The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

Cozy Mystery News: Hallmark Aurora Teagarden Continuing

Well, I’ve already put up a news post this month, or I might have folded this into that… but apparently Hallmark has decided to continue the Aurora Teagarden franchise, based off of the mystery series by Charlaine Harris. Having lost much of the original cast, instead of attempting to continue the series going forward, they will be making a prequel movie with several key roles recast. Marilu Henner will still be featured as Aurora’s mother Aida, but Skyler Samuels will be taking up the role of Aurora, while Evan Roderick will be playing Arthur Smith.

Personally, I think this is great news, and I’m glad to see the series continue in whatever form. Samuels and Roderick are obviously much younger than the role has been played before, but considering that this is intended to be a prequel to the existing series certainly helps that make a lot of sense.

Scottish Television Mystery Series: Taggart

How did we miss this police procedural show?! My husband and I have been loving Taggart! I must warn you, though: it is not a Cozy Mystery series. The main character, Detective Chief Inspector Taggart, is quite acerbic and has a wickedly dry sense of humor. He does not “suffer fools lightly”.  Taggart ran from 1983 to 2010, so there are lots of shows to watch… which is great news for us! (Since this is a Scottish show, the accents can be pretty strong at times so you may need to use the subtitles.)

Mark McManus is absolutely terrific as Taggart. Actually, all of the acting is really good. The relationship between Taggart and his wife (beautifully played by Harriet Buchan) is of particular interest to me. His wife doesn’t let the fact that she is wheelchair-bound stop her from having many outside interests/jobs – as well it shouldn’t. She gets quite upset at how Taggart lives for his job and doesn’t seem to enjoy anything other than excelling as a detective. (At the beginning of the series Taggart boasts about never living/visiting anywhere outside of Glasgow – and he is not a young man!)

As I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, this series is not Cozy! It is set during the time the shows were produced – although watching today makes them seem “historical”.

The shows are very well-written – the plots make sense. The women detectives don’t chase down suspects in their stilettoes (I’m guessing a lot of you are tired of me saying that!) The actors (mostly) look like normal people… they don’t all look like young models. (Why do shows made in the US have such unrealistic looking characters?)

I definitely recommend the series to those of you who enjoy gritty police procedurals. Taggart is available on BritBox – but be prepared to use subtitles.

Also, if you’re interested in taking a look at some other good mystery shows, make sure to go to my Cozy Mystery TV and Movies page.

Upcoming Mysteries on Turner Classic Movies for March 2023

The Turner Classic Movies channel is bringing us a terrific March 2023 schedule of mystery (and crime) movies. “Double Indemnity” (1944) will be shown on Friday, March 3. If you haven’t already seen this movie, make sure you either set your mode of taping or you’re sitting in front of you TV with it set on the Turner Classic Movies channel. All three of the actors (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson) do absolutely fantastic jobs in this movie. Another movie that I really enjoy is “The Letter” (1940) starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, and James Stephenson – which will be airing on Saturday, March 4. I don’t think that the fact Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis are two of my all time favorite actresses is the reason for me thinking these movies are so terrific…

Another movie that I recommend seeing is “Adam’s Rib” (1949). This comedic movie has Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn playing married attorneys working on opposite sides of a trial that has the fantastic Judy Holliday being tried for trying to kill her philandering husband.

Also, sprinkled throughout March 2023 are seven Alfred Hitchcock movies, three George Cukor movies, two Billy Wilder movies, two Otto Preminger movies, two Sidney Lumet movies, two Mervyn Leroy movies, one William Wyler movie, one Michael Curtiz, one Orson Welles movie, and one Joseph L. Mankiewicz movie. What a list of very talented directors!

***** ***** ***** *****

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES CHANNEL MYSTERY MOVIES – March 2023

***** ***** ***** *****

Thursday – March 2, 2023

8:00 AM The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960)
A small-time thief kills his way to the top of the New York rackets.
Dir: Budd Boetticher. Cast: Ray Danton, Karen Steele, Elaine Stewart
101 mins

10:00 AM Little Caesar (1930)
A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?
Dir: Mervyn Leroy. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks, Glenda Farrell
80 mins

11:30 AM The Doorway to Hell (1930)
Despite his efforts to go straight, a young gangster keeps falling back into crime.
Dir: Archie Mayo. Cast: Lew Ayres, Charles Judels, Dorothy Mathews
78 mins

5:30 PM In Cold Blood (1967)
Two vagrants try to outrun the police after committing a savage crime in this real-life shocker.
Dir: Richard Brooks. Cast: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe
134 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Friday – March 3, 2023

8:00 PM Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client’s death.
Dir: Billy Wilder. Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
107 mins

10:00 PM Mildred Pierce (1945)
A woman’s ambitions for her daughter drastically impact her life.
Dir: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott
113 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Saturday – March 4, 2023

12:00 AM The Letter (1940)
A woman claims to have killed in self-defense, until a blackmailer turns up with incriminating evidence.
Dir: William Wyler. Cast: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson
97 mins

