Wrote" (a show I love, largely because I'm a BIG Angela Lansbury fan), I have to wonder what on earth the legal advisors for the series were thinking when this script was written. There is absolutely NO imaginable theory of legal liability by which Jessica could have been roped into the lawsuit at the center of this story. All Jessica's attorney would have had to do was file a motion to get her dismissed from the action -- and unless the judge was corrupt, it would certainly have been granted. (NO public figure is EVER responsible for how others make use of their name and image without their knowledge and consent). I can think of any number of other LEGITIMATE ways that the writers could have involved Jessica in the plot. (An.old friend of the Harvey Fierstein character, who also knows Jessica, asks her to help him out, perhaps?). And, on an unrelated topic: claiming that Harvey Fierstein has FIVE ex-wives is enough to get "Murder, She Wrote" reclassified as science fiction.

Loosely Based on Berke Breathed and Bloom County

[richard.fuller1 · 7/10 · 30 June 2012]

Berke Breathed was a 'Pulitzer prize-winning' cartoonist who did a comic strip called Bloom County, blatantly ripped off from Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau. I'm not sure which one of these men this episode of Murder She Wrote might be based on, but my guess is Breathed.

Whereas Doonsebury did possess humor and political knowledge and deadpan Charlie Brown deliveries, Bloom County strived too hard to be funny. At its worst, it WAS funny, but that was hardly most of the time.

So here we have Fierstein as a cartoonist and someone is submitting doctored comic strips of his, implicating obvious figures in various scandals.

Jessica herself is portrayed as an accuser of sorts.

It took a while to figure out what exactly was going on, as in the span of an hour program, the ramifications had to be established rather quickly, making Jessica appear rather blustery.

People (very strangely) went to her asking why she was making these accusations in the comic strip for which she had nothing to do.

Amazing to think of gangstah rappers doing the same thing in hip-hop songs and they are considered societally inferior.

As I said, it takes a while to follow the charges of slander and how upset people can get. Then there is a murder and the show is back to its usual pace.

Definitely an intriguingly different episode, with Fierstein as a many-times-married cartoonist and Susan Kellermann (Latka's mother on Taxi) as the policewoman.

And how did things go in the real life version with Berke Breathed? He won a Pulitzer and eventually just vanished, while Trudeau's Doonesbury is still running today.

Comic strip murder

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 2 November 2017]

Have always been quite fond of 'Murder She Wrote'. It is a fun and relaxing watch that makes you think as you try to unwind in the evening. If one wants more complex, twisty mysteries with lots of tension and suspense 'Murder She Wrote' may not be for you, but if you want something light-hearted and entertaining but still provide good mysteries 'Murder She Wrote' fits the bill just fine.

After the very well done "The Wind Around the Tower" (despite the accents and the whole secret passage stuff being hard to buy), Season 9 is back to disappointing territory with "The Dead File", another example as to why to me Season 9 is one of the weakest 'Murder She Wrote' seasons. There was an interesting idea here and any show that tries to do something different once in a while deserves credit, but "The Dead File" just doesn't execute this idea very well.

It is a pity, because Angela Lansbury is terrific as always as Jessica (even though agreed Jessica does seem a little more blustery than usual in the latter stages and much of it is to do with the rushed-seeming writing) and there are game supporting performances from Sally Kellerman, Patrick Macnee and particularly Harvey Fierstein (with the only real semi-interesting character of the episode).

Production values are slick and stylish. The music has energy and has presence but also not making the mistake of over-scoring, while it is hard to forget or resist the theme tune.

Unfortunately, the rest of the performances are forgettable at best, with the only standout being the really awkward acting of the murderer in the denouement.

The story is neither fun or absorbing sadly. It's mostly pretty dull, have always found it a difficult episode to get into, though the denouement itself is underwhelming in how rushed and underdeveloped it feels and that it is one of the show's worst acted denouements to me. It's not just the pacing, some of it is rather too convoluted and the whole impetus stretches implausibility to breaking point.

Writing has lost most of its thoughtfulness and light-hearted energy, being both dreary and contrived.

Overall, disappointing. 4/10 Bethany Cox

A real stinker

[xbatgirl-30029 · 2/10 · 9 August 2022]

I've been slowly rewatching this series all the way through for the first time. Previously I only watched random reruns whenever I happened to catch them. I've always considered that I like the 80s episodes much better than the ones from the 90s. Actually, if I noticed a rerun from from the 90s, I usually didn't watch. This episode is a prime example of how I must have developed that practice. It's lousy and amateurish.

Most obvious is the ludicrous script. As others have pointed out, the premise that people would blame, and even try to sue, Jessica over a cartoon character loosely based on her is too stupid to ever get past. Add in a paranoid NYPD detective with nothing better to do than follow Jessica around making accusations. Or her lawyer or agent (I couldn't bother to pay close enough attention) who tells her to just settle the lawsuit because she'd lose in court. Or that people in NY actually cared about some cartoon this much. Or that they would immediately know who it was based on and what her extracurricular mystery solving activities were. The list is endless.

Personally, I think Jessica is her usual self here. "Blustery" is how I'd describe most of the other characters who spend most of the episode yelling and making angry threats with either the most annoying voices or accents or both. Jon Polito, especially, I usually love but here he's entirely just as unlikeable as the rest. The acting in general is terrible.

The sets and clothes look very cheap. Usually a series gets more expensive and elaborate in later seasons. MSW seemed to do the reverse. (I know there were things going on behind the scenes where, at one point, a new head of CBS hated the show and didn't support it, so you can't necessarily blame the producers.)

Honestly, I felt embarrassed for Angela L. That she had to be in this. I only watched to be a completist.

The Dead file

[coltras35 · 5/10 · 13 August 2023]

Jessica finds herself on the wrong side of the law again when a comic strip character based on her image, Jessica Fox, begins making libelous remarks and blackmailing thinly veiled Expies of real people. The cartoonist, Stan Hatter, claims that he never wrote the offending strips, and the two find themselves with a common enemy. As a result, Jessica and Stan Hatter have to work together with the police to find out is who is behind fake cartoons.

The Dead File features an unusual interesting idea and has some good performances from Patrick Macnee and Harvey Fierstein, though Sally Kellerman as the sergeant steals the scene, however that's the only bright spot in this episode. It's idea isn't executed too well, it's a little flat and dull at times.