I like it quite a bit. Great cast, good story, nice acting. I believe it can be performed as a stage play, that would be interesting to see. Levinson & Link made other TV movies of the suspense/mystery genre, Guilty Conscience for example, but this one is my favorite.

Joe

Guilty Conscience was terrific! Bythe Danner (Etude) was in that one, along with one of my all-time loves...Anthony Hopkins. It was a great flick!
I have not seen Rehearsal for Murder. Who was in it?

REHEARSAL FOR MURDER is a terrific L/L mystery from 1982. The set-up reminds me of Sondheim and Perkins' THE LAST OF SHELIA. In both a powerful man in show biz loses his lady love in an suspicious accident/suicide. A year later, he reunites various people who were within proximity of the death. And in both they participate in a party game (SHEILA) or a script reading. (REHEARSAL) Is it or is it not a "trap" to discover the real killer?
After that things go quite differently. In REHEARSAL, Robert Preston plays a successful playwright whose fiancee (Lynn Redgrave), the star of his new play, apparently kills herself on the night of the show's opening. A year later, Preston invites various friends connected with that show - the producer (William Daniels), the director (Lawrence Pressman) and three actors (Patrick Macnee, Madolyn Smith and Jeff Goldblum) -- to an empty theater to read from his new script. It becomes apparent that he is trying to smoke out Redgrave's killer.
Great fun!

sounds good...........and a great cast too!

I thought it was a bit slow at the start but when it got going it was very enjoyable - with a nice twist at the end.

(and for 50 pence [the dvd has two films on it] it was a real bargain)

Yes, the twist was clever--and it's good to see old pros like Robert Preston with the then younger talent of Jeff Goldbloom. Does anyone recall another LL mystery about that same time with Hal Holbrook?

Michael, I hope that wasn't a trivia question, but merely a question......because I cheated and looked it up.
The movie was Murder By Natural Causes..it aired in 1979...and also starred Katharine Ross and Barry Bostwick. Supposedly it had 3 differnt endings.

You mean three endings were filmed and a decision was made later on which one to use? I haven't seen it in years--Ross has affair with Bostwick, I think, and Holbrook cleverly finds way to have revenge. Wasn't Holbrook a mentalist?

Yeah, Holbrook was a mentalist. And the movie supposedly has 3 different endings, all filmed, that they show at the end. I have never seen it, but now I am definitely intrigued.

hey michael..........have you ever watched that o'brien tape????????? just asking.......

Yes, and many thanks for it. Oddly enough, it didn't follow the ususal O'Brien formula--this was much more an international intrique caper that was popular at the time. Thanks again.

I'm not positive, but wasn't one of Agatha Christies stories titled Rehersal for Murder? I think it was made into a movie starring Tony Curtis.

No, that was Murder in 3 Acts. Tony Curtis, Emma Samms, Jonathon Cecil, Diana Muldaur, etc. Ustinov as a modern day Poirot.