[1] Set in a New York country mansion but shot in Britain, Lansbury's performance as a crime writer anticipated her long-running role in the CBS show Murder, She Wrote.
[1] Anne Royce McClain is a successful murder mystery writer living on her New York estate, in a mansion full of priceless artwork (some of it by former lovers) and a collection of her own first editions and manuscripts.
She shares the house with her diminished capacity, childlike granddaughter Pamela (injured in the accident which killed her parents), and Rashi, her Rajasthani factotum... who is also an electronics wizard on parole from the penitentiary.
Anne appears to be an invalid and somewhat eccentric – if not batty – but is still churning out bestselling whodunits while riding her motorized wheelchair, drinking cognac, and tossing still lit cigarillos into wastepaper baskets – which sets off the smoke alarm and wakes the local fire chief at all hours.
Instead, Anne triggers the smoke alarm; with the household assembled she announces her plans to give her art collection to the MoMA and the house to a local historical society, and will draw up the papers in the morning.