J.J. Murphy (1) (1969–)

It’s New Year’s Eve and a big party is planned in one of the penthouse suites by Douglas Fairbank and Mary Pickford. Dorothy Parker and Alexander Wollcott and Robert Benchley, two of Dorothy’s friends from the Algonquin Table group, are planning to attend.

Shortly before the party is to begin, a guest and his family is diagnosed with smallpox and the hotel is put on lockdown – Quarantine. No one in or out! But just before the doors are locked, the young Broadway star, Bibi Bibelot, makers her “grand entrance.” Needless to say, she steals the lime light.

Being that no one can leave, Fairbanks invites any and all to come up and enjoy the party. The penthouse is really jumping, and among the guests are Harpo Marx and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

To add to the celebration, Woolcott proposes a friendly game of Murder. A game where all players draw strips of paper and the one with the strip marked Murderer pretends to kill one of the other players. The victim has to stay where the murder happens while all the others figure out who-dunnit. What a surprise when one of the guests is found dead in a bathtub full of champagne! Looks like the game became real!

Parker, Benchley and Doyle wind up tracing down leads and find there is more than murder going on; theft, deception, nuns who are aren’t who they act they are, jealousy and more. It’s the Roaring 20s and this New Year’s is roaring!… (meer)