How to Murder a Millionaire (1990) Online

It's a shame this was just a throw-away piece of fluff movie of the week, and won't likely be aired again, as it's really cute. We happened to tape it at the time and have watched it every once in a while over the years.

Based on the same premise as the first episode of I Love Lucy, Beverly Hills housewife Irma Summers (Joan Rivers) mistakenly believes her husband is trying to murder her. The mounting evidence eventually causes Irma to flee her home, and on the streets she hooks up with the maid of her best friend, Teresa, played by Thelma Hopkins (already a veteran TV actress at this point in her career, following Amen, Gimme A Break, Busom Buddies, and The Tony Orlando and Dawn Show).

The characters are very one dimensional (particularly Morgan Fairchild as Irma's friend) and the plot only grazes such weighty topics as the have's and have-not's in our society without ever managing to get too serious. It plays like a special hour-long episode of a sitcom, but with the talents of Hopkins and Rivers, it's a cute movie and fun to watch.

And she does an excellent job.The one liners coming from Rivers are something that seem familiar, yet are consistently funny. Alex Rocco is always good, whether it be in a gem like "Fire Sale", or here where he is the innocent husband accused of trying to kill Joan. Watching Joan shimmy out a second floor bedroom window in her Chinchilla coat is a must see. "How To Murder A Millionaire" is good clean fun, with no sex, nudity, or cursing. It just goes to show what talent can accomplish, without having to step down a notch. Joan Rivers was 57 years old when this TV movie was made, and she looks terrific with at least a bunch of cosmetic work already done. The comedy is necessarily "dark", and the story rather simple, yet Joan carries the film into above average territory with her familiar, yet entertaining rendition of a "snob out of water". - MERK

Joan Rivers stars in "How to Murder a Millionaire," a 1990 TV movie also with Telma Hopkins, Meschach Taylor, Alex Rocco, Morgan Fairchild, and David Ogden Stiers.

There was once the occasional comedy TV movie -- Lifetime had a couple, and so did USA Network. Now networks really don't do TV movies, and past a certain point, when they did, they were all crime dramas.

Joan Rivers plays the wife of a filthy rich retiree (Rocco) and she spends all of her time shopping, lunching, going to parties, being pampered, often with her best friend (Fairchild).

After a series of unfortunate mishaps, she becomes convinced that her husband is trying to kill her and sneaks out via a window. The packing scene is great, as she takes an entire shoe tree out of her closet and places it in her suitcase.

She is befriended by a woman (Hopkins) whose boyfriend (Taylor) is a thief and worse.

There's nothing deep here, just Rivers as a shallow woman who finds friendship where she least expected it. She is very funny and it's sad to think she's gone now. She also looks great in this film - I wish she had stopped her self-improvement there. Hopkins and Taylor are very good. Morgan Fairchild doesn't have much to do except look glamorous.

Entertaining, and by TV standards, old-fashioned entertainment at that.

Irma (Joan Rivers) thinks her husband is trying to kill her. The cut brakes on her car, the deadly-wired bath massager, being locked in the garage with a running car are all enough to give her that idea. Having a hired killer, (Meshach Taylor) tell her that her husband hired him takes this fear to a new level. Sounds like the makings for a good suspense story... but instead what we have is a comedy with only a few laughs. Thelma Hopkins, of "Tony Orlando and Dawn" fame, is entertaining but David Ogden Stiers falls flat on his face with a performance that is of high school stage play level.

Joan Rivers can be a very good actress and a few times during this movie we see that talent, although most of the time we have to listen to her yelps and yips as she stumbles though her part.

Not a bad movie, but certainly not anything but a time filler.