Funeral at Fifty-Mile

Jessica is in Wyoming for a funeral. Following this, while she's at the dead man's house, an uncouth and boorish jerk arrives...announcing that HE is the heir to the dead man's fortune...not the dead man's daughter! This is very strange, as the dead guy and daughter loved each other...and the uncouth guy, well he's pretty awful. However, soon the uncouth guy is found dead...and it's up to Jessica to solve the crime...though considering how awful the dead man was, I'm surprised she'd bother.

This is a decent episode but there are two problems. First, it's so much like a famous Agatha Christie story that if you know it, you'll likely guy what really happened. Second, the ending is awfully vague and could be interpreted in at least two different ways...one of which is very unsatisfying. Third, Stella Stevens' character was, quite frankly, very broadly written and played and seemed like a caricature...not a believable person. As a result, it's watchable but slightly below average.

This episode has Jessica Fletcher going out to the wide open spaces of Wyoming to attend the funeral of an old war buddy of her late husband's. She gets to comfort the daughter of the deceased Kathleen Beller. The deceased owned quite a spread and Beller and her fiance foreman Jeff Osterhage look to be well fixed for some time.

In however walks tycoon Clu Gulager and his bimbo of a wife Stella Stevens who say that the place is their's now. If it is Gulager didn't get to enjoy it long as he's found strung up western style in the barn.

Gulager was not the most likable sort and he had a passel of enemies with plenty of motives to kill him.

Two performances stand out. One is Stevens who thinks she's going to be the owner of a Ponderosa like spread. The other is Cliff Potts who's the sheriff and takes his cues from the great western cowboys of the past. Not real good however on modern crime solving. Angela Lansbury has to take him in hand.

William Windom makes his first apperance on Murder She Wrote as the family lawyer. The following season he would be back for the rest of the series run as familiar grouchy, but kindly Dr. Seth Hazlitt.

As for the murder part of this story is taken from Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express. But only part.

One of the good aspects of this series is that fairly often, the stories are set in a nicely scenic location. This time we are in rural Wyoming. There are many exterior scenes, in and around the ranch house, barn, and a cemetery. This sense of being someplace other than obviously cooped up on a Hollywood sound stage makes the series more fun for we armchair adventurers. This is one of the best three episodes of season one for that feeling; the other two are "Jazz Beat" (New Orleans) and "Paint Me A Murder" (Mediterranean island).

The seasoned TV fan of 1960's and 1970's shows will also enjoy the presences of Stella Stevens, J.D. Cannon, Clu Galagher, William Windom, and Noah Beery,Jr. You can always count on seeing plenty of fine actors in MSW, who prove that people over 30 have plenty to offer as performers.

The mystery here is pretty good, and mixes well with the humor, of which there is plenty from Stella and the Sheriff. The tone of the whole series is "light mystery." Not as heavy as a Kojak, etc. Not gritty. You either like that style, or not. I like it.

Jessica attends the burial of Wyoming rancher Jack Carver with his family and fellow veteran friends. Family lawyer Sam Breen announces he died without finalizing his will, which would provide the sale of the ranch to his brother Tim Carver, so only daughter Mary inherits everything. Then turns up Carl Mestin, with his cheap tomcat wife Sally, waving a will making him general heir. He lies about saving Jack's life in Korea, and after a stormy night when the men went out to check the property he's found hanging in the barn. Gun-obsessed John Wayne-wannabe and useless sheriff 'marshall' Ed Potts arrests Mary's fiancé Art Merrick without any proof, so Jessica investigates, sets Art free and digs up the past about the will and a dark secret.

Clu Gulager is excellent as the villain here, a man who has the deed to take over the ranch of a dead man's daughter, and of course he dies via a blunt instrument to the back of the head and rope. There's a few suspects, one of them being William Windom, who later went to play Dr Hazlitt. Here is a lawyer. Kathleen Beller, a real beauty, also stars. It's a cracking mystery which holds it card close to its chest till the last reel.

Fifty miles into Wyoming from an unspecified direction or state boundary lies a ranching community which derives its name from the railroad or highway marker, "Fifty-Mile," to which a group of U.S. armed forces veterans travel to attend the memorial service for Jack Carver.

The widowed Jack is survived by his brother, Tim Carver (Donald Moffat), as well as Jack's only child, Mary Carver (Kathleen Beller), who has taken care of her father at the residence of the family ranch.

Local resident Doc Wallace (Noah Beery Jr.) and Attorney Sam Breen (William Windom) represent the Carver family, as they have served with Jack in the Army, in an outfit which has also included the arriving Bill Carmody (J.D. Cannon), as well as one Tom Fletcher, whose widow, Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), arrives to ofter her condolences upon her first "MSW" journey into Wyoming.

(Note: "Frank" has since become the accepted name of Jessica's late husband throughout the remainder of this series. Whether she refers to him as "Tom" in order to trick a suspect into a confession, or because the back-story has yet to become established remains to be seen, but her reason to reference him as "Tom" remains unresolved here.)

Also inhabiting the Community of Fifty-Mile are Emma (Edith Diaz) and Hay-Soos (Efrain Figueroa), who help at Carver Ranch; Alice (Brooke Alderson), Office Assistant for Doc Wallace; Sheriff Ed Potts (Cliff Potts), county law enforcement officer; Art Merrick (Jeff Osterhage), Art Merrick (Jeff Osterhage), general store employee and fiancé to Mary Carver; and Minister (Archie Lang), who delivers the eulogy at the outdoor service.

Because Jack's will had not been finalized at the time of his passing, Attorney Sam Breen, who has been handling the family's legal matters, sees fit for Tim Carver to purchase the ranch and its residence, to provide Mary its proceeds as Jack's sole beneficiary, in order for her to begin her future with Art Merrick.

But before the service ends, Carl Mestin (Clu Gulager) and Sally Mestin (Stella Stevens) park a camper trailer upon the Carver property, claiming the land and the ranch house as their own, by presenting a will purportedly signed by Jack, falsifying Carl's saving Jack's life in Korea, at which he and the other veterans had been stationed during the War.

While Carl Mestin is determined to battle Mary and anyone else who stands in his way, Sally Mestin, naturally, acts very Stella Stevens-ish in her saloon-performer outfits and catty-like calculations in everything from arm-wrestling to evicting the entire community if she sees fit.

But during a storm that night, a body is discovered in the Carver barn, hanging by a noose, suspended from the rafters, after a team of horses flees through its open doors, knocking a bale of hay from beneath the victim's boots.

Sheriff Ed Potts investigates the incident in the aftermath of a series of threats, while Jessica instinctively measures the rope to determine whether the hanging stems from suicide or murder, and so Sheriff Potts arrests the handiest suspect, causing pleas for Jessica to uncover the truth behind the next "Funeral at Fifty-Mile."

This episode marks one of the last television appearances by Noah Beery Jr., a star of film and television star since 1920, when he began in the Silents as a child performer.

This also represents the first of three "MSW" guest starring roles for Clu Gulager, and the first of two "MSW" episodes each for Kathleen Beller, Jeff Osterhage, Cliff Potts, and J.D. Cannon, who began his acting career in 1960, and has since passed.

And William Windom makes his first of 53 series appearances here, before his run begins as the character of Cabot Cove Doctor Seth Hazlitt.