A neighbour dies, and a marriage gets a mystery
Manhattan Murder Mystery, released in 1993 and directed by Woody Allen, is a light, witty comedy about a married couple who suspect their neighbour of murder, and about what that suspicion does to their own marriage. Larry Lipton, played by Allen, is a book editor. Carol Lipton, played by Diane Keaton, is his wife, a woman with energy to spare and a growing sense that her life has become too routine. One evening they meet their elderly neighbours, Paul and Lillian House, in the lift of their apartment building. They are a pleasant, ordinary couple. The next morning, Lillian is dead, apparently of a heart attack. Paul does not seem particularly grief-stricken. Carol, who has an imagination that runs ahead of the facts, begins to suspect that Paul murdered his wife. Larry thinks she is being ridiculous. He is, of course, wrong, and right, and wrong again, in the way that only a Woody Allen comedy can arrange.
Into this marital debate steps Ted, played by Alan Alda. Ted is a close friend of Larry and Carol’s, a playwright who has recently been divorced and who has, for years, quietly been in love with Carol. When Carol calls him to share her suspicions, Ted does not dismiss her. He encourages her. He helps her follow Paul, he helps her investigate, and he enjoys, perhaps a little too much, being the man who takes Carol’s theories seriously when her husband will not. Alda plays Ted with a charm that is the opposite of his Lester in Crimes and Misdemeanors. Lester was a blowhard who assumed everyone admired him. Ted is a genuinely likeable man, witty and attentive, who happens to want something he should not want: his best friend’s wife.
The film’s genius is that the murder mystery and the marriage story are the same story. Carol is not really investigating Paul House because she cares about forensic evidence. She is investigating because she is bored, because she misses excitement, and because she wants to feel alive again. Larry is not really dismissing the mystery because he is rational. He is dismissing it because he is comfortable, because he likes his routine, and because he does not want to admit that his wife is unhappy. Ted, meanwhile, is not really helping Carol because he cares about justice. He is helping her because it gives him time with her, and because every hour they spend sleuthing together is an hour in which he can imagine a different life. Allen, who co-wrote the screenplay with Marshall Brickman, understands all of this, and he lets the comedy grow out of it without ever turning the characters into villains.
The friend who listens too well
Alda’s scenes with Keaton are the warmest in the film. Keaton’s Carol is a whirlwind, full of theories, disguises, and sudden inspirations, and Alda’s Ted matches her energy without trying to steal the scene. He listens, he laughs, he adds a sensible suggestion to her wildest idea, and he looks at her with an affection that is obvious to everyone except, for a long time, Carol herself. There is a lovely scene at a wine tasting in which Ted finally confesses his feelings, not in a grand speech, but in a quiet, slightly embarrassed admission that feels real. Carol is touched, and confused, and then, in a perfect comic beat, she spots a woman she believes to be the supposedly dead Lillian boarding a bus across the street. The mystery interrupts the romance, as mysteries in this film always do, and the story rushes on.
The investigation itself is pure pleasure. Carol and Ted follow Paul, they break into his apartment, they discover a mysterious younger woman, and they become convinced that Paul has faked his wife’s death as part of a larger scheme. Larry, reluctantly drawn in, provides the sceptical counterpoint, and Anjelica Huston, as Marcia Fox, a glamorous novelist who flirts with Larry, provides a mirror image of Ted: a tempting outsider who offers Larry the same kind of excitement Ted offers Carol. The film never becomes a grim thriller. It remains a comedy, with chases, disguises, and a climax in a theatre that is both suspenseful and funny, but it is a comedy with a serious point. Marriages, Allen suggests, need a little mystery, a little shared adventure, to stay alive, and the Liptons find theirs, almost by accident, in a murder that may or may not have happened.
Alda is perfect casting for Ted because he brings his own history with Keaton and Allen to the role. Audiences knew him as a decent, funny, thoughtful man, and Ted needs that decency to work. If Ted were a villain, Carol’s attraction to him would be a betrayal. Because Ted is played by Alda, with warmth and humour, Carol’s attraction feels understandable, even sympathetic. Ted is not trying to break up a marriage. He is a lonely man who has loved a friend for years and who, for a few weeks, gets to be her partner in an adventure. That does not make his behaviour innocent, but it makes it human, and Alda never lets the audience forget the loneliness underneath the charm.
A lighter Woody Allen, and a perfect Alda role
Manhattan Murder Mystery began life as an early draft of Annie Hall, and Allen originally intended it for Mia Farrow. When that casting changed, Keaton stepped in, reuniting with Allen on screen for the first time in years, and the film became a kind of affectionate reunion. It was released to positive reviews, and Keaton was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. It is not Allen’s deepest film, but it is one of his most enjoyable, a trifle in the best sense: light, nimble, funny, and surprisingly wise about marriage.
For Alda, Ted was a return to the kind of role he played best in the 1990s: the charming friend, the man who is almost the hero of his own story but who accepts, with grace, that he is a supporting player in someone else’s. After the darkness of Lester, Ted showed that Alda could play warmth without sentimentality, and desire without creepiness. His Ted is a man who knows he is unlikely to win Carol, and who helps her anyway, because helping her is a way of loving her. That generosity is the essence of Alda’s screen persona, and it is why Ted remains one of his most fondly remembered performances.
Watch Manhattan Murder Mystery for the pleasure of Keaton and Allen bickering, and then watch it again for Alda. Notice how he listens to Carol, how he makes her laugh without competing with her, and how his face, in the wine-tasting scene, shows a man who has finally said the thing he has wanted to say for years, and who is brave enough to accept whatever answer he gets. It is a small performance in a light film, and it is exactly right.