In celebration of ‘Only Murders in the Building’: Revisiting Broadway’s best musical mysteries

Hulu’s acclaimed “Only Murders in the Building,” currently vying for 11 Emmys, has gone all razzle dazzle in its third season. Make that rattle dazzle! Beleaguered Broadway director Oliver (Martin Short) was hoping for a comeback on the Great White Way with the mystery thriller “Death Rattle.” But when his leading man (Paul Rudd) is murdered, he decides to turn the straight play into a musical, “Death Rattle Dazzle!” And in the third episode, Meryl Streep’s nervous journeyman actress and Ashley Park’s leading lady performed the show-stopping ballad “Look for the Light” co-written by Sara Bareilles. One almost forgot the prime suspects in “Death Rattle Dazzle!” are the infant Pickwick triplets.

The 1959 multiple Tony winner “Redhead” also has a rather strange plot for a musical: a serial killer is stalking women in London in the 1880s during the time Jack the Ripper was terrorizing the city. Sounds like a real toe-tapper. But the show ran for 452 performances and earned six Tonys including best musical, actress, actor and choreographer. Perhaps the reason it was a hit 64 years ago was because of its razzle dazzling star Gwen Verdon, leading man Richard Kiley and director/choreographer Bob Fosse, Verdon’s husband. “Redhead” marked the fourth Tony Award for Verdon who plays a plain Jane working with her two aunts at their wax museum that currently features an exhibit of a recently murdered actress. It’s love at first sight for her when the actress’ partner, a handsome strongman (Kiley), comes to the museum to have the exhibit removed. Albert Hague penned the music, while Dorothy Fields wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the book with her brother Herbert, Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw. “Redhead” also marked Fosse’s directorial debut.

Who’s the world’s greatest fictional detective? Of course, it’s Sherlock Holmes. And the game was afoot on Broadway in 1965 with the musical “Baker Street,” directed by Harold Prince, penned by Jerome Coopersmith with music and lyrics by Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel. The show had problems during the out-of-town tryouts so the Tony Award-winning team of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (“Fiddler on the Roof”) were brought in to write some new songs for the show.  The musical was based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories including “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Fritz Weaver starred as Holmes, with Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace in the “Wallace and Gromit” animated films, as Watson, Inga Swenson as Irene Adler and Martin Gabel as Moriarty.  Tommy Tune made his Broadway debut as “one of the killers” and a young Christopher Walken also appeared as a killer. Beset with mixed reviews, “Baker Street” ran a disappointing 311 performances and was nominated for four Tonys, winning for Oliver Smith for best scene design.

Composer/singer Rupert Holmes scored a huge hit with his 1979 tune “Escape (The Pina Colada Song” ). Holmes not only loved the delicious drink, he also loved a good mystery. And he was responsible for two murderous musicals “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” and “Curtains.”

Holmes wrote the book and the music and lyrics of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” which opened on Broadway on Dec. 2, 1985 where it ran for 608 performances. Betty Buckley, George Rose and Cleo Laine were among the stars of the mystery based on Charles Dickens’ unfinished 1870 novel as well as the venerable British pantomimes. Holmes cleverly offered audiences-with a show of hands -the chance to vote on the ending of the show. Noted Holmes: “This is not ‘Nicholas Nickleby set to music-it’s not a Dickensian work. It’s light and fun and entertaining. But I hope, I think, that Dickens would have enjoyed it.” Though the New York Times’ Frank Rich gave it a mixed review he did admit: “No one after all, really cares who killed Edwin Drood. In a Broadway dominated by technologically oppressive spectacles, it is the display of human hands that lifts this musical to so uncommonly happy an end.” Holmes won Tonys for his book and original score.  The show also earned Broadway’s top prize for best musical, actor for George Rose, director for Wilford Leach.

Holmes was back on Broadway in 2007 with the mystery comedy musical “Curtains.” Peter Stone (“1776”) had begun the book to the show but wasn’t able to complete it before his death in 2003. So, Holmes was hired to rewrite the book. The musical and lyrics were by the great John Kander and Fred Ebb (“Cabaret,” “Chicago”). However, Ebb died in 2004 before the original score was completed, so Holmes stepped in with additional lyrics. Set in Boston in 1959, the musical revolves around the curtain call death of the inept leading lady of a new Broadway bound musical. The detective assigned to solve the case and save the show is Lt. Frank Cioffi (David Hyde Pierce) who also happens to love musical theater. Directed by Scott Ellis, “Curtains” also starred Debra Monk, Karen Ziemba and Ernie Sabella. Reviews were mixed but Pierce charmed the critics and audiences with the New York Times proclaiming that Cioffi was the “best dammed musical theater character since Mama Rose in ‘Gypsy’ and the best role of Pierce’s career.” The show, which ran  511 performances, was nominated for eight Tonys including best musical and director with Pierce winning for best actor.

“City of Angels,” which opened Dec. 11, 1989 and ran for 879 performances, was clever, sophisticated and fun thanks to Larry Gelbart’s fabulous book. Cy Coleman and David Zippel’s hummable original score and Michael Blakemore’s inspired direction. “City of Angels” is a sendup of contemporary Hollywood as well as 1940s film noir flicks; Stine (Gregg Edelman), writer of the popular detective novel called-you guessed it-“City of Angels,”: is having problems writing a screenplay adaptation of the book. And speaking of problems, his creation , a hardboiled 1940s Los Angeles detective named Stone (James Naughton), is having an even worse time dealing with the scum of the City of Angels and femme fatales while getting beaten up and even shot. The New York Times wrote: “There is no end to the cleverness with which the creators of ‘City of Angels carry out their stunt of double vision, with a twin cast list (a Hollywood cast and a movie cast) in the Playbill. Robin Wagner’s extraordinarily imaginative set design-maybe the most eloquent argument yet against colorizing  old movies-uses the lush black-and-white of a pristine Warner Brothers print for the Stone sequences and candied Technicolor for Stine’s off-camera adventures.” Wagner won the Tony for scenic design and “City of Angels’ received five other awards for best musical, book, score, Naughton for best actor and Randy Graff for featured actress.

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