They Only Kill Their Masters

Plot synopsis:
The dead body of thirty-nine year old Jenny Campbell (Lee Pulford) is in the surf on the beach outside her isolated house in the ocean-front community of Eden Landing, California. By the wounds, it looks as if her Doberman, who is snarling as he hovers over her body, mauled her to death, specifically by going for her throat.This death is the biggest case for Eden Landing police chief, forty year old Abel Marsh (James Garner) upon his return from a week-long vacation in Los Angeles, where, rumor has it, he went "to get some" as the running gag is that there are no good looking available women in Eden Landing. Most of the time, Abel only has to worry about his department doing whatever little actual police work they have on no budget, which forces them all to use the two police cruisers on a rotating basis for their collective personal business. Meanwhile, their regional county sheriff, Captain Daniel Streeter (Harry Guardino), seemingly gets whatever he wants. Abel's first order of business on this case is to serve the notice to put down the Doberman, who is currently being housed at the professional compound of Abel's casual friend, veterinarian Dr. Warren G. Watkins (Hal Holbrook), this task which Abel is not looking forward to if only because he doesn't like dogs. At the vet's office, he meets Warren's beautiful new nurse, thirty year old Kate Bingham (Katharine Ross), from who he learns that the dog, named Murphy (Hans), is very well trained, but that there are documented cases of Dobermans killing their masters in such a manner. Warren further confirms that they can put Murphy down using a humane method of drugs, specifically sodium pentobarbital. The court order is rescinded and the case turns to a double murder investigation when Abel learns from the coroner's office that Jenny died from drowning, in fresh water made to resemble salt water, and that Jenny was three months pregnant when killed. Murphy's actions at the beach were his efforts to pull her out of the ocean and protect her body.During Abel's initial search through Jenny's home for clues, the house which looks as if there was just a party held in it, he seems most interested in the smell of the bathtub, and a bottle of Cromarty, a single malt scotch in the liquor cabinet, the bottle which he takes with him to consume himself at the diner owned by his friend Ernie (Arthur O'Connell) and which he later learns is not stocked at the local liquor store. He hears a noise sounding like someone else is in the house. He is only able to catch someone eventually running away from the scene.At a private club, Abel speaks to Jenny's ex-husband, wealthy non-local businessman Lee Campbell (Peter Lawford), who has an alibi for the time of the murder. Campbell tells Abel that Murphy was initially his, that the house belongs to him and that he was letting Jenny use it after their divorce which was the last time he saw her alive, and that he paid for but did not attend the funeral as the reason their divorce was because she left him for another woman. He notices that Campbell is drinking Cromarty. As such, he returns to Ernie's to retrieve the bottle he took from Jenny's house. Back at Jenny's house, he knows that beneath the mess, someone was careful to remove all incriminating evidence of the murder. But he does find something else that intrigues him: a photograph taken from the house toward the beach of a nude man and woman running toward the surf holding hands. He can't tell from the back the identity of either person. As she has a science background, Abel calls Kate to the house, she who is able to identify the smell in the bathtub as a disinfectant masked by deodorant, to hide the fact of where the drowning probably took place. He takes the opportunity to learn about Kate: that she is from New York where she was running away from a bad marriage. Unable to find a home for Murphy, Kate is able to convince Abel to take him. The two make plans for a date. After their dinner date at Abel's house, she spends the night. This date is the beginning of their relationship.Abel learns from Campbell that the woman in the photograph is not Jenny, that he does not know who either person is, and that Jenny liked to take photographs of her friends in compromising positions. Although the house used to be full of such photos, this one is the only one Abel found.Abel fills Streeter in on the case at Streeter's request, although Abel tells him they don't need the help of the sheriff's office. Streeter implies that it is his business as if things go sour on the investigation, he gets the blame.As Abel heads to Jenny's house late one evening, he sees a Chevy sedan speeding away in the opposite direction on the only road leading to and from the house. Arriving at the house, he sees that it is engulfed in flames. He notices Campbell's sports car on the scene. Fighting the flames, Abel enters the house to see Campbell fleeing, he who manages to escape in his car, while Abel's car is now disabled from a slashed tire and cut cord to the police radio. He is able to telephone the fire department from the house, the part of the house where the telephone is located not yet touched by the fire. While in the house, he sees an unconscious body inside. He is able to get the body out, that being Campbell himself, meaning that the persons fleeing, either in the Chevy or Campbell's sports car, were not Campbell. By the time the fire department, ambulance and police arrive, who were all