1985 television film by Steven Hilliard Stern
- Murder in Space is also the title of a 1955 science fiction novel by David V. Reed and a 2007 mystery novel by Sydney J. Bounds.
Murder in Space is a 1985 science fiction murder mystery television movie set in the near future. The crew of an international space mission are on the return leg from Mars to Earth when an explosion occurs on the craft Conestoga, shortly after a series of murders starts. The crew of the returning craft are forbidden to return until the murderer is caught.
On its initial worldwide premiere, the film was shown without the ending and a competition was set for the viewers to solve the mystery of who the murderer or murderers were. The conclusion of the film was shown several days later, with the contestants eliminated one by one until the winner correctly identified the killer or killers. The final 15 minutes of the film was shown at a later date when the mystery was solved with only two countries provided winners with the correct answer.
Conestoga crew
| Actor
|
Character
|
Rank
|
Country
|
Murdered
|
How
|
Murderer's Possible Motive
|
| Michael Ironside
|
Neil Braddock
|
Captain
|
U.S.A.
|
No
|
|
|
| Cathie Shirriff
|
Olga Denarenko
|
|
U.S.S.R.
|
Yes
|
Strangled/Suffocated
|
Pregnant with other crew member's child.
|
| Damir Andrei
|
Andrei Kalsinov
|
Colonel
|
U.S.S.R.
|
Yes
|
Blown up
|
Planned to defect
|
| Timothy Webber
|
Guy Sterling
|
|
Canada
|
Yes
|
Cyanide poisoning
|
Needed to be silenced
|
| Tom Butler
|
Kurt Steiner
|
Major
|
East Germany
|
Yes
|
Strangled
|
Judgment
|
| Leo Ilial
|
Phillipe Berdoux
|
Doctor
|
France
|
No
|
|
|
| Scot Denton
|
David Tremayne
|
Navigator
|
U.S.A.
|
No
|
|
|
| Kate Trotter
|
Pamela Cooper
|
|
UK
|
No
|
|
|
| Alberta Watson
|
Dominica Mastrelli
|
|
Italy
|
No
|
|
|
Other cast members
Other cast members were reporters, wives and husbands, mission control staff and additional Russian characters.
| Name
|
Rank or part
|
Played by
|
|
|
Vice President
|
Arthur Hill
|
| Dr. Andrew McCallister
|
Space program director
|
Wilford Brimley
|
| Dinah Greenberg
|
Secretary to McCallister
|
Gloria Carlin
|
| Jeffrey Kilbride
|
Reporter
|
Alan Jordan
|
| Mitch Carlino
|
|
Peter Dvorsky
|
| Alexander Rostov
|
Russian Politician
|
Martin Balsam
|
| Dr. Margaret Leigh
|
Doctor
|
Nerene Virgin
|
| Grigori Denarenko
|
husband of cosmonaut Olga Denarenko
|
Jan Rubeš
|
| Irene Tremayne
|
Wife of astronaut David Tremayne
|
Wendy Crewson
|
Prize money
- USA - $60,000
- UK - £10,000
PRIMETIME magazine, the FIRST CHOICE*SUPERCHANNEL program guide, featured a pull-out entry form which allowed viewers to identify the four murdered characters, their nationalities and, bizarrely, “how murdered?”. It then asked the ultimate question – “Who Committed the Murders?”
Readers who correctly guessed the answer had the opportunity to win a trip on the Orient Express however no entries received were actually correct so instead the closest answer to who the murderer was given a year's free subscription to the magazine.[1]
Accompanying book
A novel also called "Murder In Space", published by Penguin, was produced around the same time; the last page of the book was an entry form for the competition to solve the mystery. It was written by "FX Woolf", a penname for Howard Engels and Janet Hamilton.[2]
Murder in Space: The Solution
A television show, hosted in the UK by Anneka Rice and Roger Cook(making his ITV Debut) and broadcast in September 1985 on UK TV Channel ITV, featured members of the UK public who were close or knew who the murderer actually was, thus winning the £10,000 prize money. The solution was then shown in the final 15 minutes of the movie to reveal the answer.[1]
External links
References