Murder in Space

Murder in Space is also the title of a 1955 science fiction novel by David V. Reed.

Murder in Space
Genre	Science fiction
Directed by	Steven Hilliard Stern
Produced by	Robert Cooper
Written by	Wesley Ferguson
Starring	Michael Ironside Wilford Brimley Martin Balsam Damir Andrei Tom Butler Wendy Crewson Scot Denton Peter Dvorsky Leo Ilial Alan Jordan Jan Rubes Cathie Shirriff Kate Trotter Nerene Virgin Alberta Watson Arthur Hill
Music by	Arthur R. Rubinstein
Country	United States
Original airing	July 28, 1985
Running time	95 Minutes

Murder in Space is a science fiction murder mystery movie set in the near future. The crew of an international space mission are on the return leg from Mars to Earth when an explosion occurs on the craft Conestoga, shortly after the murders start. The crew of the returning craft are forbidden to return until the murderer is caught.

On its initial premier, the film was shown without the ending and a competition was set for the viewers to solve the mystery of who the murderer was... or murderers were. The conclusion of the film was shown several days later, with the contestants eliminated one by one until the winner correctly identified the killer or killers. The final 30 minutes of the film was shown at a later date when the mystery was solved.

Conestoga crew

Actor	Character	Rank	Country	Murdered	How	Possible motive
Michael Ironside	Neil Braddock	Captain	U.S.A.	No
Cathie Shirriff	Olga Denarenko		U.S.S.R.	Yes	Strangled	Pregnant with other crew member's child.
Damir Andrei	Andrei Kalsinov	Colonel	U.S.S.R.	Yes	Blown up
Timothy Webber	Guy Sterling		Canada	Yes	Cyanide poisoning
Tom Butler	Kurt Steiner	Major	East Germany	Yes	Strangled
Leo Ilial	Phillipe Berdoux	Doctor	France	No
Scot Denton	David Tremayne	Navigator	U.S.A.	No
Kate Trotter	Pamela Cooper		England	No
Alberta Watson	Dominica Mastrelli		Italy	No

---

Other cast members

Other cast members were reporters, wives and husbands, mission control staff and additional Russian characters.

Name	Rank or part	Played by
	Vice President	Arthur Hill
Dr. Andrew McCallister	Space program director	Wilford Brimley
Dinah Greenberg	Secretary to McCallister	Gloria Carlin
Jeffrey Kilbride	Reporter	Alan Jordan
Mitch Carlino		Peter Dvorsky
Alexander Rostov	Russian Politician	Martin Balsam
Dr. Margaret Leigh	Doctor	Nerene Virgin
Giorgi Denarenko	husband of cosmonaut Olga Denarenko	Jan Rubes
Irene Tremayne	Wife of astronaut David Tremayne	Wendy Crewson

Prize money

• USA - $60,000
• UK - £10,000

Accompanying book

A novel also called "Murder In Space", published by Penguin, was produced around the same time; the last page of the book was an entry form for the competition to solve the mystery. It was written by "FX Woolf", a pen-name for Howard Engels and Janet Hamilton.^[1]

External links

• Murder in Space at the Internet Movie Database

References

1. ^ [1] The UK Sci-Fi TV Book Guide