Police Inspector James Gregory has orders come down:find missing heiress Skye Aubrey. He doesn't have the manpower, so he asks his lady friend, retired schoolteacher Eve Arden to do the legwork. She finds a yacht filled with people looking to found a doomsday colony and assorted corpses.
It's based on HILDEGARDE WITHERS MAKES THE SCENE, the last Miss Withers mystery, started by Stuart Palmer and finished after his death by Fletcher Flora. Earlier books in the series had been turned into a fine series of B movies, originally starring the formidable Edna May Oliver as Withers, Miss Arden's role, and James Gleason as Oscar Piper, Mr. Gregory's role. This TV movie was essayed because ABC wanted to compete with the NBC Mystery Movies, which rotated such popular series as COLUMBO and MACMILLAN AND WIFE. ABC planned to revive other old mystery characters, such as Sherlock Homes, Nick Carter and Charlie Chan. The project died a-borning.
This one shows why. Gregory is excellent a the irascible Piper, Eve Arden was undoubtedly cast because she had played the wise-cracking second lead to perfection in many a movie in the 1930s and 1940s, then had achieved TV stardom as a schoolteacher in OUR MISS BROOKS. However, there is something wrong with her timing here. She plays the prim retired lady with a taste for old-fashioned hats very well, but her line readings lack snap, there is no chemistry with Gregory, and the writing lacks the morbid humor that the 1930s movies had. Pity.
