4 little old ladies with too much time on their hands and a habit for crazy fun ideas to avoid boredom, decide to sign up with a computer-dating agency by creating a fictional 23-year-old blonde applicant... and then see what happens. Rather amusing until one of the potential suitors turns out to be dangerously mentally-unstable. When they suddenly realize the MURDERED girl in the newspaper may be the one they saw at a singles bar the night before, they set out to determine if the man they saw with her might actually be the killer... and somehow wind up ahead of the cops investigating the crime.
Not a mystery so much as a comedy-thriller, this ABC Movie of the Week (an anthology series I really loved back in the early 70s) starred a quartet of adorable characters. There's Helen Hayes (AIRPORT), Myrna Loy (THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, THE THIN MAN), Mildred Natwick (McMILLAN & WIFE), and Sylvia Sidney (DEAD END, WKRP, BEETLEJUICE, MARS ATTACKS!), plus, almost unrecognizable, Vince Edwards (BEN CASEY, STAR RAIDERS). In supporting roles are John Beradino (GENERAL HOSPITAL), Larry D. Mann (POLICE SURGEON) and, also almost unrecognizable, John Mitchum (DIRTY HARRY, MAGNUM FORCE, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, THE ENFORCER). Paul Smith (who I've only ever seen on an episode of BATMAN) plays a man the police insist is NOT a "prime suspect", especially when it turns out he's a regular customer for the murdered woman (who turned out to be a cut-rate hooker).
The film was based on the novel by Doris Miles Disney, while the director was Ted Post. I have a really hard time connecting that this wonderfully-goofy bit of fluff was done by the same guy who did HANG 'EM HIGH, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, MAGNUM FORCE and GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK! I guess people shouldn't be judged via type-casting. Jerry Goldsmith did the music, and the "theme song" (or whatever it was) is just one of the WEIRDEST things I've ever heard from him. And he scored PLANET OF THE APES!
A year later on a different network, thanks to Leonard Stern (GET SMART, McMILLAN & WIFE), Hayes & Natwick were reunited in the pilot film THE SNOOP SISTERS, which, the following season, led to the short-run series as part of the NBC Mystery Movies. Previously availalble as a DVD-R from MOD Cinema, it has recently been added as an extra to the newer 2020 VEI box of THE SNOOP SISTERS: The Complete Series. The color on the print is a bit faded, and there's some HISS on the sountrack, but the picture is clear, and exceedingly-watchable.
What nobody else has mentioned is that, with 4 older ladies as this film has, it's very much like THE GOLDEN GIRLS-- 14 years early!
Ever since 1973, Helen Hayes has really cracked me up. I wish I'd had an aunt like her when I was growing up.
Not a mystery so much as a comedy-thriller, this ABC Movie of the Week (an anthology series I really loved back in the early 70s) starred a quartet of adorable characters. There's Helen Hayes (AIRPORT), Myrna Loy (THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, THE THIN MAN), Mildred Natwick (McMILLAN & WIFE), and Sylvia Sidney (DEAD END, WKRP, BEETLEJUICE, MARS ATTACKS!), plus, almost unrecognizable, Vince Edwards (BEN CASEY, STAR RAIDERS). In supporting roles are John Beradino (GENERAL HOSPITAL), Larry D. Mann (POLICE SURGEON) and, also almost unrecognizable, John Mitchum (DIRTY HARRY, MAGNUM FORCE, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, THE ENFORCER). Paul Smith (who I've only ever seen on an episode of BATMAN) plays a man the police insist is NOT a "prime suspect", especially when it turns out he's a regular customer for the murdered woman (who turned out to be a cut-rate hooker).
The film was based on the novel by Doris Miles Disney, while the director was Ted Post. I have a really hard time connecting that this wonderfully-goofy bit of fluff was done by the same guy who did HANG 'EM HIGH, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, MAGNUM FORCE and GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK! I guess people shouldn't be judged via type-casting. Jerry Goldsmith did the music, and the "theme song" (or whatever it was) is just one of the WEIRDEST things I've ever heard from him. And he scored PLANET OF THE APES!
A year later on a different network, thanks to Leonard Stern (GET SMART, McMILLAN & WIFE), Hayes & Natwick were reunited in the pilot film THE SNOOP SISTERS, which, the following season, led to the short-run series as part of the NBC Mystery Movies. Previously availalble as a DVD-R from MOD Cinema, it has recently been added as an extra to the newer 2020 VEI box of THE SNOOP SISTERS: The Complete Series. The color on the print is a bit faded, and there's some HISS on the sountrack, but the picture is clear, and exceedingly-watchable.
What nobody else has mentioned is that, with 4 older ladies as this film has, it's very much like THE GOLDEN GIRLS-- 14 years early!
Ever since 1973, Helen Hayes has really cracked me up. I wish I'd had an aunt like her when I was growing up.