A Very Missing Person (1972 TV Movie) User Reviews

OK mystery, could have been better.

[gmda · 7/10 · 9 May 2011]

Something no one has said yet is this is the seventh movie of Hildegarde Withers from the 1930's! The previous movie, Forty Naughty Girls was in 1937!

An OK, made for TV mystery, which I figured out before the end. And with a kind of "quick" ending. Eve Arden did a great job I thought, for this movie series not being made for nearly 35 years, nobody would probably remember and compare her to the actresses before her. James Gregory as Oscar Piper was OK, but not as irascible, as James Gleason's portrayal. I did laugh at the banter between the two and found it to be entertaining. I would liked to have seen at least one season, or one summer season of episodes, where character development could have taken place. Other than that...it is OK.

Interesting to see the Great PAT MORITA, 3 years before he did Happy Days!

If you are into 70's hippie culture and don't mind an original Star Trek plot rip-off, you might like it. I did.

Based on the final Hildegarde novel completed from Stuart Palmer's notes.

[sbolling-265-579123 · 6/10 · 29 August 2013]

Hildegarde Withers first appeared in novels with The Penguin Pool Murders in 1931 and was based on author's Stuart Palmer's high school teacher. She was described as a tall, bony spinster ex-school teacher who wore unusual hats and carried a black furled umbrella. Her unofficial partner as well as friend was crusty Inspector Oscar Piper of the NYPD who actually proposed to her at one time but retracted the offer at the last moment. Novels and short stories would continue into the 1960s until Palmer's death in 1968. Hildegarde was portrayed in the movies by Edna May Oliver, Helen Broderick and Zazu Pitts and Oscar was portrayed by James Gleason. In this film, Eve Arden was chosen because physically she looks much like how the character is described in the stories. The teleplay is based on the novel "Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene" which was completed by Fletcher Flora upon Palmer's death and released in 1969. So here we see a much more liberated Hildegarde in a much more liberated time. This is a pilot for a proposed "rotating" series called The Great Detectives which would have alternated with Sherlock Holmes and Nick Carter. I think Hildegarde could be adapted for contemporary times much like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple has been done from time to time, but most fans of her in fiction would find this adaption a bit jarring. The novels spanned from 1931 to 1954. In 1963 there was an additional novel penned by Craig Rice under Palmer's direction and in 1969 Fletcher Flora completed what was found of Palmer's notes for the final Hildegarde novel.

It's all about the lady Eve......Arden that is!

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 3 August 2018]

Back in the 1930's, Edna May Oliver originated the part of spinster school teacher Hildegarde Withers, a feisty and no-nonsense lady with a nose to the grindstone when it came to solving murder. After she left the series to go to MGM, Zasu Pitts and Helen Broderick took over the parts to end out the RKO series, and it wouldn't be until 35 years later when the character was revived for this TV movie pilot for Eve Arden who back in 1937 was walking around with a cat on her neck in "Stage Door". Oliver, Pitts and Broderick were known for their wisecracking characters, and Arden went onto decades of supporting roles as "Queen of the Wisecracks" before tackling TV with "Our Miss Brooks", "The Eve Arden Show" and "The Mothers-In-Law" before attempting to bring a comedy/mystery series with this, produced by Aaron Spelling in his pre-"Charie's Angels"/"Dynasty" days. She's still wisecracking, and deliciously funny, although the mystery she's given here is automatically dated with its hippie like young characters and a mysterious Manson like cult involved, plus a little known poison called hemlock (straight out of ancient Greek history) being used as the murder weapon.

Arden gets some laughs at her expense because of her variety of outlandish hats (at one point refusing to leave her hat behind with a beatnik because she fears he might try to smoke it), and of course, cracks wise at the variety of younger people she encounters, even though she tries in a few parts to be "hip" with them. Her detective Oscar Piper here is James Gregory ("The Manchurian Candidate"), and he's every bit as good as James Gleason was in the five movie series of the 1930's. Arden scores some chemistry with an old student of hers, a young Vietnam vet (Dennis Rucker) who makes her wear a "brain bucket" and sit in the side car when they drive around on his motorcycle. "I'll look like I'm sitting in a bathtub!" Arden protests with that delicious voice of hers, and just the thought of Miss Brooks and the future Principal Magee wearing a "brain bucket" strikes me as funny. The case she aids Gregory with concerns a missing young woman which leads her to connect with a bunch of beatniks and cult like ministers who are oddballs to say the least, one of them poisoned (Ray Danton) with hemlock and Arden, Rucker and escapee beatnik Julie Newmar to try and solve the crime. There are some moments of genius in the script, but it's pretty odd to say the least. Had they tried this with a more conventional murder plot, this might have gone on for a season or two as a series, pre-dating Angela Lansbury's "Murder She Wrote", but I'm sure the network saw this and thought to themselves, "No go."

Pilot TV-movie

[Ripshin · 14 August 2004]

This TV movie was intended as a pilot for an unsold series, starring Eve Arden in the role of a detective, of sorts. Consider it a precursor to "Murder She Wrote." Arden was a fantastic character actress, who could most likely have held her own in a series, which she did, of course, in "Our Miss Brooks." The TV industry today would KILL for a woman of her talent to help sell a series. I am uncertain as to why she could never find success after "The Mothers-In-Law." I guess we consider the "Grease" films as her swan song, although she certainly deserved better. I've always thought that she would have been great in "The Golden Girls" - I wonder if she might have been considered.

