UnowPriceless
hyped garbage
Reptileenbu
Did you people see the same film I saw?
Rainey Dawn
I have to this one gets very suspenseful and has a couple of unexpected turns but the ending came a no big surprise but played a little differently than I guessed.Hal Holbrook was the real star of the show (and such an underrated actor), but are also awesome performances by both Katharine Ross and Barry Bostwick. The three of them took center stage for a while but Richard Anderson showed up to give another super performance. Everyone in this film is very convincing.If you are married to a mentalist who has a good detective on his side then I don't recommend cheating on them, you might be left with three alternatives.8/10
MartinHafer
"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.
rhoughton
Probably the best of the Levinson/Link made for TV movies. They take the audience by the hand, and lead them completely in the wrong direction. I would defy anyone seeing this for the first time, to pick the ending. This is great "edge of the seat" stuff, but don't miss a word of the dialogue, especially the last 20 minutes, as there are more twists than a corkscrew.
_siskel_
I must admit that before editing this movie I was dreading having to watch this movie just because the year was 1979 when it was made. As I began watching this movie I totally forgot about the year and got caught up in the mind reader. I also was curious to where I had seen the wife's secret lover before. And then I realized it was the Mayor from Spin City. It was pretty funny watching this movie because of the way this character was acting.I like the whole plot though. It kept me in suspense throughout the whole movie. This is a good movie to rent. DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE YEAR 1979!!!2 THUMBS UP!