delayed as the perpetrator was able to place up a roadblock, the house is totally destroyed and Campbell is dead.As Abel and Kate are in bed later that night, Murphy enters the bedroom snarling, as if he is ready to attack, which is the first time he's done such since either has known him. They are both scared, but Kate, using what she knows as his training, is eventually able to get Murphy back to a normal state. Although able to subdue him, she does not know what set him off. Because of Murphy's volatile behavior, Abel wants Kate to take Murphy back to Warren's office.Streeter and his men come storming into town, he telling Abel that he is taking over the investigation. A comment by Streeter before he leaves makes Abel wonder how Kate knew Murphy's name, as Warren's office had never treated him before. This question also makes Abel think that the woman in the photograph is Kate. Confronting Kate at her apartment, Abel manhandles her as her answers to his question about Murphy aren't being answered as he would like. Thinking about it, Kate remembers that Warren was the one who mentioned the dog's name to her, as he was the one who got the call to pick up the dog from the beach. Later, Abel heads to Warren's office, where he clandestinely watches Warren in the pen with Murphy, training him to attack. As Abel confronts Warren, Warren tries to dismiss what he was doing a friendly play with Murphy. Abel then arrests him for the murder of Jenny, her ex-husband, and his own unborn child. The one piece of the puzzle Abel has not yet figured out is the identity of the third party, the woman in the photograph who was the third in Warren and Jenny's ménage-a-trois. Just then, a patient (Norma Connolly) arrives with her dog. Warren asks if he can attend to this emergency, which was the reason he came to the office early. Abel allows him as much. Warren gets Abel to hold onto the dog, to who he will give an injection to reduce the swelling in the dog's prostate. Instead, Warren stabs Abel with the needle and runs off. A car chase ensues, with Abel able to radio in for help. The primary question is what was in the injection and if Abel will be either conscious or alive long enough from that injection to catch Warren. Abel does catch up to Warren but passes out before he can do anything. Warren drives off. One of Abel's officers, John (Christopher Connolly), arrives to take Abel to the hospital.When Abel awakens in the hospital, he learns from Streeter that he was injected with sodium pentobarbital, and that the dose would have killed a large dog. Based on information from John, Streeter also mentions that they have picked up Kate as the co-murderer, Abel responding that she is not the other person that they are looking for. Later that night, Abel, still in a groggy state, sneaks out of the hospital and heads to Kate's. Seeing him, Kate is concerned for him. He, in turn, is unable to say anything to her, and he walks off.Streeter and his men are unable to locate Warren, whose office is being packed up on the directive of an unknown woman. Warren's boat is also missing from the harbor. They assumed he has sailed away to parts unknown. But upon questioning Streeter, Abel and John realize that what Warren has done is hide out in his own house in town, his wife (June Allyson) who was able to provide Streeter with all the right answers.The moving company makes delivery of Warren's office items to his house. Across the street, Streeter, his team and Abel's team are on surveillance. In Warren's house, Abel appears from behind a door in the room where the delivery has just been made to confront Warren. Abel threatens to kill Warren, who states that he has killed no one. Abel is able to open the blinds to let the surveillance team see what is happening, before he takes Warren at gunpoint down into the kitchen, where Warren's wife is preparing lunch. As Abel and Warren are walking down the stairs, Abel is hit over the head from behind by an unknown assailant. Warren rushes out of the house, as the entire surveillance team pursues him. Streeter orders him to stop, which he doesn't. As Abel emerges onto the street, he orders Streeter not to shoot Warren, which Streeter does anyway. He shoots Warren dead. Abel then tells him that Warren killed no one. Mrs. Watkins then rushes out from the house to her dead husband. Abel confronts Mrs. Watkins as the murderer. Despite Abel's accusations of her and Jenny's affair, she calls Jenny a bitch, as a person whose love was not pure, in the sense that it was not solely in her direction as she wanted, but rather wanting to bring Warren in as the third, before a fourth and fifth in Jenny's pursuit of free love. The pregnancy was the last straw as a sign of how she was not truly a part of Jenny's life. She is handcuffed and taken away.As Abel is alone at the police station surveying the broken equipment received as part of the request from their latest budget, Kate arrives, announcing that she is leaving town since she is out of a job. Kate mentions that she never thought Warren a murderer, which he wasn't. He was just a man in love with his wife, he who cleaned up after her messes. Abel then confesses that it was him who thought, if only for a second, that it was Kate in the photograph. Kate leaves for good, Abel alone with Murphy. Abel looks out the window as Kate gets in a taxi, which drives away. Abel gets on the police radio to Streeter asking for a favor: to tell him where the taxi, which will be passing by his area, is going.

