The Snoop Sisters (TV Series) The Female Instinct (1972) User Reviews

enjoyable

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 9 June 2005]

A great cast is the whole reason to watch "The Snoop Sisters" if you get the chance. Helen Hayes, Mildred Natwick, Paulette Goddard, Jill Clayburgh, Art Carney are delightful in this whodunit. A very young Jill Clayburgh plays the daughter of Norma Treet (Goddard), a former movie star who is writing her scandalous memoirs and is murdered.

There are lots of funny lines and scenes in this TV movie. My favorite belongs to Helen Hayes, when it's suggested that Goddard's phone may be out of order. Someone suggests calling the phone company. "Oh, they least of anyone care if your phone is out of order!" she exclaims. Unfortunately, the TV series that was born from this pilot (I assume) didn't really take off, which is a shame. It was, like the Ellery Queen series starring Jim Hutton, ahead of its time. The era of "Murder, She Wrote" and "The Golden Girls" would have suited the series much better. Timing, after all, is everything.

Chapters nine through eleven are all true.

[pensman · 7/10 · 28 May 2016]

AAn old friend, Norma Treet (Paulette Goddard), of the Snoop's is murdered and her potentially salacious tell all manuscript is missing. There are a considerable number of suspects. It might be the estranged daughter Mary Nero (Jill Clayburgh). Perhaps her father Julius (Ed Platt—the Chief from Get Smart) who is now a college president has reasons. Or ex husband Anton de Tourolet (Fritz Weaver) as he is fearful of what might be said of him. Other candidates include restaurateur Alex Scalamdri (Kurt Kasznar), publisher Charles Corman (Craig Stevens noteworthy for Peter Gunn), or ghost writer Melvin Kaplan (Bill Dana) until he showed up dead. But the real key to the case is a scene from an old movie that Norma Treet had starred in: The Adventures of Mr. Largo (Actually the scene shown is from The Ghost Breakers. a film Paulette Goddard stared in with Bob Hope). A clever ruse by Lieutenant Ostrowski (Laurence Pressman) exposes the killer; but he isn't apprehended until a shoot out and a car chase featuring the Snoop Sisters driving their vintage car and their police nephew following in a "borrowed" Good Humor truck as everyone races to a thrilling conclusion and a sad book burning.

Arsenic and Old Ladies.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 23 August 2022]

Okay, so there's no arsenic, but there are two actresses starring in this who played the old ladies in separate TV productions, Mildred Natwick in 1959 with Dorothy Stickney and Helen Hayes a decade later with Lillian Gish. This was a reunion for the two, having co-starred just the year before together in the TV movie "Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate", and as sisters here, they appeared together in four movies playing the two delightfully snoopy Snoops

This is the pilot, focusing on the murder of faded movie star Paulette Goddard, looking gorgeous in her brief cameo. Jill Clayburgh is her daughter, while veteran actors Art Carney, Ed Platt, Bill Dana, Kurt Kasznar and Craig Stevens have other major part as either rather eccentric suspects or law enforcers. Hayes and Natwick are terrific together, in unison as they change directions as soon as they overheard something they want to snoop on, a great recurring gag. This obviously couldn't be a long-term installment of NBC 's "Sunday Night Mystery Movie" series, but it's definitely a precursor to "Murder She Wrote" and a nice send-up of Miss Jane Marple and Miss Hildegard Withers mysteries.

Delightful TV Movie

[cmjohnson87 · 9/10 · 14 May 2008]

This was a delightful TV movie/pilot for the short lived series "THe Snoop Sisters" Paulette Goddard was magnificent in her role still looked youthful and vital as always. Shame that this was her last role and that it was so small of a part, also the clip that is shown of her in the film was from the film that she had made with Bob Hope "The Ghost Breakers." Helen Hayes/Mildred Natwick were also great as the Ernesta & Gwendolyn Snoop. And how they are so effective in helping to solve the mystery, also their cute 1930s Lincoln that they drive around in i mean how retro is that also Art Carney was brilliant in the pilot as their somewhat guardian/chauffeur/man of all trades who their nephew hired to keep his beloved aunts somewhat in line lol.

This is a very cute mystery flick that i suggest to all. That old elegant flare of yesteryear fully in tact, great wardrobe selections for Helen Hayes, Mildred Natwick, Paulette Goddard directly from the past. I highly suggest this great flick to all if your lucky enough to find a copy. Also try to watch the series which only lasted for 4 episodes.

Poorly written, poorly directed, a waste of talented actors

[koohii · 2/10 · 19 November 2023]

An inferior attempt to make an American version of Miss Marple combined with slap-stick comedy that made The Three Stooges look sophisticated. What did poor Helen Hays do to end up in this gawd-awful drek?

One of the worst offenders, by far, is the character of their chauffeur and minder--a retired bead cop who sounds like he came out of central casting in the 1920s--who was hired by their sisters' nephew to keep them out of trouble. He lectures them multiple times to be good little girls and to do what he says--like they're naughty little children rather than competent adults. If he had been competent as a cop, I could almost forgive him. Instead, he's one of the primary slap-stick offenders.

Of course, women can't drive, especially not elderly women. This "Joke" is slapped into the audience's face multiple times.

Really, I cannot imaging why anyone would think this was a worthwhile effort. The writers and director should have been ashamed.