Wolfe doesn't really know what the woman wanted him to do to earn his money, but he decides that she would not be displeased if he used it to solve her murder. He is immediately beset by lawyers seeking the return of the money to the woman's estate.
Wolfe fends off the lawyers and Inspector Cramer as he tries to solve the murders with almost nothing to go on. He does have a similarly executed third murder to consider, a pair of golden spider earrings, and a half-dozen or so suspects. He makes an assumption, acts on it, "stirs things up" a little, almost gets his confidential assistant Archie Goodwin arrested for blackmail, gets his ace operative Saul Panzer blackmailed, and gets his loyal-but-not-so-smart operative Fred Durkin tortured. Wolfe's brain can concoct the most Byzantine situations, but Archie's brawn must oftentimes carry them through to fruition. As Fred undergoes torture, Archie steps in and saves the day by delivering a performance worthy of Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry."
With Archie's help, Wolfe uncovers a scandal, hands a gang of thugs over to Inspector Cramer, and earns his fee by not only solving the woman's murder but also clearing up the matter she wanted him to handle in the first place. All good fun, and one of the more action-oriented of the Nero Wolfe stories.
I missed the original airing of this made-for-TV movie and had become comfortably familiar with Archie, Nero, Inspector Cramer, and the other regulars on the series before viewing this first effort. As the actors were just becoming familiar with their roles, the interplay among the characters wasn't quite as fluid as it became in later episodes. Saul Rubinek was slightly miscast as Saul Panzer, but the series corrected that error by moving him to the character of Lon Cohen.
TV drama seldom has the quality of the Nero Wolfe series. I mourn A&E's decision to cancel it.
Within the first few minutes, it becomes clear that, in actor Maury Cheykin, A & E Productions found a man who somehow captures the image of Nero Wolfe as it had existed in my mind's eye all these years. Brilliant! Still, Wolfe cannot exist in a vacuum; he needs a brilliant Archie Goodwin to complete the picture. After some initial misgivings, Timothy Hutton settles into the role and becomes a wonderful Archie. Not quite the Archie that I took from Stout's text, but a wonderful Goodwin nonetheless.
Some of the guest actors turn in...less than acceptable perfmormances, to say they least. However, the large supporting cast of much loved characters (Fritz Brenner, Purley Stebbins, etc) are well performed. Particular mention must be made of Bill Smitrovich (of the TV series Life Goes On) who is superb as the cigar chomping Lionel T. Cramer.
This was a good pilot for the two seasons of A & E Wolfe TV adaptations, and they would improve as time went on.
