The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery

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The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Wolfe-TGS.jpg
Promotional poster
Genre Period drama
Based on The Golden Spiders
by Rex Stout
Written by Paul Monash
Directed by Bill Duke
Starring
Music by Michael Small
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producers
ProducerSusan Murdoch
Production location Toronto
CinematographyMichael Fash
Editor Ronald Sanders
Running time100 minutes
Production companies
Original release
Network A&E
ReleaseMarch 5, 2000 (2000-03-05)
Related
A Nero Wolfe Mystery

The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a 2000 American crime drama television film based on the 1953 novel by Rex Stout. Set in 1950s Manhattan, it stars Maury Chaykin as the heavyweight detective genius Nero Wolfe, and Timothy Hutton as Wolfe's assistant, Archie Goodwin, narrator of the Nero Wolfe stories. Veteran screenwriter Paul Monash adapted the novel, and Bill Duke directed. When it first aired on A&E on March 5, 2000, The Golden Spiders was seen in 3.2 million homes, making it the fourth-most-watched A&E original movie ever. [1] Its success led to the A&E original series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002).

Contents

Plot

After Wolfe reacts petulantly to a change made in one of his favorite meals, his assistant Archie Goodwin decides to prank him by allowing a boy from the neighborhood, Pete Drossos, into the house to consult with Wolfe on what Pete believes is a case. Pete claims that a woman wearing distinctive golden spider-shaped earrings asked him to get a police officer while he was cleaning the windshield of the car she was driving at a stoplight, and believes that her male passenger was holding her hostage.

The next night, the pair are shocked when NYPD Sgt. Purley Stebbins informs them that Pete has been killed by a hit-and-run driver, as well as INS agent Matthew Birch. Soon after, Pete's mother brings Wolfe $4.30 that Pete has saved and asks him to find Pete's killer. Angered by Wolfe's reluctance to get involved, Archie uses the money to place an advert in the newspapers asking for the woman driving the car to contact Wolfe. Wealthy widow Laura Fromm arrives at Wolfe's office wearing the golden spider earrings and asking to hire his services. Wolfe begins to suspect that Fromm knows who the driver is, but she refuses to reveal it; the next day, Fromm is also murdered in an apparent hit-and-run. Angered that two people who came to him for help are now dead, Wolfe decides to solve the murders.

Wolfe identifies a charitable organization that Mrs Fromm supported as a likely link between the deaths. Archie begins to investigate various individuals connected to the charity: Fromm's secretary Jean Estey, director Angela White, public relations manager Paul Kuffner, and the wife of the charity's attorney Dennis Horan. It is revealed that the charity is part of a blackmail ring targeting desperate refugees who are in America illegally. Horan attempts to distance himself from the other men, but when they learn this, the others identify him as a key ringleader of the blackmail scheme, along with Matthew Birch. Birch, however, took orders from an unknown woman.

Gathering the principal suspects in his office, Wolfe reveals the identity of the murderer — Jean Estey. Estey was a key figure with the blackmail ring, but Fromm had overheard the code words she used with her confederates — "said the spider to the fly" — and had begun to suspect her, giving her the earrings to try and provoke a response.

It is implied that Birch captured Estey to 'handle her' because she was taking too large of a share of the profits, prompting her to panic and try to contact Pete for help. After killing Birch, Estey realized that Pete could identify her, and so killed him too. Her third homicide was of Mrs. Fromm after the dinner at Horan's, feeling pressured after she had cut a $10,000 check to Nero Wolfe to investigate.

Estey is identified by the tailor who sold her the men's clothing she used as a disguise, and is arrested. The case ends with Archie giving half the fee Wolfe has earned to Pete's mother.

Production

In a 2002 interview in Scarlet Street magazine, executive producer Michael Jaffe explained why the novel The Golden Spiders was selected to introduce contemporary audiences to Nero Wolfe:

There are three or four really extraordinary novels — The Silent Speaker , In the Best Families , and The Doorbell Rang , for example. These are some of the most famous and most complex and most amazing stories in the series, but we didn't want to start with those particular ones for a whole complex of reasons. We wanted to pick a story that had activity in it so that we could slowly bring people into the static milieu of Nero Wolfe's house. The Golden Spiders took you outside. There's a gunfight and a tough interrogation scene. It was a very strong story with a lot of pathos, because a young boy is murdered and Wolfe has to deal with his mother. So that was why we chose that one. [2]

