''Murder Between Friends'' is an American murder mystery

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie, telefilm, telemovie or TV film/movie, is a film with a running time similar to a feature film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a Terrestr ...

of 1994, directed by

Waris Hussein Waris Hussein (''né'' Habibullah; born 9 December 1938) is a British-Indian television and film director. At the beginning of his career he was employed by the BBC as its youngest drama director. He directed early episodes of ''Doctor Who'', inc ...

. It is based on the true story of the murder of Janet Myers, a

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

woman killed in 1984 by her husband, or his best friend, or both of them.

Outline

Close friends Kerry Myers (

Stephen Lang Stephen Lang (born July 11, 1952) is an American stage and screen actor. He gained fame for his role as main antagonist Miles Quaritch, Colonel Miles Quaritch in James Cameron's ''Avatar (2009 film), Avatar'' (2009), for which he won the Saturn ...

) and Bill Fontanille (

Martin Kemp Martin John Kemp (born 10 October 1961) is an English musician and actor, best known as the bassist in the new wave band Spandau Ballet and for his role as Steve Owen in ''EastEnders''. He is the younger brother of Gary Kemp, who is also a ...

) have a huge fist and knife fight at the Myers house in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. After it, Janet Myers (

Lisa Blount Lisa Suzanne Blount (July 1, 1957 – October 25, 2010) was an American actress and film producer. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year for her performance in ''An Officer and a Gentleman'' (1982), and later ...

) is found dead, beaten to death with a baseball bat, having spent the evening with her husband and Fontanille. Myers’s young son is also seriously injured, and Fontanille is admitted to hospital, bleeding from a stab wound to the belly. The two men accuse each other of murder, telling different stories to the police and later in court. Detective Easby (

O'Neal Compton Belton O'Neal Compton Jr. (February 5, 1951 – February 18, 2019) was an American actor and director. Early life He was born in Sumter, South Carolina, the son of educators Belton O. Compton Sr. and Dorothy Brunson Compton. Compton was best k ...

) has some trouble with what really happened, but to begin with the police believe Myers and charge Fontanille with murder. Later, District Attorney John Thorn (

Timothy Busfield Timothy Busfield (born June 12, 1957) is an American actor and director. He played Elliot Weston on the television series '' thirtysomething''; Mark, the brother-in-law of Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), in '' Field of Dreams''; and Danny Concann ...

) grasps that the story is more complex and charges both men.

Locations

The movie was largely filmed on location in New Orleans, but some scenes take place at

Los Angeles City Hall Los Angeles City Hall, completed in 1928, is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California, and houses the Mayor of Los Angeles, mayor's office and the meeting chambers and offices of the Los Angeles City Council. It is loca ...

and at North Spring Street, Los Angeles.

Reception

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' applauded "skilled direction" by Hussein, relaxed performances, and an unhurried pace. It also welcomed "a subtle and deceptively simple script by Philip Rosenberg".Roberta Bernstein, "Murder Between Friends", in ''Variety and Daily Variety Television Reviews, 1993-1994'', January 11, 1994
p. 12
/ref>

Cast

as Kerry Myers *

as Bill Fontanille *

as Janet Myers *

as Detective Pud Easby *

as John Thorn, District Attorney *

Karen Moncrieff Karen Moncrieff (born December 20, 1963, in Sacramento, California) is an American actress, director and screenwriter. She is best known as the writer and director of critically acclaimed films ''Blue Car'' and ''The Dead Girl'' '. Movies sh ...

as Amy Morin *

Sab Shimono , commonly known as Sab Shimono, is an American actor of Japanese descent. He began his career on stage on Broadway and in regional theaters, starring in musicals like ''Mame'', '' Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen'', and ''Pacific Overtures''. He h ...

as Dr Lee *

Nicholas Pryor Nicholas David Pryor (born Probst; January 28, 1935 – October 7, 2024) was an American character actor. He appeared in various television series, films, and stage productions. Early life and career Pryor was born Nicholas David Probst in Balt ...

as Judge Lamartine“Murder Between Friends“ in ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'', January 1, 1994, in Vol. 42, p. 99 *David Lee McLain as Clerk of Court *Alex Courtney as René Le Gallais, Defence Attorney *

Stanley Anderson Stanley Anderson (October 23, 1939 – June 24, 2018) was an American character actor who played Drew Carey's father on ''The Drew Carey Show''. Early life Born in Billings, Montana, Anderson attended Garfield Elementary School, Lincoln Junior ...

