MYSTERY MOVIE MARATHON
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
This is a very unofficial, unwieldly and distinctly dissimilar collection of movies shown tonight on TCM – but they’re all very, very entertaining mystery movies, albeit of very different types and tones. Death on the Nile from 1978, and Evil Under the Sun from 1982, are star-studded adaptations of Agatha Christie novels. They start things off at 8 p.m. ET. Then, at 12:45 a.m. ET, comes 1973’s yacht-set The Last of Sheila (pictured), written not by the grande dame of mystery writers, but by a pair of puzzle enthusiasts, one an actor, the other a composer-lyricist: Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim. At 3 a.m. ET, Woody Allen’s very clever Manhattan Murder Mystery, from 1993, is shown – and the evening ends at 5 a.m. ET with a 1982 movie based on Ira Levin’s successful, twisted and plot-twisty mystery stage play: Deathtrap, starring Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine. And both Deathtrap and The Last of Sheila, by the way, co-star Dyan Cannon.