Theater: Chilly Will-he-do-it

Write Me a Murder (by Frederick Knott) gives away its murderer (James Donald) in Act I without defrosting any of its suspense as a superior spine-chiller. British Playwright Knott, of Dial “M” for Murder fame, has worked a twist on the conventional whodunit by fashioning a will-he-do-it.

Donald is the disaffected younger son of the land-rich, tax-poor Rodingham clan. His elder brother (Denholm Elliott), an elegant spendthrift who likes to know where his next cobwebby bottle of wine is coming from, plans to sell the 500-year-old family mansion. The buyer (Torin Thatcher) is an upstart real estate operator who likes to tromp on the middle of other people’s sentences. But he has a couth and cultured wife (Kim Hunter) who likes to write. Donald writes too and, with a short story contest in view, he helps her work out the mechanics of a seemingly perfect crime. The question is how and when nature will follow art.

An expert acting crew unties Knot’s knots, with 83-year-old Ethel Grimes in gruff comic command as the family doctor, and James Donald convincingly torn between love, money, and the family crest. Murder will out, of course, and it does with an explosively surprising last-curtain bang—of laughter.