Saul Rubinek, who would take the role of Lon Cohen in the subsequent series, was cast as Saul Panzer in the pilot. Prior to the original film's broadcast, Rubinek was asked what made him want to do the project:

Maury Chaykin and I have known each other for almost 30 years and so we know what each other's doing, and I've also been an aficionado of Rex Stout's. ... By total coincidence, I started doing book tapes. I must have done seven or eight book tapes reading Rex Stout novels. I've always known Maury would be great casting as Nero Wolfe... And as it turned out, there's a character called Saul Panzer, who is one of Wolfe's operatives. ... At one point, Saul has to go undercover and play an immigrant. ...
Rex Stout was a great humanitarian, and he did a tremendous amount of charity work, and he was very compassionate towards immigrants to the United States. It's not out of keeping with Stout's personality that he would have written about victimization of immigrants who are being blackmailed. The center of the story is about that. And don't forget that he's writing in the fifties, when there was a lot of reaction against immigrants after the Second World War coming into America, and it wasn't pleasant. I would imagine it's not so different from the eighties when the Vietnamese were coming into America, and there was a lot of reaction against that. There's always a period during American history where the American public might react against who we're letting into the country, and I think he had a great deal of compassion for that, for people who are stateless. I was born in a refugee camp myself, and my family are Holocaust survivors, and I was naturalized as a Canadian citizen before I became an American citizen, so it's a part of the story that I kind of connected to. [3]

The Golden Spiders is an A&E Networks production in association with Jaffe/Braunstein Films. Shot in Toronto, the film features production design by Lindsey Hermer-Bell and cinematography by Michael Fash. The adaptation of Rex Stout's novel is the final credit of Paul Monash, a veteran screenwriter and film producer. "I have no need to work on things I don't care to," Monash told an interviewer about his work on The Golden Spiders. "This, I wanted to do." [4]

Cast

Reception

A&E initially planned that The Golden Spiders would be the first in a series of two-hour mystery movies featuring Nero Wolfe. [5] The high ratings (3.2 million households) garnered by the film, along with the critical praise accorded Chaykin as Wolfe and Hutton as Archie, prompted A&E to order a weekly one-hour drama series — A Nero Wolfe Mystery — into production. [6]

Reviews and commentary

Home video releases

A&E Home Video

The Golden Spiders, the feature-length pilot for the series A Nero Wolfe Mystery , is included on two of A&E's DVD box sets —Nero Wolfe: The Complete Classic Whodunit Series and Nero Wolfe: The Complete Second Season. The film was also released independently on VHS and DVD.

TitleMedia TypeRelease DateApproximate LengthISBN
Nero Wolfe:
The Complete Classic
Whodunit Series
Region 1 DVD
Eight-disc box set
April 25, 200624 hours,
56 minutes
+ extras
ISBN   0-7670-8893-X
The Golden Spiders:
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Region 1 DVD+R
(A&E Store exclusive)
October 200494 minutes ISBN   0-7670-6719-3
Nero Wolfe:
The Complete Second Season
Region 1 DVD
Five-disc box set
June 28, 2005 [8] 13 hours,
20 minutes
ISBN   0-7670-5508-X
The Golden Spiders:
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
VHS videotape
(NTSC)
May 30, 2000100 minutes ISBN   0-7670-2551-2

FremantleMedia Enterprises

The Golden Spiders was distributed by Pearson Television International. The film saw its first international DVD release in August 2008, when it was included in "Nero Wolfe – Collection One", offered for sale in Australia by FremantleMedia Enterprises.

TitleMedia TypeRelease DateApproximate LengthNumeric Identifier
Nero Wolfe — Collection OneRegion 4 DVD
Three-disc set [9]
August 13, 2008276 minutesUPC 9316797427038
A Nero Wolfe Mystery — Serie 1Region 2 DVD
Three-disc set [10]
December 11, 2009270 minutesEAN 9315842036140

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archie Goodwin (character)</span> Fictional detective created by Rex Stout

Archie Goodwin is a fictional character in a series of detective stories and novels by American author Rex Stout. Archie is the witty narrator of the cases featuring his boss, Nero Wolfe, from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975. Although his job title is Wolfe's secretary and chauffeur, Archie is effectively Wolfe's partner in the detective business, and the stories often contrast his middle class streetwise persona with Wolfe's aristocratic intelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maury Chaykin</span> American-Canadian actor (1949-2010)

Maury Alan Chaykin was an American-Canadian actor. Described as "one of the most recognizable faces in Canadian cinema," he was best known for his portrayal of Rex Stout's detective Nero Wolfe on the television series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001-02), as well as for his work as a character actor in many films and television programs.