2:00 AM The Killers (1946)
An insurance investigator uncovers a string of crimes when he tries to find a murdered boxer’s beneficiary.
Dir: Robert Siodmak. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien
105 mins

4:00 AM Crossfire (1947)
A crusading district attorney investigates the murder of a Jewish man.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk. Cast: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan
85 mins

10:00 AM Adam’s Rib (1949)
A happily-married, middle-aged husband and wife strain their marriage while serving as trial attorneys on opposite sides of the same headline-making attempted murder-marital case. He is the prosecutor, and she is the defender.
Dir: George Cukor. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday
101 mins
*****A terrific comedy.*****

4:00 PM Born Yesterday (1950)
A newspaper reporter takes on the task of educating a crooked businessman’s girlfriend.
Dir: George Cukor. Cast: Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden
103 mins
*****Another terrific comedy.*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Thursday – March 9, 2023

9:00 AM The Fallen Sparrow (1943)
Nazi spies pursue a Spanish Civil War veteran in search of a priceless keepsake.
Dir: Richard Wallace. Cast: John Garfield, Maureen O’Hara, Walter Slezak
94 mins

10:45 AM Foreign Correspondent (1940)
An American reporter covering the war in Europe gets mixed up in the assassination of a Dutch diplomat.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall
119 mins

5:30 PM North by Northwest (1959)
A suave, successful New York advertising executive finds himself, through a case of mistaken identity, embroiled in a web of intrigue and murder that takes him across the country to prove his innocence to the police.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
136 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Monday – March 13, 2023

10:15 PM The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Recently paroled master criminal Erwin “Doc” Riedenschneider gathers several crooks together in Cincinnati for a heist. The robbery is pulled off successfully until an alert night watchman shoots the team’s safe-cracker.
Dir: John Huston. Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen
112 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Tuesday – March 14, 2023

2:30 AM The Lavender Hill Mob (1952)
An overlooked gold transporter with 20 years of service plots to steal a million pounds of gold.
Dir: Charles Crichton. Cast: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sidney James
81 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Wednesday – March 15, 2023

11:45 AM Z (1969)
A political assassination uncovers a hotbed of corruption.
Dir: Costa-Gavras. Cast: Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacques Perrin
125 mins
*****In French*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Saturday – March 18, 2023

7:00 AM The Window (1949)
A boy who always lies witnesses a murder but can’t get anyone but the killer to believe him.
Dir: Ted Tetzlaff. Cast: Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart
73 mins

8:30 AM The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade gets caught up in the murderous search for a priceless statue.
Dir: John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George
100 mins

10:15 AM The Thin Man (1934)
In New York, a detective, his wife and his dog solve the murder case of an eccentric inventor.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan
80 mins

12:00 PM The Third Man (1949)
A man’s investigation of a friend’s death uncovers corruption in post-World War II Vienna.
Dir: Carol Reed. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles
93 mins

2:00 PM Charade (1963)
A young woman returns home from vacation to find her elegant apartment stripped and her husband murdered.
Dir: Stanley Donen. Cast: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau
114 mins

4:00 PM Laura (1944)
A hard-boiled detective falls hard for a murder victim. Every man who knew her fell in love with her, and now that she’s dead, the obsessed detective can’t get her out of his mind.
Dir: Otto Preminger. Cast: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb
88 mins

5:45 PM Vertigo (1958)
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he’s been hired to tail.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes
128 mins

8:00 PM Rear Window (1954)
A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey
112 mins

10:00 PM Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of a mysterious businessman during a luxurious train ride.
Dir: Sidney Lumet. Cast: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman
127 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Monday – March 20, 2023

12:15 AM In the Heat of the Night (1967)
A black detective teams up with a racist white sheriff to solve a murder in a small town in the South. Over time, they begin to find respect for one another.
Dir: Norman Jewison. Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
109 mins

2:15 AM Klute (1971)
A low-key small town detective journeys to New York City to investigate the murder of a friend and discovers that both the killer and the victim were clients of the same high-class call girl.
Dir: Alan J. Pakula. Cast: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi
114 mins

4:15 AM Blow-Up (1966)
A photographer discovers a murder in the background of a candid photo.
Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni. Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, David Hemmings
111 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Tuesday – March 21, 2023

10:15 PM Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
A British lawyer gets caught up in a couple’s tangled marital affairs when he defends the husband for murder.
Dir: Billy Wilder. Cast: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton
114 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Wednesday – March 22, 2023

12:30 AM 12 Angry Men (1957)
A jury holdout tries to convince his colleagues to vote not guilty.
Dir: Sidney Lumet. Cast: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley
95 mins

2:15 AM Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
A defense lawyer takes on a case of a man accused of murdering a bartender who apparently raped his wife.
Dir: Otto Preminger. Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara
160 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Sunday – March 26, 2023

