Corned Beef and Carnage 

Jessica gets involved when her niece Victoria is believed to be connected to the murder of her lecherous boss.

Director:

John Llewellyn Moxey

Writers:

Peter S. Fischer (created by), Richard Levinson (created by)

Stars:

Angela Lansbury, Susan Anton, Warren Berlinger

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Angela Lansbury	...	Jessica Fletcher
Susan Anton	...	Christine Clifford
Warren Berlinger	...	Jim Ingram
Jeff Conaway	...	Howard Griffin
Genie Francis	...	Victoria Brandon Griffin
Peter Haskell	...	Leland Biddle
Richard Kline	...	Larry Kinkaid
Bill Macy	...	Myron Kinkaid
James Sloyan	...	Lt. Spoletti
David Ogden Stiers	...	Aubrey Thornton
Ken Swofford	...	Grover Barth
Marcia Wallace	...	Polly Barth
Phil Rubenstein	...	Deli Clerk
Russ Fega	...	Delivery Man
David Starwalt	...	Officer

Storyline

Visiting her niece Victoria Brandon Griffin, Jessica finds her crumbled by her job in advertising to give husband Howard financial comfort to pursue his acting career, while he feels guilty for being a kept man. However Vicky gets arrested after finding her mean boss, Larry Kinkaid, skull smashed with an award her fingerprints are on, just after she resigned refusing to court a married client. Jessica forces NYPD lieutenant Spoletti to look further, notably the security guard's list of building visitors, including an obvious alias she traces to Christine Clifford, the man-eater from an agency which competed with Kinkaid for the Corned Beef Castle account, and the delivery of a sandwich. Furthermore she looks into the agency's office politics, notably Larry's older brother and heir Myron Kinkaid and senior account manager Aubrey Thornton, whose position was most precarious...

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Plot Keywords:

food in episode title | niece | unemployed actor | ad agency | new york city | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Did You Know?

Trivia

Genie Francis and David Ogden Stiers also started in 2 tv miniseries together North and South and North and South Book 2.

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Goofs

The bill for Kincaid's sandwich was $5.50, but Kincaid tossed a $5 bill on the desk to pay for it.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Larry Kinkaid: We're goosing up the 18 to 34 demographics by, uh...
Victoria Brandon Griffin: 17 million impressions.
Larry Kinkaid: If we can squeeze the franchise holders another two percent of gross for advertising, we're gonna have Grover Barth's Corned Beef Sandwich over the billion served this year.

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Soundtracks

Murder She Wrote Theme
Written by John Addison

User Reviews

Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes

Yet another one of Jessica Fletcher's innumerable nieces or nephews gets into a jackpot in this Murder She Wrote story. The niece is Genie Francis who is married her to Jeff Conaway who is an aspiring actor much like the character he played on Taxi.

Someone ought to make a count of the Angela Lansbury relations that she runs into in the run of the show. Other than Michael Horton who was on the Fletcher side, none ever made any reappearances that I can remember. Both Fletchers and McGills.

In any event Francis works in an advertising agency for a rather ruthless boss in Richard Kline. If needed Kline wants Francis to put out for Ken Swofford who is the agency's number one account.

Kline isn't loved, not even by his brother Bill Macy who handles the finances and is appalled by Kline's free spending ways. As is usual no shortage of suspects, but the cops land on Francis.

This particular murder was well planned and it was a simple mistake involving a corned beef sandwich delivered to Kline that unravels things for the perpetrator. As usual it's Angela Lansbury who picks up on it.

Nicely done how the murderer walks into a trap. You have to see it.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 November 1986 (USA)

Filming Locations:

732 S Spring St, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

47 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1