I caught Meet Nero Wolfe on a double bill with a Margaret Rutherford Agatha Christie movie back in the 1980s. I forget exactly where in New York City the event took place, but I recall the cramped theater was rather hot after a while and also that both movies were a far cry from the novels they purportedly were scripted from. I can definitely say the Nero Wolfe movie was awfully cast and added cheap humor instead of notable characterization. Even though I was in my teens at the time, I had read most of the Wolfe novels as well as Christie’s and really felt let down by the onscreen shambles. On television, Rex Stout’s creation has faired a little better. Timothy Hutton was quite presentable as Archie Goodwin and even William Shatner, who played Archie in a Nero Wolfe unsold pilot in 1959, was not shabby at all. The Wolfe role has been a challenge taken on by others including Joseph Conrad, Thayer David, Maury Chaykin, Walter Connolly, and Kurt Kasznar. I have a fondness for Thayer David’s take, but I’m biased because I’m a Dark Shadows fan (he played Ben Stokes).
The pressbook is as large as Nero Wolfe, coming in at 17.5 x 12 inches and 16 pages. On the exploitation page it mentions a tie-up with selling Monopoly. “Monopoly, the parlor-game that has swept the country in sensational fashion, to seriously threaten the status of bridge as an evening pastime, is shown on the screen for the first time…” Wow. We can thank Monopoly for saving us all from playing Bridge. Who knew?
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