"Murder By Natural Causes" is a film that mystery buffs will probably like. However, I thought it was only fair...mostly because the film was too talky and stagy. In fact, it really played like a play. A bit more action or location changes would have helped this one be better.
Arthur Sinclair (Hal Holbrook) is a mentalist...and a very famous and successful one. When the film begins, he's on a "Tonight Show" sort of program showing off his mental powers. However, you are never sure how much of this is because he has actual powers or because he is a magician and is really good at doing what's termed 'cold readings'...where he is able to get people to think he has powers because he uses their body cues to make very well educated guesses. Regardless, he's a very smart man and you can only assume his wife is reckless and awful because she's not only cheating on him but arranging for his death.
As for his death, that's just one problem with the film. The way they thought to kill Arthur was just WAY too elaborate and there were many possibilities for failure. Sure, there was a backup plan with the wife's OTHER lover...but even this was fraught with possible problems. Things had to work PERFECTLY and Arthur had to be uncharacteristically dumb for the plan to work.
But this isn't the only problem. So much of the movie consists of folks talking and talking as well as twist after twist after twist. It all came off like anything but real life...and as I mentioned above it seemed like a play...an old fashioned one. Not a terrible movie...and it was enjoyable...but it could have been more.
By the way, the movie makes a slight mistake when they talk about Houdini. They said that he promised to return after his death and his wife had seances year after year to try to bring him back. Well, this is a partial truth. Houdini was a HUGE skeptic and did NOT believe in the supernatural. His request that they hold the seances was NOT to really try to bring him back but to prove you really could NOT bring anyone back. The yearly seance was intended to prove, or at least demonstrate, that seances were crap.
Arthur Sinclair (Hal Holbrook) is a mentalist...and a very famous and successful one. When the film begins, he's on a "Tonight Show" sort of program showing off his mental powers. However, you are never sure how much of this is because he has actual powers or because he is a magician and is really good at doing what's termed 'cold readings'...where he is able to get people to think he has powers because he uses their body cues to make very well educated guesses. Regardless, he's a very smart man and you can only assume his wife is reckless and awful because she's not only cheating on him but arranging for his death.
As for his death, that's just one problem with the film. The way they thought to kill Arthur was just WAY too elaborate and there were many possibilities for failure. Sure, there was a backup plan with the wife's OTHER lover...but even this was fraught with possible problems. Things had to work PERFECTLY and Arthur had to be uncharacteristically dumb for the plan to work.
But this isn't the only problem. So much of the movie consists of folks talking and talking as well as twist after twist after twist. It all came off like anything but real life...and as I mentioned above it seemed like a play...an old fashioned one. Not a terrible movie...and it was enjoyable...but it could have been more.
By the way, the movie makes a slight mistake when they talk about Houdini. They said that he promised to return after his death and his wife had seances year after year to try to bring him back. Well, this is a partial truth. Houdini was a HUGE skeptic and did NOT believe in the supernatural. His request that they hold the seances was NOT to really try to bring him back but to prove you really could NOT bring anyone back. The yearly seance was intended to prove, or at least demonstrate, that seances were crap.