Saw the opening of this movie on TV in the early to mid 1970s. Possibly a made-for-TV movie. Four people at an informal cocktail party, possibly in someone’s home, discuss how a perfect murder might be carried out. The conversation seems to be in the nature of a parlor game or thought experiment. There may have been men and women involved. No faces are seen. We hear only voices, and see drinks, cigarettes (maybe) being held.
The idea proposed is to compartmentalize the crime into separate tasks. To assign different parts of the murder four playing cards are used and drawn at random. Each card represents a different action to be taken and nobody knows what cards/actions the others have drawn. Each step, while being described, is depicted in a vague “flashback” style while the discussion continues. Again, no identities are known of either perpetrators or victim.
The steps are, to the best of my memory:
-
Lure victim to murder scene
-
Kill victim (a hand holding a revolver is shown firing the pistol)
-
Load body into a trunk
-
Ship trunk somewhere
Cocktail party concludes, fade to black.
On screen text: ‘X’ Months later: Hong Kong (maybe 8 months, or some other number)
Black fades and we see the trunk depicted in the hypothetical discussion on a loading dock.
That is all I saw of the movie.
Was the movie in color? It reminds me a little of “Rope,” but that is a black and white movie. We see faces, though, and Jimmy Stewart is in it, who is pretty distinctive.
Well, we didn’t have a color TV then. I suspect it was in color, though. It had a modern enough look at the time. After looking at the Wikipedia article about “Rope” I’m certain that was *not* the movie in question. The film I’m wondering about opens with the small informal cocktail party and the ensuing “thought experiment” but we don’t see the actual murder take place. In fact, the last thing I saw was, as in the description, the trunk showing up on a loading dock. I’m assuming a body was inside.
“Rope” was indeed in color, HB. 🙂 see photo
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040746/mediaviewer/rm2920882432