Existing comment:
Norman Rockwell
Murder Mystery, 1948
Preliminary drawing intended as a cover for The Saturday Evening Post
Pencil and charcoal on paper
Private Collection
A murder mystery for a Post cover. It was, I thought, punning badly, a killer. I'd show a murdered man surrounded by his friends and relatives, one of whom had done him in. The clues to the solution would be present in the picture and Post readers would be asked to solve the crime.-Norman Rockwell In the fall of 1948, Norman Rockwell presented to Saturday Evening Post editors an idea-sketch similar to this one, with the addition in the lower right corner of a Sherlock Holmesian head and the inscription "Who Dun it?" The sketch approved, Rockwell began researching poisons, contacting poison authority Brainerd Mears of Williams College, just forty miles south of his Vermont home. Mears recommended the juice of an African plant. "Boiled," he said, "a single drop is deadly." Rockwell flew to Los Angeles to borrow the plant from Twentieth Century-Fox's prop department, which warned him not to "leave it around." They didn't want to be blamed if it was used to "do away with somebody." Rockwell next met with the Fox public relations department to discuss the possibility of actors modeling for him. "It's a parody of an English murder mystery," he said. "The scene's a castle. There's an old lady who owns the castle." After hearing the description, the public relations team suggested Ethel Barrymore as the old lady, Boris Karloff as the sinister chef, Linda Darnell as the scandalous actress, Loretta Young as the demure maid, Richard Widmark as the wastrel holding the riding crop, Clifton Webb as the haughty butler, and Lassie as the dog. The legs and feet would be posed for by Van Johnson's. With permissions secured, Rockwell began posing and photographing the actors. He had met Ethel Barrymore earlier when, as an eighth-grader earning money for art school, he had taken her and a friend on a sketching trip. After reminiscing she asked, "Tell me, Mr. Rockwell, Whom have I murdered?" When he answered "Van Johnson," she replied, "Superb. I have always wanted to murder that boy." Seeing Rockwell's final drawing, Post editors felt that "not one reader in a thousand would be able to figure out the correct answer." They called in members of the staff, one by one, and asked them to study the drawing carefully and give their solution. "Not one came within miles of the proper answer." In the end, Rockwell admitted the editors were right. In addition to readers being distracted by trying to identify all the movie stars, the broken teacup and the plant were slim clues to figuring out that the old lady had brewed the tea. |