"Murder, She Wrote" Incident in Lot #7 (1992)

Director:

Anthony Pullen Shaw

Writers:

Peter S. Fischer (creator)
Richard Levinson (creator)

TV Series:

"Murder, She Wrote" (1984)

Original Air Date:

19 January 1992 (Season 8, Episode 13)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

The would-be producer of the movie adaptation of Jessica's latest book dies. |

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Mystery Writer | Writing | Woman Detective | Amateur Detective

Cast

Angela Lansbury	...	Jessica Fletcher
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Daniel Bardol	...	John Cavershaw
Larry Carroll	...	T.V. Anchorman
Jackie Gayle	...	Willy Montego
Henry Gibson	...	Oliver Thissle
Ron Glass	...	Lt. Hanrahan
Michelle Johnson	...	Monica Chase
Ron Leibman	...	Darryl Heyward
Lar Park-Lincoln	...	Caroline Pryce
Paula Prentiss	...	Leonora Holt
Christina Rich	...	Police Woman
Stuart Whitman	...	Ben Miller

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Trivia:

Jessica investigates a murder on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). In the opening credits there is a burst of the theme tune from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1955) and a man that looks like Hitchcock crosses the street. This is a nod to the cameos that Hitchcock made in most of his films.

Movie Connections:

References Psycho (1960)

"Psycho" revisited

This episode marks one of the last appearance by, and final television role for, Jackie Gayle, who endured a long career as a night club comic, and who began to perform in film and on television in 1969. Henry Gibson has also since passed.

When Universal Studios, in Hollywood, California, sets to adapt the non-fiction novel "Messengers of Midnight" to the screen, they welcome its author, Jessica "J.B." Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) to tour the facility.

Jessica meets Production Head Ben Miller (Stuart Whitman) on the lot before Secretary Caroline Pryce (Lar Park-Lincoln) ushers her to a meeting with self-serving Producer Darryl Heyward (Ron Leibman), his Agent Willy Montego (Jackie Gayle), and Screenwriter John Cavershaw (Daniel Bardol), who plans to embellish the script with automobile chases and fact changes, to Jessica's objections, until she convinces him otherwise.

Actress Leonora Holt (Paula Prentiss) is cast to play the role patterned after J.B. Fletcher and, therefore, requests plenty of time with Jessica to capture her character and mannerisms, sprinkling a few clichés along the way, to Jessica's surprise. Leonora demands of Darryl that he not hire the unseen actor Kevin Mason to co-star opposite her, but Darryl goes behind her back after promising to respect Leonora's wishes.

Monica Chase (Michelle Johnson), a woman whom Darryl has been seeing during his unexplained absences from the studio, has been given favors for her husband's benefit in exchange for seeing Darryl, but now that Darryl dumps her, Monica seeks revenge.

Oliver Thissle (Henry Gibson) sneaks onto the Universal Studios lot via a plant nursery truck, and into the Bates Hotel (the setting of the 1960 Hitchcock Thriller "Psycho") building atop a hill on Lot 7, before Ben Miller gives Jessica a tour of its exterior premises. He later sneaks into Leonora's office, drawing a prop pistol.

But after Darryl returns from ditching Monica, he returns to the Studios to fire Willy Montego, in the commissary, and to usurp Ben Miller's position as Head of Productions, on a sound stage.

When Jessica returns to enter the Bates Hotel, to discover a body in a pool of blood, Lieutenant Hanrahan (Ron Glass) is summoned to investigate this "Incident in Lot 7."

The cast is rounded out by Police Woman (Christina Rich) and T.V. Anchorman (Larry Carroll), who also broadcasts by the name "Larry" as he reports the murder in Tinseltown, customary to his acting forte.