PAINT ME A MURDER
UK/US, 1984, 70 minutes, Colour.
Michelle Phillips, James Laurenson, David Robb, Alan Lake, Morgan Sheppard, Mark Heath, Michael Watkins, Michael Mc Kevitt, Gerald Sim.
Directed by Alan Cooke.
This television film was part of an anthology, Hammer House of Suspense, released in the United States as Fox Mystery Theater. There were British and American directors, Alan Cooke starting his career in the UK and finishing directing American television. There was also a mix of British and American cast, with locations in the UK.
The American star in this film is Michelle Phillips, best known for the Mamas and the Papas, not for her acting performances. New Zealand born James Lawrenson is the central character of an artist, intent, wanting fame rather than money, engineering his death in a rowing boat, hiding in the attic of his house, continuing painting, his wife contacting art dealers and selling the paintings one by one, his reputation gaining in the media, amongst art dealers, amongst buyers in the UK and even in the US.
Nothing particularly new. James Laurenson paints a number of pictures of his death, is anxious to get out the attic. His wife, on the other hand, enjoys the contacts with the art world, the money – and had masterminded the whole plot. There is an art dealer, played by David Robb, who is selling the paintings but is attracted to the wife.
There are some old painting friends who put in their two pennies worth, there are police officers, and there is another rather snooty art critic on the scene.
The wife decides to buy arsenic as rat poison but feeds it to her husband (and the pigeons who are in his loft). She makes plans with the art dealer. The artist gets out, smashes the window of the shop and damages the painting, drives to Battersea and paints a mural, is persuaded to go to the holiday house (near ultra-convenient cliffs) and hide out there and continue his painting. It is inevitable that there will be a struggle on the top of the cliffs – and no surprise as who survives!
