Perfect Murder, Perfect Town | |
---|---|
Based on | Perfect Murder, Perfect Town by Lawrence Schiller |
Teleplay by | Tom Topor |
Directed by | Lawrence Schiller |
Starring |
|
Music by | John Cacavas |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | Jack L. Warner |
Cinematography | Peter Sova |
Editors | Freeman A. Davies Tom Rolf |
Running time | 178 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | February 23 – March 1, 2000 |
Perfect Murder, Perfect Town is a 2000 American television miniseries directed by Lawrence Schiller. [1] The teleplay by Tom Topor is based on Schiller's book of the same title. [1]
Including historic news and talk show footage, it covers in great detail what was considered a botched investigation into the murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, whose body was found in the basement of her Boulder, Colorado home on December 26, 1996. The police and district attorney openly feuded about how the case should be investigated. Their focus on the girl's parents drew intense worldwide media attention that ultimately made the adults appear guilty to the public. It was revealed in 2013 that a grand jury was willing to indict John and Patsy Ramsey with child abuse resulting in death and accessory to first-degree murder. [2] The prosecutor decided against prosecution due to the unlikelihood of a conviction. [3] [4]
The case includes: [1]
In his review in Variety , Michael Speier said, "While Perfect Murder, Perfect Town isn't the most intellectual project on CBS' docket, it's certainly not the car wreck a lot of people are expecting. Patient and extremely detailed, this look at the Boulder, Colo., tabloid magnet gets high marks for steering clear of sweeps sensationalism ... There are some weak links, especially when it comes to Patsy's behavior. Helgenberger is a good sport, doing her best to get inside the mind of a flighty woman, but her portrayal often comes off as cartoonish and far-fetched. More on the mark is Cox, who creates an aloof millionaire who can't cope with a sudden loss of control ... Credit Schiller, however, for somehow making everybody credible and for crafting a search that leaves no stone unturned. Archival footage of real-life talkshows and local news footage is a nifty addition to an overall solid production." [3]
The Entertainment Weekly critic observed, "The telefilm ... is mostly a tedious slog through the legal details interrupted periodically by noxious images ... Cox and Helgenberger are called upon to do so much weeping and wailing during the first half hour that you wonder if they'll make it through the full four. Cox's John remains a cipher, but Helgenberger manages to convey much of the melodramatic emotionalism that Patsy has frequently displayed without giving a melodramatic performance herself — that's an achievement, even in a big piece of schlock like Perfect Murder ... Taking into account acting performances, script, and direction, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town averages out to a C; combine it with the F-grade moral scruples it took to embark on this exploitive abomination in the first place, however, and you get an all-too-generous D." [4]
Caryn James of The New York Times called the film "leaden" and "competently made but dull", but praised Marg Helgenberger and Scott Cohen. She said they "rose above the script" while calling Ronny Cox bland and Kris Kristofferson drab. [5]
Fire Down Below is a 1997 American action film starring Steven Seagal and directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá in his directorial debut. The film also includes cameos by country music performers Randy Travis, Mark Collie, Ed Bruce, Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt, and country-rocker and the Band member Levon Helm, as well as Kris Kristofferson in a supporting role. Steven Seagal plays Jack Taggert, an EPA agent who investigates a Kentucky mine and helps locals stand up for their rights. The film was released in the United States on September 5, 1997.
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was an American child beauty queen who was killed at the age of six in her family's home at 755 15th Street in Boulder, Colorado. A long handwritten ransom note was found in the home. Her father, John, found the girl's body in the basement of their house about seven hours after she had been reported missing. She had sustained a broken skull two and a half hours before her death due to asphyxiation; a garrote was found tied around her neck. The autopsy report stated that JonBenét's official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma". Her death was ruled a homicide. The case generated worldwide public and media interest, in part because her mother Patsy Ramsey, a former beauty queen, had entered JonBenét into a series of child beauty pageants. The crime is still considered a cold case and remains an open investigation with the Boulder Police Department.