Tags: murder

Review:
Similarities abound (dead female washes ashore, sleepy town with ugly sexual underbelly, inept police force, quirky citizens, references to pie, to name a few....) Garner plays the police chief of a small coastal town called Eden Landing (mostly represented by the MGM backlot!) When a divorcée is found along the shore with her Doberman at attendance and bite marks all over her, it is presumed that the dog killed her.
Through his investigation, he interacts with quirky locals who are portrayed by a plethora of old time movie stars (some of whom hadn't worked on screen in years.) O'Brien looks really unhealthy and only worked another year or two after this.
That said, I decided to watch this film again...and you know what, it's a really good movie filled with veteran actors who know how to act.
Casting MGM veterans in small parts helped some but, this being a detective movie, Jim Garner has to carry it all the way.
It's a small-town murder mystery with a back story which might have come from a Playboy or Penthouse fiction piece; the type no major studio would have looked at just three years earlier (it was made in 1972), let alone in MGM's heyday.Faults aside, this movie has its interesting plot twists ratcheting up what little tension there is, so I was hooked until the end.
In other words, she's really there to become romantically involved with Garner's character (a cinematic must.) Harry Guardino's county sheriff brings in his boys when things get tricky but to no any real effect except the last scene.
Garner's character never feels the case slipping away from him or the noose tightening as with Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in 'The Maltese Falcon.'June Allyson has a cameo, bringing in yet another plot twist.
By the Sea...By the Sea..By the Beautiful Sea. I agree wholeheartedly that this film is a screen writing mess, a rest home for aging once-great or near-great stars, and some of the sleaziest plot twists ever to come out of a pre-1975 MGM movie.
James Garner plays a sheriff in a small town out to find out what happened to a woman's body washed up to shore that had seemingly been attacked by her Doberman.
the dog is assumed to be the culprit, but soon new evidence shows Garner that the woman led a secret life full of sex secrets with members of the town of both sexes.
Anyway, we get lesbian overtones, three some references, love triangles, and so much more than you might expect in a film that was the last to be shot in MGM's Lot #2 with old friends like Arthur O' Connell, Ann Rutherford, Edmond O'Brien, Peter Lawford, June Allyson, and Tom Ewell showing up either in featured roles of cameos.
The cops investigate but are hampered by bureaucratic infighting, complicated relationships, and a vicious Doberman Pincher.Looks to me like the script was on a hurry-up schedule.
Unfortunately, the whodunit part, which is supposed to be the core, is developed in pretty ragged fashion with a number of hanging threads (who is it in the nude photo; what role did the sheriff have, etc.).The movie's appeal really comes from its unsparing and often humorous look at small town life, particularly the semi-competent 3-man police force.
Plus, there are the town characters, generally cameos from movie vets getting a few minutes back in the spotlight.
The small seaside town at the heart of "They Only Kill Their Masters" keeps promising to become its own character within the film (or, at the very least, a red herring).
With it's ocean-front home belonging to a kinky divorcée (whose body washed up on the beach), its neighborhood restaurants and watering holes, its veterinary office with a waiting room full of barking dogs, and a half-empty police station where chief James Garner works, the movie has the look of an old-fashioned detective yarn: charmingly phony and contrived.
