Best Mystery Movies of 1973

In 1970s Hollywood, Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.

"Dirty" Harry Callahan is a San Francisco Police Inspector on the trail of a group of rogue cops who have taken justice into their own hands. When shady characters are murdered one after another in grisly fashion, only Dirty Harry can stop them.

Inquisitive journalist Grace Collier is horrified when she witnesses her neighbor, fashion model Danielle Breton, violently murder a man. Panicking, she calls the police. But when the detective arrives at the scene and finds nothing amiss, Grace is forced to take matters into her own hands. Her first move is to recruit private investigator Joseph Larch, who helps her to uncover a secret about Danielle's past that has them both seeing double.

A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove/disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House.

A year after Sheila is killed in a hit-and-run, her multimillionaire husband invites a group of friends to spend a week on his yacht playing a scavenger hunt-style mystery game — but the game turns out to be all too real and all too deadly.

After being run out of Las Vegas, reporter Carl Kolchak heads for Seattle and another reporting job with the local paper. It's not long before he is on the trail of another string of bizarre murders. It seems that every 21 years, for the past century, a killer kills a certain number of people, drains them of their blood and then disappears into the night. Kolchak is on his trail, but can he stop him?

A short Arizona motorcycle cop gets his wish and is promoted to Homicide following the mysterious murder of a hermit. He is forced to confront his illusions about himself and those around him in order to solve the case, eventually returning to solitude in the desert.

Bill Bixby stars in this NBC pilot movie as a famous stage magician and escape artist who solves crimes.

New York private eye Shamus McCoy likes girls, drink and gambling, but by the look of his flat business can't be too hot. So an offer of $10,000 to finds some diamonds stolen in a daring raid with a flame-thrower is too good to miss. His investigations soon get pretty complicated and rather too dangerous. At least along the way he does get to meet Alexis.

Ellen Wheeler, a rich widow, is recovering from a nervous breakdown. One day, while staring out the window, she witnesses a murder. But does anybody believe her?

A young woman searching for her missing artist father finds herself in the strange seaside town of Point Dune, which seems to be under the influence of a mysterious undead cult.

A sculptor hires young college girls to take care of his elderly mother and his supposedly insane sister, both of whom live in the old family mansion with him.

Detective John Shaft travels incognito to Ethiopia, then France, to bust a human trafficking ring.

A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor; only, someone finds him out and exposes him to the gang...

When various trustees of the Van Traylen Orphanage begin dying in close order, it's at first written off as a coincidence. But, when a school bus accident very nearly takes out three more of them along with a group of orphans, Col. Bingham (Christopher Lee) and his pathologist friend, Mark (Peter Cushing), begin looking into the deaths. They come to think the answer lies with one of the girls on the bus, who has vivid memories of things she could not possibly have seen.

Dr. Tremayne is an enigmatic psychiatrist running an asylum that houses four very special cases. Visited by his colleague Nicholas, Tremayne explains his amazing and controversial theories as to why each of the four patients went mad.

Three insurance investigators search for a mysterious billionaire. Based on the Old Time Radio show of the same name.

After a couple have an argument, the wife disappears. The husband searches for her, only to discover evidence that implicates him in her murder.

Satan's School for Girls is set within the grim walls of Fallbridge College for Girls. Hoping to learn the truth behind the "suicide" of her younger sister, Beth Hammersmith enrolls in Fallbridge under the assumed name of Karen Oxford. Our heroine soon learns that the school is in the clutches of a coven of witches called "The Five" -- and that she herself has the right satanic qualities to enable The Five to take over the world

A small-town sheriff is confronted with the deaths of local senior citizens and strange goings-on in his town.

A young orphan, Stephen, is sent to go and live with his strange, much older cousin at his remote country house. Once there, Stephen experiences terrible dreams in which he sees a young girl and boy who are missing their hearts.

Charlie Chan comes out of retirement to investigate a murder case aboard the yacht of a wealthy Greek shipping tycoon.

When the President's plane mysteriously disappears with him on board, it is left to the seemingly weak Vice President to try to avert a nuclear exchange with the Chinese.

A gang of six wealthy, well-dressed and well-spoken hoodlums break into a married couple's house and rape the wife while forcing the husband to watch. Thus begins a dogged investigation by a determined detective who quickly finds that their cult-like solidarity can be a serious obstacle to breaking them.