Our Miss Withers

[boblipton · 4/10 · 19 December 2018]

Police Inspector James Gregory has orders come down:find missing heiress Skye Aubrey. He doesn't have the manpower, so he asks his lady friend, retired schoolteacher Eve Arden to do the legwork. She finds a yacht filled with people looking to found a doomsday colony and assorted corpses.

It's based on HILDEGARDE WITHERS MAKES THE SCENE, the last Miss Withers mystery, started by Stuart Palmer and finished after his death by Fletcher Flora. Earlier books in the series had been turned into a fine series of B movies, originally starring the formidable Edna May Oliver as Withers, Miss Arden's role, and James Gleason as Oscar Piper, Mr. Gregory's role. This TV movie was essayed because ABC wanted to compete with the NBC Mystery Movies, which rotated such popular series as COLUMBO and MACMILLAN AND WIFE. ABC planned to revive other old mystery characters, such as Sherlock Homes, Nick Carter and Charlie Chan. The project died a-borning.

This one shows why. Gregory is excellent a the irascible Piper, Eve Arden was undoubtedly cast because she had played the wise-cracking second lead to perfection in many a movie in the 1930s and 1940s, then had achieved TV stardom as a schoolteacher in OUR MISS BROOKS. However, there is something wrong with her timing here. She plays the prim retired lady with a taste for old-fashioned hats very well, but her line readings lack snap, there is no chemistry with Gregory, and the writing lacks the morbid humor that the 1930s movies had. Pity.

always classy Eve

[briankistler · 9/10 · 26 May 2006]

I saw this movie when it came out in '72. I was just looking to see if I could find it on DVD or video, but did not see that it was available. Eve Arden was incredible. At this point of her career she was in her early 60s (she was born in 1908; not in 1912 like some biographies say). She had the starring role in this movie, and she carried it off so well. As is always the case, with her movies and guest spots on TV, she was so charming and classy; also very funny. And for a woman 63 or 64 years of age, she seemed to have a boundless amount of energy----looked to me like someone who had no plans on slowly down, anytime soon.

And, in my opinion anyway, Eve always looked so much younger than her chronological age. I am reminded that, in the late 60s, she was playing the role of a mother-in-law, who was supposed to be in her 40s, when she was already right around 60 ("The Mothers-In-Law"). Also, in the class movie, "Grease", she was about 70, when she played the principal. She looked more like her early to mid 50s in that role.

In "A Very Missing Person", she played a woman who had been an English teacher. I wonder if her popular series, "Our Miss Brooks" (in which she also played a teacher) had something to do with why the producers picked her for this role (one could say the same thing about "Grease", since she was also in "Education" there).

I would have to disagree that "Grease" was her swan song, like one of the other reviewers of this movie pointed out. If you look at her IMDb credit list, she continued to make films, and do guest spots, well into the 80s (and not just Grease II). The long illness and death of her husband, in the 80s, no doubt slowed her down (and not just her own later health problems).

I remember really enjoying this movie. I have not seen it since 1972, so I don't recall everything about it. But I would have to agree with the reviewer who said that Eve would have made a great Jessica Fletcher on "Murder She Wrote". May Eve rest in peace. The 16 years, since her death, are 16 years WAY TOO LONG. How I wish she were still with us, and as healthy as her character in "A Very Missing Person".

Hildegard employs a Fister.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 10 December 2016]

If you really want to see a Hildegarde Withers film, I suggest you see one of the delightful Edna May Oliver films from the 1930s. They were fun and Oliver was just terrific as the snoopy lady. Here with "A Very Missing Person", ABC tried to revive the character...with less than stellar results.

When the film begins, Withers (Eve Arden) is recruited to help look for a missing heiress. She brings along a young guy unfortunately named 'Fister' to help her. The trail leads to a bunch of hippies, bohemians and religious cult members as well as a yacht where they all seem to congregate. Withers finds the missing lady...and at the same time finds the Captain of the yacht dead. Apparently someone poisoned him and Withers employs her flawless logic in exclaiming "poison is a woman's m.o.". And, since these amateur detectives are never wrong, you can only assume they'll eventually find a woman is behind the killing.

The biggest problem with the film, other than it NOT being Oliver in the lead, is that the picture tries way, way too hard to be hip with all the hippies and hippie references...most of which comes off as fake and silly. Imagine Pat Morita as a hippie! The only thing I actually liked about this one was the identity of the killer...that was interesting.

Boretron. very broing

[ThunderKing6 · 1/10 · 12 December 2022]

Hey. What's good with you today?

600 words and letters is a nightmare. Often I will type my reviews on a word processor app, android note app and or copy, paste and save reviews in case something happens because typing 600 words and letters is too much when a movie or show is very boring.

I was nearly down grinding on this review then I got an error now i had to retype this review because I did not save the original.

Anyways...

This movie was really boring. I dozed off for some of it. I couldn't fall back asleep, that's when I knew it was a nightmare. That should mean a lot. (This review should end there. Unfortunately, i need 29 more words and letters to finish this review).

Overall, a bad, boring and pointless movie that didn't need to be made.