Donald Wayne Foster is a retired professor of English at Vassar College in New York. He is known for his work dealing with various issues of Shakespearean authorship through textual analysis. He has also applied these techniques in attempting to uncover mysterious authors of some high-profile contemporary texts. As several of these were in the context of criminal investigations, Foster was sometimes labeled a "forensic linguist". He has been inactive in this arena, however, since Condé Nast settled a defamation lawsuit brought against one of his publications for an undisclosed sum in 2007.
Marg Helgenberger is an American actress. She began her career in the early 1980s and first came to attention for playing the role of Siobhan Ryan on the daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope from 1982 to 1986. She is best known for her role as Catherine Willows in the CBS police procedural drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–13), the subsequent television film Immortality (2015), and the second and third seasons of the sequel series CSI: Vegas (2022–2024). Helgenberger is also known for playing the role of K.C. Koloski in the ABC drama China Beach (1988–91), which earned her the 1990 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She is also known for roles in the TV series Under the Dome and Intelligence, and the films Species (1995), Species II (1998), Erin Brockovich (2000), and Mr. Brooks (2007).
John Bennett Ramsey is an American businessman, author, and father of JonBenét Ramsey.
Daniel Ronald Cox is an American actor, singer and songwriter. He is best known for his acting work, appearing in numerous films and television series since his 1972 debut in Deliverance. Cox is also active as a musician, performing over 100 times per year at festivals and theaters each year as of 2012.
Patricia Ann Ramsey was an American beauty pageant winner who won the Miss West Virginia pageant at age 20 in 1977. She was best known as the mother of JonBenét Ramsey, a six-year-old child beauty pageant queen who was found dead in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado, on December 26, 1996.
Zev Braun was an American motion picture producer. Though much of his work is in television he was a successful filmmaker from the early 1960s onwards.
Getting Away with Murder: The JonBenet Ramsey Story is an American documentary film broadcast by the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox). The one-hour film premiered on February 16, 2000, and it was produced by the American television production company Rocket Science Laboratories. Directed by Edward Lucas, the film is based on the 1996 killing of JonBenét Ramsey. The film starred Julia Granstrom as JonBenét Ramsey.
Perfect murder may refer to:
Lawrence Julian Schiller is an American photojournalist, film producer, director and screenwriter.
Michael Tracey is a British-American academic and television producer with a specialty in public service broadcasting. He acquired notability as a result of his tenure as the head of the Broadcasting Research Unit in London, a British think tank dealing with media issues, and later with his investigative reporting on the death of JonBenét Ramsey. He is the author of The Decline and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting and the Production of Political Television. He is currently a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Ramsey is an English toponymic surname of Old English origin, derived either from Ramsey in Huntingdonshire or Ramsey in Essex. Notable people with the surname include:
David Stuart is a Canadian actor, best known for his work as Pete in the SupernaturalSeason 7 episode The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo.
The Tommyknockers is a 1993 television miniseries based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Stephen King. Broadcast on ABC, it was directed by John Power, adapted by Lawrence D. Cohen and starred Marg Helgenberger and Jimmy Smits.
Andrew Louis "Lou" Smit was an American police detective in Colorado Springs, Colorado who worked on a number of notable cases before his retirement in 1996. He was later recalled to work on the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.
The Cases That Haunt Us is a 2000 non-fiction book written by John E. Douglas, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation profiler and investigative chief, and Mark Olshaker. Profiling is described by Rodger Lyle Brown, author of the book review, as "the art and science of looking at the specifics of a crime -- the scene, the facts about the victim, the evidence and the act itself -- and extrapolating a portrait of the culprit's psyche and personal habits."
"F.M. Doll" is a song by English alternative rock band Queenadreena, first released as a standalone single in 2002 by Rough Trade Records. The track was later re-recorded and released both as a single and included on their third album, The Butcher and the Butterfly (2005) through One Little Independent, after the band had switched record labels. It peaked at number 81 on the UK Singles Chart in 2005.
The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey is a 2016 documentary miniseries about the murder of JonBenét Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado on December 25, 1996. The miniseries aired on CBS on September 18, and 19, 2016.
Casting JonBenet is a 2017 American documentary film about the death of JonBenét Ramsey and the large impact it left behind. The film was directed by Kitty Green.