Garner shuffles about, occasionally breaking up a fight or cooking dinner for Katharine Ross, a pretty working girl who may be a suspect (her naked rear end could provide a clue!).
Not to be confused with the other James Garner movie called "Murphy's Romance"..
The film opens up with a view of the ocean and their is a woman floating in the water and a Doberman is biting her and trying to pull her on shore.
Abel Marsh, (James Garner) is the Chief of Police and at first accepts the fact that this dog did the killing, until the CSI staff determine she was drowned in a bathtub and then placed in the ocean because she had fresh water in her lungs.
There are cameo appearances by some veteran actors like: June Allyson, (Mrs. Watkins), Tom Ewell, (Cop), Peter Lawford, (Mr. Campbell).
and Edmond O'Brien, (Liquor Store Owner) Abel Marsh and Kate Bingham, (Katherine Ross) meet and they both burn up the screen with some torrid love making.
If you like James Garner, you will enjoy his great acting in this film.
This film does feature a striking opening: a Doberman struggling with a woman's body in the ocean water.
This presents a fairly interesting case for cranky small town police chief Abel Marsh (James Garner, solid as always), who reluctantly takes possession of the dog after the canine has been cleared.
He also falls in lust with the assistant (Katharine Ross, looking quite fetching) who works for the local veterinarian (Hal Holbrook).Set in a coastal California town called Eden Landing, but largely filmed on the MGM backlot, "They Only Kill Their Masters" is no great shakes when it comes to the murder-mystery genre, but it kills (pardon the expression) time adequately enough.
Lane Slate (also writer of "The Car") scripted, getting some mileage out of a small town setting where there's some seedy things going on behind the picture-perfect facade.
The main problem is that some people may find the whole thing simply too easy to predict.The film boasts an incredible cast, including some old-school veterans (June Allyson, Tom Ewell, Peter Lawford, Edmond O'Brien, Arthur O'Connell, Ann Rutherford), but some of them are sorely under-utilized.
Today it would probably be on either Court TV or the Lifetime Channel.James Garner is the chief of police at a small California coast town of Eden's Landing and a woman's body is found on the beach, all chewed up with her Doberman standing over it.
Luminaries of Hollywood and MGM's days gone by like Edmond O'Brien, Arthur O'Connell, June Allyson, Tom Ewell, Ann Rutherford, Peter Lawford are all here.
So are Hal Holbrook the town veterinarian and Katharine Ross his lovely assistant.
A Doberman is trying to drag the body of dead woman to shore on a beach overlooked by a vintage shore front house where a lot of the action will occur in this film with a classic performance by James Garner as a small town detective who investigates the case, saves the Doberman from euthanasia, and in the process gets involved with sexy veterinarian assistant Katharine Ross, who's left New York and a failed marriage, and her boss, town vet Hal Holbrooke, who's involved in a weird marriage with June Allyson.
Edmond O'Brien also gets some strange lines as the owner of the town liquor store who's made a few deliveries to the beach house.
If you are interested in animal training or dobermans, you'll like this movie..
Whodunit with a full roster of old MGM players in support of James Garner, who's a rather nasty police chief we're supposed to like because he's James Garner.
He does bring a lot of his personal charm to this murder mystery involving a small coastal California town, a possibly homicidal Doberman, and some twisted sex play.
Katherine Ross, as a veterinary technician who becomes Garner's love interest, is profoundly uninteresting, and among the supporting players I liked Ann Rutherford as a clueless but salty secretary and June Allyson (not playing a sweetie for once, and she's good) as a woman with secrets.
The small-town, everybody-knows- everybody atmosphere is nicely maintained, and Hal Holbrook, as always, brings major acting chops, in this case to an underwritten part.
But Garner's character, forever ramming his police car into something deliberately or threatening violence against his girlfriend or a local sheriff (Harry Guardino with an amusing '70s mustache), isn't that easy to root for.
Not perfect, but James Garner, small town kinky murder and some great character actors carry the day.