as Casey *

Macon McCalman Willis Macon McCalman (December 30, 1932 – November 29, 2005) was an American television, stage and big screen movie actor. Acting career Nicknamed "Sonny", McCalman helped form the Front Street Theatre in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. ...

as Janet Myers's lawyer *Greg Almquist as EmileAlvin H. Marill, ''Movies Made for Television, 1964-2004: 1990-1999'' (2005), p. 350 * Lenny Wolpe as District Attorney *

Joey Zimmerman Joseph Paul Zimmerman (born June 10, 1986) is an American actor known for his role as Dylan Piper in '' Halloweentown'' franchise. Early life Zimmerman was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Kat and Harry Zimmerman, a Los Alamos-based actor. Hi ...

as Boy *

Buster Cooper George "Buster" Cooper (April 4, 1929 – May 13, 2016) was an American jazz trombonist. Career A native of St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, Cooper played in a territory band with Nat Towles in Texas in the late 1940s and with Lionel Hamp ...

as jazz tromboneMurder Between Friends

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

, accessed 31 December 2022 *Chuck Thomas as tenor saxophone *Johnny Kirkwood as drummer

Real life events

In real life, on February 24, 1984,Blood Will Tell: A True Story of Deadly Lust in New Orleans (William Morrow & Company, $23, 575pp
, ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', October 26, 1993, accessed December 31, 2022 a ten-hour fight took place at the house of the Myers family at

Harvey, Louisiana Harvey is a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States. Harvey is on the south side (referred to as the "West Bank") of the Mississippi River, within the New Orleans– Metairie– Kenner metropolitan sta ...

, just across the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

from New Orleans. Myers was left with a broken left arm and head injuries, Fontanille went to a local hospital with stab wounds, and Janet Myers was found beaten to death. Fontanille later admitted to having sex with Janet Myers the day before. Questioned by the police, Fontanille’s story was that Myers had killed his wife and child and planned to put the blame on him. Initially, Fontanille was charged with

second degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, ...

, with Myers as a key witness, but at the end of the trial the jury was tied.545 So. 2d 981 (1989) STATE of Louisiana v. Kerry MYERS and William Fontanille
justia.com, accessed January 1, 2023 Later, both men were charged with the murder and with conspiracy. Myers waived his right to a trial by jury. Fontanille was acquitted on a charge of

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse ...

, and on April 5, 1990, was convicted of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

and given a 21-year prison sentence, while a judge found Myers guilty as charged and gave him a

life sentence Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life imprisonment are c ...

."State of Louisiana v. Kerry Myers and William Fontanille No. 90-KA-539" in ''West's Southern Reporter: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi'' (West Publishing Co., 1991), Vol. 584, 2nd series, pp. 242–246 While in the pen, Myers became the editor of ''The Angolite'', a magazine published by the prisoners, and received an award from the

National Council on Crime and Delinquency Evident Change, formerly the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), is an American nonprofit research organization. NCCD was organized by fourteen probation officers who met at Plymouth Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 17, 1907 ...

.Angola prison magazine’s inmate editor to be freed
''Lafayette Daily Advertiser'', 2016, accessed December 31, 2022 In 2016, Governor

John Bel Edwards John Bel Edwards (born September 16, 1966) is an American politician, attorney, and Army veteran who served as the 56th governor of Louisiana from 2016 to 2024. A Southern Democrat, he previously served in the Louisiana House of Representatives ...

commuted the sentence of Myers to thirty years, and he was released from the Angola Penitentiary on parole.Jonathan Bullington
Angola inmate set free, 3 decades after infamous Harvey murder
''

The Times-Picayune ''The Times-Picayune , The New Orleans Advocate'' (commonly called ''The Times-Picayune'' or the ''T-P'') is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ancestral publications of other names date back to January 25, 1837. The cu ...

'', NOLA.com, December 23, 2016, accessed December 31, 2022 The story of the murder and the men’s trials is detailed in a book by Joseph Bosco, ''Blood Will Tell: A True Story of Deadly Lust in New Orleans'' (1993).

Notes

External links

*{{IMDb title, 0110595, Murder Between Friends (1994)
Murder Between Friends (1994)
at

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

545 So. 2d 981 (1989) STATE of Louisiana v. Kerry MYERS and William Fontanille
1994 films 1990s American films 1990s mystery thriller films 1990s English-language films American detective films American mystery thriller films Films directed by Waris Hussein Films scored by Mark Snow Films set in New Orleans Films shot in New Orleans American murder mystery films English-language mystery thriller films