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August 31, 2023

August 2023 Bonus Review: Murder In Texas

Mustache-less Sam Elliott, his IRL wife, and Andy Griffith's only Emmy nom

the true crime that's worth your time

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.

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