Manhattan Murder Mystery - Plot

Plot

Larry Lipton (Woody Allen) and his wife Carol (Diane Keaton) meet their next-door neighbors Paul House (Jerry Adler) and his wife Lilian (Lynn Cohen), who invite them over for coffee. Lilian discusses her various exercises with Carol, while Paul shows Larry his stamp collections. The couple seems very healthy considering their ages.

The next night, Larry and Carol come off the elevator to find the Houses' door open, and a crowd forming in the doorway. They learn that Lilian has died of a heart attack suddenly. Her body is covered by a sheet on a stretcher. Larry and Carol both think that her death is a surprise, because she was so healthy, and did not mention any heart conditions when with Carol.

A couple of days after her death, the Liptons meet Paul on the street. Carol notes his cheerfulness and thinks his behavior is suspicious. Intent on visiting Paul again, Carol bakes him a dessert, and she and Larry go over to his apartment. While searching for coffee beans in the kitchen, she finds an urn with ashes hidden in a cupboard, despite the fact that Paul said that Lilian was buried. Carol becomes more suspicious, especially after hearing him leave his apartment at one in the morning. She thinks that he took his car out to dispose of the urn, but Larry believes that Carol is overreacting.

Carol sees Paul leaving the building the next morning, so she steals a spare key from the office, and sneaks into his apartment. The urn is missing, and she sees two tickets to Paris and a reservation for a Paris hotel, along with the name Helen Moss. While she is still in Paul's home she calls Ted (Alan Alda), a family friend who is equally interested in the mystery. Paul walks in, and Carol hides under the bed. She overhears a conversation between Paul and a person whom she supposes is Helen Moss. She escapes, only to realize later that she left her glasses in the apartment.

She tells Larry about this, and he is angry with her for acting so foolishly. She makes another dessert to bring to Paul, and she and Larry visit him again to find her glasses. After a quick search Paul produces them and says that he found them under the bed. Meanwhile, Ted looked up Helen Moss and found out where she lives. He and Carol scout out the apartment and find that Helen Moss (Melanie Norris) is a young, beautiful actress. They follow her to the theater Paul owns. An elderly woman named Mrs. Dalton (Marge Redmond) is also there and is friends with Paul.

Later, Carol and Ted are together for a wine tasting. Ted leaves, and Carol sees Lilian House riding the bus. She tells Larry, who does not believe her, and suggests that Lilian has a twin. Ted however, does believe her and looks up Lillian House to learn that she had a sister and a late brother, but no twin. Larry becomes jealous of their relationship, so he decides to scout out the street Carol saw Lilian on with his wife. Larry tries to remain enthusiastic, like Ted, and eventually believes Carol when he sees Lilian enter a hotel. Carol decides to buy a fake gift for Lilian, so they can sneak into the hotel and talk to her.

They are allowed in, though Lilian is under a fake name. They enter her room with the fake gift, only to find her dead on the bedroom floor. They hurry out of the room and call the police, but once they arrive, the body is gone. Carol does not accept this, so she goes back later with Larry to search the room for any clues and find Lilian's wedding ring. They leave and go on the elevator, but it suddenly stops. Larry suffers from severe claustrophobia and starts freaking out. Carol tries escaping to through the roof, only to find Lilian's dead body. The lights go out, and the elevator goes down to the basement. Larry and Carol leave through the back door. Larry is frightened, and Carol is thrilled. They get to the street and see a man put a body in his trunk.

The couple follow him out of the city to a junk yard that is melting scrap metal. The man dumps her body in a pile, and the body is burned in front of Carol and Larry. They follow the man to his car to learn that it is Paul, who noticed the couple following him before. Larry and Carol know that there is nothing they can do, as all evidence is gone, and Mrs. Dalton can provide Paul with an alibi for when the deaths took place.

They later get together with Ted and Marcia Fox (Angelica Huston), an author who is a friend of Larry's. Marcia says that Paul has committed the perfect murder and tells Carol and Larry how to catch him. They plan to create a fake audition and get Helen to attend and get her to recite some lines, which they will take and create several tapes to feign a phone call between her and Paul, stating that Carol and Larry saved Lilian's body and want $200,000 or they will call the police. The tapes of Helen state that he can either give them the money or kill them. Marcia knows that Paul will undoubtedly try killing them, which is when they contact the police.

The plan goes relatively well until after the phone call. Carol accuses Larry of being attracted to Marcia, as he suggested a book to her and has been taking late night poker lessons from her. Larry expresses his same concerns with Ted. Carol asks him for some time alone and goes back to the apartment. Paul kidnaps her and brings her to his theater. He calls Larry and threatens to kill Carol, unless Larry brings Lilian's body. Though they are bluffing, Larry goes anyway to save his wife.

Paul sees that Larry has no body, and they briefly fight. Larry runs off to find Carol but is disoriented when he enters the room behind the theater's screen. There are renovations being done, and there are several mirrors and windows reflecting the movie being played. Paul stalks him down with a gun but Mrs. Dalton shoots him. It is evident that they were having an affair, and she does not want him to run away with Helen. Larry finds Carol tied up and saves her, and they both call the police, with the thrill of the whole ordeal having brought them closer together.

In an ending scene, Marcia explains to Ted what exactly took place (which is almost exactly what she supposed) - the dead body in the apartment was Lilian's rich sister. The sister had a heart attack while visiting them, so the couple took advantage of the situation. Lilian hid as her husband called the police and claimed his wife died. They looked so similar no one noticed. Lilian left the apartment early in the morning and checked into a hotel. She was to pretend to be her sister, changing her will so she and her husband received all her money. After this was done, Paul double-crossed and killed her, so he could run off with Helen. The plan went perfectly until Carol and Larry interfered.