8:00 PM All About Eve (1950)
Broadway legend Margo Channing has everything: a successful career, close friends, and a man who loves her. She also has a fan named Eve Harrington, who manages to worm her way into Margo’s life in order to study her like a blueprint.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders
138 mins
*****Not a mystery. Phenomenal movie.*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Monday – March 27, 2023

6:00 AM Night Must Fall (1937)
A charming young man worms his way into a wealthy woman’s household, then reveals a deadly secret.
Dir: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Merle Tottenham, Kathleen Harrison, Dame May Whitty
117 mins

8:00 AM The Stranger (1946)
A small-town schoolteacher suspects her new husband may be an escaped Nazi war criminal.
Dir: Orson Welles. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles
95 mins

10:00 AM Gaslight (1944)
Young Paula Alquist has given up a promising singing career to marry Gregory Anton. Deeply in love, she refuses to believe – then cannot convince anyone else – that her new husband is a thief who murdered her aunt, that everyone in her household is plotting to kill her…and that something evil will happen every time she …
Dir: George Cukor. Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
114 mins

12:00 PM Wait Until Dark (1967)
A blind woman fights against drug smugglers who’ve invaded her home.
Dir: Terence Young. Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna
108 mins

2:00 PM Suspicion (1941)
A young woman marries a charming man after a brief romance but then comes to believe that he is only after her money and will do anything to get it.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Sir Cedric Hardwicke
99 mins

4:00 PM Strangers on a Train (1951)
A man’s joking suggestion that he and a chance acquaintance trade murders turns deadly.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker
96 mins

5:45 PM The Bad Seed (1956)
An eight year old girl–a quintessential psychopath–kills a schoolmate, an old woman, an apartment janitor and prompts the suicide of her despairing mother before fate intervenes bringing this “bad seed” to her own premature finish.
Dir: Mervyn Leroy. Cast: Gage Clarke, Jesse White, Joan Croyden
129 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Friday – March 31, 2023

8:00 PM Psycho (1960)
A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin
109 mins

2:00 AM What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
A crazed, aging star torments her sister in a decaying Hollywood mansion.
Dir: Robert Aldrich. Cast: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono
132 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

If you’re really looking forward to these or other mystery-themed TV specials coming up in March, be sure to leave a comment below!

In case you’re interested in seeing the rest of this month’s television mystery movies, here’s the February 2023 television mystery movies schedule:

Upcoming Television Mystery Movies for February 2023 on Turner Classic Movies channel

And here is the page on my site with plenty of entries about movies and television shows you may enjoy:

Cozy Mystery List TV and Movie Section – all you have to do is click on the link to go to that page on my site.

British Mystery Television Show: Endeavor

Did you ever wonder how Morse became the great inspector he became? I did! I also wondered how he became so eccentric.

Those of you who frequent the Cozy Mystery site’s TV & Movies page know how much I enjoyed the Inspector Morse mystery television series – which was then followed by the Lewis television series. Well, Endeavor is the prequel to the Inspector Morse series. The Morse shows are based on the mystery books written by Colin Dexter.

Endeavor is played by Shaun Evans, and he does a wonderful job. When the show begins, Endeavor is a detective constable – who went to Oxford on a scholarship. Luckily he has the very capable Detective Chief Inspector Fred Thursday (the excellent Roger Allam) as his immediate superior. For some reason, Thursday’s immediate superior doesn’t like Morse. (I suppose there always has to be a jerky boss!) And there’s a lot of professional jealousy among Endeavor’s peers because DCI Thursday seems to prefer working with Morse. (That’s the problem of being so much better at your job than anyone else!)

The show is set in the 1960s – way before a lot of things that we take for granted these days were invented… no cell phones, internet access for background checks, etc. Instead, these are back-to-the-basics, hitting-the-pavement types of cases. For those of you who haven’t watched Endeavor yet, you’re in luck. There are eight seasons. (Seasons 1-7 are available to watch on Prime.)

Shaun Evans (Endeavor) does a great job replicating a lot of the original Morse’s (John Thaw) mannerisms. And, as an added bonus, Abigail Thaw (the daughter of the original Morse – John Thaw) portrays the journalist from whom Endeavor gets a lot of his background information.

The relationship between Endeavor & DCI Thursday is terrific. DCI Thursday is not only Endeavor’s mentor, but also seems to be very fatherly toward Endeavor. Both Roger Allam & Shawn Evans are excellent!

My husband and I enjoyed the original Inspector Morse shows very much. So much so that I doubted I would enjoy Endeavor. Boy, was I wrong! I think we actually enjoy Endeavor more! These mysteries set in 1960s Oxford are a real treat to watch. The scenery, acting, writing, depiction of the class differences (snobby upper vs. working class), wardrobe, actually everything makes Endeavor a must-see for mystery buffs.

PS: Don’t expect long car chases, female detectives in their stilettoes running after criminals, or shoot-outs! Endeavor is available on Amazon Prime Video (seasons 1-8 as of the time of this writing).

Also, if you’re interested in taking a look at some other good mystery shows, make sure to go to my Cozy Mystery TV and Movies page.

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