A young model, Valerie, and her petty thief boyfriend witness a murder in a backwoods manor. Valerie escapes, but soon finds herself being stalked by the killer.

A detective goes undercover to catch the rapist who has been strangling female members of an acting troupe.

An adopted teen who runs away to what he believes to be his birth town and mother, in the hopes of putting together the missing pieces of his sense of identity. He arrives during a wave of disappearances and murders, only to encounter New England aloofness and some very eccentric relatives.

Barbara gets secret plastic surgery in Switzerland in an attempt to save her marriage to Mark, but he doesn't seem interested in meeting her. She checks in to a ski resort to wait for Mark, and begins getting attention from young men. Her daughter tries to warn her that even though she has had the surgery it might be too late for her marriage, but she clings to the hope that Mark will come back once he sees her new look. Meanwhile, she must decide whether or not have an affair with a young man she's met.

A homicide detective goes after a woman-hating serial killer, who uses knives to murder his victims.

Terrifying wax figures of renowned personalities, such as Attila the Hun and Jack the Ripper, surround the sale of a London museum.

Karen marries Arnold at his funeral and continues to get his money as long as she stays by his coffin. Meanwhile, various oddball relatives after Arnold's wealth are being killed in a creative variety of ways.

A vicious serial killer is stalking the streets of New York City, murdering Times Square massage girls in a variety of brutal ways. It's up to a rogue detective team to solve the case as the body count continues to rise!

A young woman just released from a mental hospital moves back in with her family. However, she is soon troubled by disturbing visions in which she commits a series of axe murders.

James Stewart stars as Billy Jim Hawkins, a crime-solving attorney, in this first of 8 television films. Teamed with Strother Martin as his cousin, RJ, he defends a young woman accused of familicide, with three dead bodies.

Hawkins defends a man who is charged with killing one of the two psychology professors who he blames for the suicide of his son. Making it worse is that he was recorded on a television news tape vowing to make both men pay "a life for a life."

The life of young newlywed, Fern O'Neil, is turned upside-down when her husband is called home to visit his dying father in Ireland. When she fails to receive a phone call from her husband, she contacts the airline and discovers he was not on the plane. Further investigation reveals that her husband is not who she thought he was. Her search ultimately takes her all the way to Ireland, where her sanity and, of course, her story come into question.

David Janssen plays Harry Orwell, a retired L.A. cop who was shot during a robbery and whose partner was killed in the incident. Harry is in constant pain due to the bullet lodged near his spine, but he works off and on as a private detective to supplement his pension. Late one night, Harry is approached in his home by one of the men who shot him (Martin Sheen) to help find the other man (Sal Mineo) involved in the robbery, who he says is trying to kill him. Is it a setup? This was the first pilot for the ABC detective series *Harry O*, which (after a second pilot, *Smile Jenny, You're Dead*, was picked up) aired from September 1974 to April 1976.

In Greece, a stewardess is murdered by a masked maniac. Suspicion falls on a drunken American playboy and a murderous gangster.

A group of public and private investigators looks into the suspicious death of the son of one of its members' wealthy girlfriends.

An American private eye is shot dead in Germany by an international extortion gang, and his partner arrives to seek revenge.

Jane's husband is passionately in love...with Jane's best friend! Before the innocent young Jane catches on, the 2 illicit lovers imprison her in a sadistic mental hospital...where the bedside manner is positively shocking! But with the help of a diligent and amorous detective, the jilted wife gets her revenge as all discover the sultry secret of Mysterious Jane

A self-styled "motivation research specialist" uses subliminal cues to commit a murder. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

A woman is murdered during an overnight train ride and a veteran detective clashes with young P.I. on how they are going flush out the killer. They find themselves racing against the clock when a second body is discovered.

A New York City cop who has retired to a small Western town is drawn into the local case of an Indian who is accused of murdering a sheriff.

A wealthy art collector is murdered, and all signs point to a robbery gone wrong. But the nephew's alibi is a little too convenient, and Columbo pulls a fast one to ferret out the killer.

The cure is more dangerous than the malady as a mild-mannered woman who is slowly summoning the strength to rid herself of a cruel and domineering husband ... permanently.

A young gambler seeking greater challenges joins a card club where the members literally gamble for their lives.