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A Slight Case of Murder

Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay
Full length, Comedy
8 men, 2 women
Total Cast: 10, Interior
ISBN-13: 990235


MIN. PERFORMANCE FEE: $105 per performance. MS.
THE STORY: Remy Marko, racketeering ex-beer baron of Prohibition days, has become a legitimate brewer, chiefly at the wish of his wife, Nora. Their daughter, Mary, is arriving home after receiving an expensive education abroad. While abroad she met the handsome and wealthy Chancellor Whitelaw, scion of an old line family. But Mary insists she won’t marry Chance unless he gets a job. The Markos and an assortment of ex-thugs, who now play with great discomfort the roles of chauffeur, cook and butler, arrive at the house they have rented for the racing season at Saratoga. But they find the lifeless remains of four gangsters resting peacefully in an upstairs room. These “parties” just brought off a sensational highjacking job worth half a million dollars, and came to the house to satisfy a grudge against Remy. At the same moment a traffic cop arrives. But the cop is none other than Chance, who decided to get work as a policeman. Remy “don’t like cops,” and his dislike is further emphasized when Chance’s father comes to the party at the house the same evening. Father is a rather narrow-minded gentleman who is taken aback at the strange antics that go on at the party, and he determines to break off the match between his son and Mary. Chance, however, is given a marvelous opportunity to make a hero of himself and is induced by Remy to make it look as though he captured the four highjackers himself. This reconciles the two families. The figure of Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom, the orphan boy whom Remy has brought up to Saratoga in order that he may enjoy the cultural advantages of the place, pursues its ridiculous way through the play; it is through him that Remy discovers the cash stolen by the highjackers, which enables him to weather a financial crises with two hardboiled bankers.