It's not long before the newspaper pronounces the woman dead by dog and Murphy is scheduled for euthanasia by Dr. Watkins (Hal Holbrook), the town vet.
Then Police Chief Abel Marsh (Garner) has a talk with the town coroner.
And he finds he likes the vet's new assistant (Katharine Ross) well enough to invite her over for a meatloaf supper.
Through it all Abel remains skeptical, likable, wry and smart...just like James Garner.
Some fine actors join Garner in this flawed but interesting murder mystery.
Tom Ewell is one of Abel's cops; June Allyson is the vet's wife; Edmund O'Brien is the liquor store owner; Arthur O'Connell owns the local diner and Ann Rutherford is Abel's police dispatcher.
This 1972 film is the first and probably the best of four, varied 1970s movies by the same writer about sensationalistic small-town murders solved by the local police chief against the backdrop of quirky town regulars and a casual romantic interest.
The others are: (1) Isn't It Shocking (Alan Alda, 1973); and (2) The Girl In The Empty Grave and (3) Deadly Game (both Andy Griffith, 1977).Here, Chief Abel Marsh (James Garner) returns from a Los Angeles vacation to read in the paper about a local woman's death while he was away.
Her ex-husband (Peter Lawford) tells Marsh that she ended the marriage because she was in love with a woman.
He also starts a romance with Katharine Ross, who plays the assistant to veterinarian Hal Holbrook, husband of June Allyson.Marsh arrives at the victim's house to meet Lawford.
His relationship, such as it is, with Ross, falls apart due to his work on the case, at least for now.Unlike Alda, Garner is credible as a police chief.
Garner's has pleasant music and some good use of locations.But problems spoil fuller enjoyment of the movie.
The director seems to go out of his way to present early scenes as unpleasant and loud (Marsh banging incessantly on the police car horn outside the station; a waiting room at the vet's with countless barking, jumping dogs; sickly lime green counter trim and wallpaper in the victim's house; Marsh clumsily knocking things on the floor there).Garner acts so sullen and cynical that he lacks his usual charm and energy.
Marsh is too rough with Ross and with Murphy.There is little depth to the characters or relationships.
Have you seen the women in this town?"; Ross remarks, "I guess dykes don't use the pill."; a deputy laughs hysterically when discussing with Marsh a young woman who had part of her anatomy bitten off by a guy with her in the back seat of a car that hit a bump in the road; Marsh mutters in response to Lawford's new teenage-looking floosie girlfriend's question about whether there are motels in town with vibrator beds "in the box," "In the box, neat....City folks."; and dirty old townsmen quiz Marsh about "Did he get much?" on his L.A. vacation..
Secondly, it reunited two of its top stars of the not-so-distant past, Peter Lawford and June Allyson, who starred in the memorable musical classic "Good News" filmed on that same lot 25 years earlier.
To add insult to injury--SPOILER ALERT--an unhealthy-looking Lawford played one of the murder victims, and guess who the killer is?
An all-around vile concoction that might have desecrated our memories of MGM for good, had not "That's Entertainment" (a compilation of MGM's greatest stars and musical numbers that became such an unexpected boxoffice hit that it spawned two sequels) come along 3 years later and put June Allyson and Peter Lawford together again exactly where they belonged--back on the (then-demolished) MGM backlot, singing and dancing up a storm to "The Varsity Drag" finale excerpted from.
Potential cult film has a pregnant lady found dead near her beachfront property in coastal Eden's Landing, a little California town, her body covered in dog bites perhaps associated with a pet Doberman.
A number of possible suspects include a visiting beauty (Katherine Ross), a veterinarian (Hal Holbrook), and a swinging aristocrat (Peter Lawford).
The police chief, Able Mars (James Garner, already rocking the effortlessly cool Rockford detective look) doesn't realize how complicated this case will become.