<i>Nero Wolfe</i> (2001 TV series) American television series

Nero Wolfe is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's series of detective stories that aired for two seasons (2001–2002) on A&E. Set in New York City sometime in the 1940s–1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin. A distinguishing feature of the series is its use of a repertory cast to play non-recurring roles. Nero Wolfe was one of the Top 10 Basic Cable Dramas for 2002.

<i>The Golden Spiders</i> 1953 novel by Rex Stout

The Golden Spiders is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. It was first published in 1953 by The Viking Press.

<i>The Doorbell Rang</i> Novel by Rex Stout

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The Nero Wolfe stories are populated by a cast of supporting characters who help sustain the sense that each story takes place in familiar surroundings. The main characters are Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

<i>Champagne for One</i> 1958 novel by Rex Stout

Champagne for One is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1958. The back matter of the 1995 Bantam edition of this book includes an exchange of correspondence between Stout and his editor at Viking Press, Marshall Best. A letter from Stout to Best, dated July 1958, shows that Stout suggested as a title both "Champagne for One" and also "Champagne for Faith Usher." Best's reply states that Viking was quite satisfied with "Champagne for One."

<i>Over My Dead Body</i> (novel) 1940 book by Rex Stout

Over My Dead Body is the seventh Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine. The novel was published in 1940 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.

<i>Prisoners Base</i> 1952 novel by Rex Stout

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<i>Too Many Clients</i> 1960 novel by Rex Stout

Too Many Clients is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1960, and later collected in the omnibus volume Three Aces.

<i>Death of a Doxy</i> Detective novel by Rex Stout

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<i>The Mother Hunt</i> 1963 novel by Rex Stout

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disguise for Murder</span> Short story by Rex Stout

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Door to Death</span> Short story by Rex Stout

"Door to Death" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in the June 1949 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three Doors to Death, published by the Viking Press in 1950.

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"Poison à la Carte" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in April 1960 in the short-story collection Three at Wolfe's Door.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Before I Die (short story)</span> Short story by Rex Stout

"Before I Die" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in the April 1947 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Trouble in Triplicate, published by the Viking Press in 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Next Witness</span> Short story by Rex Stout

"The Next Witness" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published as "The Last Witness" in the May 1955 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three Witnesses, published by the Viking Press in 1956.

"Christmas Party" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published as "The Christmas-Party Murder" in the January 4, 1957, issue of Collier's magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection And Four to Go, published by the Viking Press in 1958.

"The Cop-Killer" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published as "The Cop Killer" in the February 1951 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Triple Jeopardy, published by the Viking Press in 1952.

References

  1. Greppi, Michele, "Sleuths super for A&E record"; The Hollywood Reporter , March 10, 2000
  2. Vitaris, Paula, "Miracle on 35th Street: Nero Wolfe on Television"; Scarlet Street , issue #45, 2002, p. 34
  3. A&E Network interview with Saul Rubinek, retrieved June 23, 2007
  4. Cuthbert, David, "Famous detective Nero Wolfe takes on murder in The Golden Spiders," Archived 2006-10-04 at the Wayback Machine ; Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), March 1, 2000
  5. Dempsey, John, "A&E embarks on ambitious mystery plan"; Daily Variety, January 15, 1999
  6. Dempsey, John, "Wolfe series at the door for A&E"; Variety, June 26, 2000; "A&E packs 'Wolfe'"; Variety, June 22, 2000
  7. Zoller Seitz, Matt, "Hutton finds his inner hero"; The Star-Ledger , April 21, 2001
  8. Actually released in June 2004 for exclusive sale by A&E Store and select outlets
  9. Features include "The Golden Spiders," "The Doorbell Rang" and "Champagne for One." Each 90-minute film is presented with a single set of titles and credits. Screen format is 4 x 3 full frame. Rated M (mild crime themes and mild violence) by the Commonwealth of Australia. [ permanent dead link ]
  10. Features include "The Golden Spiders," "The Doorbell Rang" and "Champagne for One." Screen format is 4:3 full frame. Dutch subtitles. Recommended for age 12 and over. "Op zoek naar a Nero Wolfe Mystery serie 1? | Justwebshop.nl". Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2010-04-14. "Nero Wolfe Series 1 | DVD | 8717344739221 - Gratis verzending bij Cosmox". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2010-04-07.