August 2023 Bonus Review: Murder In Texas

The crime
In this version of the Dr. John Hill story? Hill poisoned his first wife, Joan Robinson; confessed this to his second wife, Ann Kurth, and then tried to kill her; and faked his own death and lammed it to Mexico after a mistrial in the matter of Joan’s death. Uh, allegedly.

The story
1981’s Murder In Texas is based on Ann’s crimoir, Prescription: Murder; while the better-known account of the case/s is likely Thomas Thompson’s legendary1 Blood & Money, P:M seems like a more obvious fit for a TV-movie adaptation in the classic eighties style, not least because P:M’s iteration has a better shot at getting everything done story-wise within a standard telefilm of the era. Blood & Money gets into it with the hitmen and the double-crosses and various other mysterious deaths and would require at least six premium-network episodes. (The lawsuits against Thompson alone! …Actually, someone should make a docuseries about Thompson himself.)

The problem with Murder In Texas is that it isn’t a standard telefilm. It’s a miniseries, which means it clocks in at just over three hours, and even grading on a classic-eighties curve that understands the limitations of the era in terms of runtime and act structure, it’s too long. But it was 1981, so I get it.