With a town of oddballs, some non-PC homophobic and sexist dialogue, a police force of two that Able has available to him, a casual, none-too-hurriedly pace to the ongoing investigation and apprehension of the soon-to-be-discovered suspect on the lam, and a California county police that love to stop by to flex their supposed muscle but are none too bright; this film caps it all off with a twist involving a ménage à trois that provided an incentive for the murder.Ross looks mighty foxy, Garner occupies the time on screen with a performance that is as laid back as the pace (he really doesn't even have to try because he's a natural actor allowing his character to function within the environment of his small town that rarely sees much excitement or intrigue besides the eccentrics that live there), and a cast of veterans filling out the characters of locals living in Eden's Landing (like Arthur O'Connell as the owner and cook of the only diner in town, Edmund O'Brien as a liquor store proprietor always poking Able for details in the investigation, June Allyson as the suspicious wife of Holbrook's veterinarian, Tom Ewell as the portly cop attending to the mundane activities and misdemeanors of the locals (like a man biting off a woman's nipple during a heated make out in the back seat of a car!!!) and Christopher Connelly as the inquisitive cop with suggestions that might be accurate about the case, Harry Guardini as an intrusive county law enforcer who thinks he knows better how to conduct the investigation than Able, and Ann Rutherford as Garner's secretary dealing with a station house containing equipment hand-me-downs "from the city").
Garner and Ross' romance gets some time on and off throughout the film, but when she becomes a possible member of the murder victim's social circle it throws a monkey wrench in their blossoming relationship.
Allyson is wasted in a rather small role while Holbrook does a great deal with a rather limited part that gives him few opportunities to leave a definite mark in the film, although his use of a drug on Garner, during one key sequence which could (or could not) reveal his guilt, taking advantage of the fallen, subdued police chief, after a car chase comes to its conclusion, is quite a memorable moment.
Garner's exhaustive tolerance of the locals in his town while investigating the murder case is part of the film's charm.
A specific sequence, besides Holbrook's "sticking Garner with the needle" in the vet's office and ensuing car chase, concerning the property of the crime, set afire by the killer (and his/her accomplice), with Garner interrupting (too late, unfortunate for Lawford) as they are about to (or already have) flee, is another memorable moment in the film, especially in why the Doberman didn't bark while in the chief's carGarner waiting and waiting on the beach, as a body is lying right next to him (retrieved from the burning house), the Doberman his only live company, as the police/fire dept seem predisposed, describes the plight of a small town with limited resources and manpower.
I suspect "They Only Kill Their Masters" owes something to the previous year's successful "Dirty Harry." Instead of, "Do you feel lucky, Punk?", we hear "Neat." And, towards the end, James Garner as the police chief of a small California town, dispenses with his regulation snub-nosed .38 and produces a .357 magnum.
First, this is obviously no small town on the California coast named Eden Landing.
It's most notable for being the final movie made on the MGM Backlot, which stands in for a fictional California coastal town called Eden Landing, so small that it's literally a "one-horse" (ie, one-cop-car) town.
The nice twist to this setting is that hometown boy Garner is thoroughly sick of the place and his underlings, and everyone is pretty much an underachiever, which probably would have made for a great TV show a la Northern Exposure, come to think of it.Garner is quite good playing an uncharacteristically dour role as the police chief (who, strangely, wears a suit and not a police uniform, which I never understood) - he rarely smiles, not even when in bed with the lovely 70s starlet-of-the-moment Katharine Ross.
It's one of the only films James Garner didn't feel like discussing in his autobiography, and although he gives a fine performance, the movie probably wasn't anyone's finest hour.
Eden Landing (James Garner) is the sheriff of a small California coast town.
It's first believed her Doberman killed her but Eden finds out she was murdered, was pregnant and also a lesbian!
It was the last film shot on the old lots of MGM before they were sold and torn down.
It looks--and feels--like a made for TV movie.
Garner and Halbrook are good and the supporting cast is full of old MGM stars who seem to be having the time of their lives.
Especially good were Peter Lawford and June Allyson.
James Garner investigates several killings in a small town.
Peter Lawford, Hal Holbrook, Katherine Ross and Tom Ewell are in it, but despite the quirky cast, the film, blandly directed by James Goldstone, remains inert.
The film does get props for the unexpected casting of June Allyson in a most unusual role.