The period film stars Gene Wilder as Larry "Cash" Carter, a stage director, theater manager, former actor, and unofficial consulting detective for the police department in 1930s Stamford, Connecticut.

Cash agrees to accompany Tony when they go to meet Albert, Martha, and Kate, who are all beneficiaries of Mr. Lassiter's will, and thus at the top of the suspect list.

While interviewing Mrs. Lassiter, Cash explains that his experience in theater has made him an expert on both observation and human psychology, both of which are helpful in police investigation; he demonstrates this by noting that, due to the muscle tone in her legs, the scuff marks on the soles of her shoes, and the lack of calluses on her hands, Mrs. Lassiter is faking the need for a wheelchair.

"[2] Wilder received an assurance that he could make as many of these films as he liked, on no set schedule,[1] and he was given more than three months to write the script — a novelty in television.

"[1] Murder in a Small Town opens with Cash Carter as a member of a movie theater audience watching the climactic scene of the 1938 film Angels with Dirty Faces.

[4] Wilder's writing partner was Gilbert Pearlman, his brother-in-law, a man with a varied career in promoting and producing theater, film and television.

On January 30, 2000, Wilder was admitted to Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center for a stem-cell transplant, a followup to treatment he received in 1999 for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

[13] At the time of broadcast it became the A&E Network's second-highest rated original movie ever[14]—second only to Pride and Prejudice (1995), a miniseries that A&E coproduced with the BBC.

[15] Placing 13th in Nielsen's top 15 programs on basic cable networks for the week of January 4–10, 1999, Murder in a Small Town received a rating of 2.6 (2.55 million homes).

[17] "The high ratings of Murder in a Small Town guarantee that A&E will do more movies starring Wilder as Cash Carter," reported Variety.