Classy Lady

By T.E. Kalem

A TALENT FOR MURDER

By Jerome Chodorov and

Norman Panama

Whodunit? The coauthors. The murder weapon: sheer lassitude. What lies on the stage of Broadway's Biltmore Theater is the cadaver of a comic suspense thriller, and not even a warm one.

The evening's only resuscitative presence is Claudette Colbert. At 78, she seems to have discovered the elixir of agelessness. Her looks are unflawed and her low come-hither voice purrs with enchantment. The precision of Colbert's timing would make a watch blush. Her role is that of a hugely successful writer of mystery thrillers and the owner of $15 million worth of paintings. In one wall is a camouflaged walk-in vault that can snap to and be drained of oxygen in 17 seconds. Don't bet that it won't be used.

Owing to a variety of ailments, the Colbert character zips about the place in a motorized wheelchair. She also slogs down brandy, smokes cigars, plants electronic bugs and starts wastebasket fires in absent-minded moments.

Her entourage consists of human termites, mostly relatives, some of whom would like to strip the old lady of her fortune or her life. The most personable among them is that aging Continental charmer Jean-Pierre Aumont as a live-in physician and former lover.

Apart from the vault, the plot machinations include blunt instruments, arson and grotesque fright masks, but none of these prove either droll or scarifying. In the end, the old lady still rules her roost, but Claudette Colbert, alas, falls victim to the play. --By T.E. Kalem

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