The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a 2000 American crime drama television film based on the 1953 novel by Rex Stout. Set in 1950s Manhattan, it stars Maury Chaykin as the heavyweight detective genius Nero Wolfe, and Timothy Hutton as Wolfe's assistant, Archie Goodwin, narrator of the Nero Wolfe stories. Veteran screenwriter Paul Monash adapted the novel, and Bill Duke directed. When it first aired on A&E on March 5, 2000, The Golden Spiders was seen in 3.2 million homes, making it the fourth-most-watched A&E original movie ever. Its success led to the A&E original series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002).
Plot
After Wolfe reacts petulantly to a change made in one of his favorite meals, his assistant Archie Goodwin decides to prank him by allowing a boy from the neighborhood, Pete Drossos, into the house to consult with Wolfe on what Pete believes is a case. Pete claims that a woman wearing distinctive golden spider-shaped earrings asked him to get a police officer while he was cleaning the windshield of the car she was driving at a stoplight, and believes that her male passenger was holding her hostage.
The next night, the pair are shocked when NYPD Sgt. Purley Stebbins informs them that Pete has been killed by a hit-and-run driver, as well as INS agent Matthew Birch. Soon after, Pete's mother brings Wolfe $4.30 that Pete has saved and asks him to find Pete's killer. Angered by Wolfe's reluctance to get involved, Archie uses the money to place an advert in the newspapers asking for the woman driving the car to contact Wolfe. Wealthy widow Laura Fromm arrives at Wolfe's office wearing the golden spider earrings and asking to hire his services. Wolfe begins to suspect that Fromm knows who the driver is, but she refuses to reveal it; the next day, Fromm is also murdered in an apparent hit-and-run. Angered that two people who came to him for help are now dead, Wolfe decides to solve the murders.
Wolfe identifies a charitable organization that Mrs Fromm supported as a likely link between the deaths. Archie begins to investigate various individuals connected to the charity: Fromm's secretary Jean Estey, director Angela White, public relations manager Paul Kuffner, and the wife of the charity's attorney Dennis Horan. It is revealed that the charity is part of a blackmail ring targeting desperate refugees who are in America illegally. Horan attempts to distance himself from the other men, but when they learn this, the others identify him as a key ringleader of the blackmail scheme, along with Matthew Birch. Birch, however, took orders from an unknown woman.
Gathering the principal suspects in his office, Wolfe reveals the identity of the murderer — Jean Estey. Estey was a key figure with the blackmail ring, but Fromm had overheard the code words she used with her confederates — "said the spider to the fly" — and had begun to suspect her, giving her the earrings to try and provoke a response.
It is implied that Birch captured Estey to 'handle her' because she was taking too large of a share of the profits, prompting her to panic and try to contact Pete for help. After killing Birch, Estey realized that Pete could identify her, and so killed him too. Her third homicide was of Mrs. Fromm after the dinner at Horan's, feeling pressured after she had cut a $10,000 check to Nero Wolfe to investigate.
Estey is identified by the tailor who sold her the men's clothing she used as a disguise, and is arrested. The case ends with Archie giving half the fee Wolfe has earned to Pete's mother.
Production
In a 2002 interview in Scarlet Street magazine, executive producer Michael Jaffe explained why the novel The Golden Spiders was selected to introduce contemporary audiences to Nero Wolfe:
There are three or four really extraordinary novels — The Silent Speaker, In the Best Families, and The Doorbell Rang, for example. These are some of the most famous and most complex and most amazing stories in the series, but we didn't want to start with those particular ones for a whole complex of reasons. We wanted to pick a story that had activity in it so that we could slowly bring people into the static milieu of Nero Wolfe's house. The Golden Spiders took you outside. There's a gunfight and a tough interrogation scene. It was a very strong story with a lot of pathos, because a young boy is murdered and Wolfe has to deal with his mother. So that was why we chose that one.
Saul Rubinek, who would take the role of Lon Cohen in the subsequent series, was cast as Saul Panzer in the pilot. Prior to the original film's broadcast, Rubinek was asked what made him want to do the project: