JEFFREY COHEN: Double Feature Mysteries

Elliot Freed's Movie of the Week:

Victor/Victoria (1982)

Elliot Says: "Wait--a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman? So crazy, it just might work! This dizzy exploration of gender roles and romance had to be the work of Blake Edwards, starring his wife (Julie Andrews) as a woman in 1930's Paris, unable to find work as a singer until she becomes a female impersonator. Yeah, you read that right. Although the investigator who appears late in the film is there just to remind us that Edwards was the guiding force behind Inspector Clouseau, the comic tone is usually pitch-perfect, and the supporting cast--James Garner, Alex Karras, Lesley-Anne Warren and John Rhys-Davies among them--could not be improved. But it's Robert Preston as Victoria's gay mentor who steals the show. Does she look even remotely like a man? Of course not. Does it matter? See previous answer."

	A Night at the Operation: A Double Feature Mystery Most men wouldn't be terribly upset if their ex-wives suddenly vanished. But most men aren't Elliot Freed. So when Sharon disappears, Elliot finds it impossible to focus on running Comedy Tonight. And when it's rumored that Sharon might be somehow connected to a patient's death—which looks like murder—Elliot embarks on a frantic search for his ex with help from her soon-to-be-second-ex-husband, Elliot's passive-aggressive mother and desperate-to-please father, and his good friend Detective Meg Vidal. And the longer Sharon is gone, the less stable Elliot becomes... Read the first chapter of A Night at the Operation

	*It Happened One Knife: A Double Feature Mystery* Elliot Freed couldn't be happier: His all-comedy movie theatre, Comedy Tonight, is newly refurbished; things with his ex-wife are looking up; he's even willing to screen his projectionist's film debut. But what really has Elliot walking on air is hosting the legendary duo, Lillis & Townes, at a special showing of their classic comedy Cracked Ice. Nothing can bring Elliot down—not a missing film, a bomb scare, or even a surly teenage girl. But when insinuations arise that one of his boyhood heroes may have been involved in a Hollywood murder decades earlier, Elliot crashes to earth. He sets out to discover the truth—but finds that he may be on the killer's hit list... Read the first chapter of *It Happened One Knife*

	Some Like It Hot-Buttered: A Double Feature Mystery All Elliot Freed wanted to do was to make people die laughing. But he didn't mean it literally. The dead guy in Row S, Seat 18, is no joke. Elliot Freed, recovering writer, socked all his savings-and the alimony from his ex-wife-into the Comedy Tonight movie theater, never suspecting it would become a murder scene. And murder can't be good for ticket sales... Death by popcorn was the cause. Poisoned popcorn. To the chagrin of the police, Elliot takes to his bike to start his own investigation. A growing attraction to a beautiful detective, the discovery of a DVD pirating operation, and one missing employee later, Elliot's still waiting for the punch line. But this one might knock his theater—and Elliot—out for good... Read the first chapter of Some Like It Hot-Buttered Read reviews of Some Like It Hot-Buttered