MovieChat Forums > Black Widow (1987) Discussion > Reason behind 3rd husband's death not di...

Reason behind 3rd husband's death not discovered??!!??

posted 19 years ago by MacHeaths_Jackknife
15 replies | jump to latest

As much as I like this film, I have to wonder why the death of Catherine's 3rd husband, the museum curator, was not realized to be a murder. He was a multi-millionaire in his 50's -- right there, there would have been at least one opinion in regard to an autopsy, which under the circumstances would DEFINITELY have been performed. He would not knowingly have taken Penicillin, so someone else must have given it to him. The spouse would be an immediate suspect, and would have at least been arrested, if not charged and tried -- gimme a break!

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] sus_scrofa 19 years ago

They did a autotopsy on the third husband, only they didn't find anything. Winger's character asks if they checked for bee venom and the investigator says he overlooked the possibility and then that he doesn't want to dig up the body again on such a slight suspision.

[–] Zymm 18 years ago

An older, wealthy man who's never been married before dies and that nincompoop investigator didn't catch on?!? Such lunacy!

... I admire a person that's willing to do whatever is necessary.

[–] lproche 18 years ago

The fact that he was alergic to penicillin would have been prominent in his medical file, so this does appear to be a weak point in the plot. The fact that the investigator had successfully predicted this murder makes it ludicrous that a straightforward check of medical records was not made.

[–] neil_mc 18 years ago

Plus the simple fact of Catherine requesting penicillin from her doctor before the murder. Some fairly routine police investigation was all that was needed.

"Please don't eat me! I have a wife and kids. Eat them!"

[–] MaratSade 18 years ago

Any of the TV detectives of today would have solved this immediately, finding the doctor who gave her the penicillin, which would result in an indictment.
Oh, well. Soon it will be impossible to get away with murder at all, except perhaps random killings by someone not in the national database.

[–] bron-tay 17 years ago

All this is true, but I always say, Never underestimate human stupidity. I generally appreciate cops, but there's no reason why they can't be ravingly dumb (e.g. detectives were so COWED by the Skakels that that guy who killed Martha Moxley nearly got away with it -- and cops also botched the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder).

I once saw a true crime show about an idiot lawyer who gave the wrong statute of limitations to a rape victim, and when the victim filed a civil case against her rapist a few months late, the lawyer shrugged her shoulders and said "Well, I didn't check it beforehand because I was pretty sure it was what I said."

~~~~~~~
Have another bite of popcorn and forget about it.

[–] AliciaHuberman59 17 years ago

It is a weak spot in the plot, especially since he wore that Medic Alert tag. I'm sure foresnsic medicine, circa 1987, could have detected penicillin.

[–] kohntarkosz 17 years ago

You also have to consider that not only are cops stupid, but they only also tend to not like anyone knowing they made mistakes. It would have looked really bad if it had come out in the press that someone died because the cops didn't follow up on a lead that had been dropped in their laps.

This is true even in real life. I watched a program about a teenage girl who got murdered, and the police initially believed it was her brother who committed the murder (and coerced a confession out of him). Later evidence came to light that exonerated the brother, and it was believed that a drifter might have killed the girl, but the police didn't want to look into the possiblity of the drifter being the murderer because they didn't want to admit they screwed up the initial investigation. Fortunately, the drifter was already in prison for killing someone else, so it was more or less a moot point anyway.

[–] queen_naandi 13 years ago

Yes...Theresa Russell's character used penicillin, BUT if you look closely at the bottle, it lists one of her many aliases and NOT that of Margaret--the name she used to marry the curator.

<<Death is whimsical today.>>

[–] jakob3 13 years ago

Penicillin doesn't remain in the body.
That's why a series of large doses is required
--even though that risks the selection of resistant bacteria.
Early in WW2 soldiers died because meager supplies of penicillin ran out
& the patient relapsed.

[–] Noir-It-All 12 years ago

One of the themes of this film was male/female roles. The paper pusher and the men watching the film in the main room of the Seattle office were more comfortable with a male-oriented workplace.

"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne

[–] Tazwoman 10 years ago

I never noticed the different name before on the bottle. Nice catch!

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] rdoyle29 8 years ago

Death by anaphylaxis is easily mistaken for a heart attack ... AS IS PRETTY CLEARLY STATED IN THE MOVIE. Why would anybody think a 50 year old dying of a heart attack is suspicious?