Murder Mystery Party: Golden Age of Hollywood

In May, I reached out to my murder mystery peeps, to set up a September party!  The party could accommodate up to 13 players!!!  Before I go any further, I want to put in a disclaimer that some of the pictures came from Tabitha, so they are not all mine, but many of them are!

When I checked in with the guest couples, I had a few whose fall sports schedules would not allow for them to come to this party, so I had Emily and my mom narrow the suspect list using the spoiler rectangle in the book.  I still wanted to be able to play, so I had them make a random list of the critical suspects, and then toss in an appropriate number of 'other' suspects.  

For some reason, my excitement for this party didn't really happen until after I sent out the invitations.  But once I did that, the anticipation started to build!  And I knew that I wanted to recreate the Hollywood sign.  I did attempt to be lazy and buy a backdrop of the Hollywood Hills from Amazon, but luckily for my party budget, they didn't have one.

Using giant boxes, scissors, a knife, tape, and stapler, I created the nine Hollywood letters!  They were almost four feet tall!

When I went down to the basement to see what we had in the way of paint, I found some white primer, and decided that that would be fine!  It coated well, and dried fast, but was it ever so sticky!  I ended up using almost an entire can of Goof off just to get my hands clean, but didn't have enough to properly clean the paintbrush.

So, that night, while William and I were waiting for his robotics meeting, we ran some errands, including a trip to ace.  Turns out they now have a water-based primer by that brand, which would have been awesome, but wasn't what we had on hand.  I bought more goof off, and some paint thinner for oil-based products.  Thankfully, after letting it soak, the liquid broke down the primer, and now my brush is ready for the next project!

It was windy and chilly on party day, but Alice came out and helped me set up, since Emily, Grace, and Billy, my usual helpers, were all elsewhere!

I ended up using the chairs that my mom and I had collected to prop up the letters, and thought it came out really cute!

The red carpet was short, but great for showing off those who wanted to walk it!

INGRID MARX: Natalie - Filmstar

OMAR MARLON: Steve - Lead Understudy

HUMPHREY GARNER: Michael - Director

VALENTINO SALVATORI: Billy - Chef

GENE FAIRBANKS: David - Producer

MERYL MAYER: Tabitha - Casting Director

RITA FORD: Tami - Newby Actress

HEDY GARLAND: Kristy - Make-up Artist

*******SPOILERS*******

I was convinced it was Billy from the time I read his character description, but he really wanted to guess one of the non-critical characters.  Turns out, they had a massive typo and one of the characters that was not even part of our party was the murderer!!!!  So, Billy got one of the solutions and definitely deserved the best detective award!  The second ending that the game provided (so that you could play it again, with the same clues, but a different solution?) it was Billy!  Billy is always the murderer! 

I didn't care much for this style of game.  They tried to use too many party game elements, and I definitely prefer the script and question style of game.

The best costume award was given to Michael, he nailed his character!

We finished early enough in the night, that we wanted to play a second round! Sadly, Natalie and Steve had morning plans, and couldn't stay for another game, but we awarded Steve best Accent!

The second game was set in a Chicago dive bar.  Billy ended up using AI to find us audio of the game cassette, because the tape was old and not playing loudly enough.

Phil Muggs - David, bartender at Dex's Place. 

Marlena -Tabitha, 'mystery lady.' 

Willy Krash - Michael, senior pilot for a large commercial airline.

Dolores Delgatto - Kristy, waitress at Dex's Place.

Marshall Hartz - Billy, own a karate school for kids a few blocks from Dex's Place.

Ginny Tonick - Tami, an attractive 'barfly' writer.

It was super fun to play another game, while being fed a script and questions to ask in our booklets!

********Spoilers*********

This time I didn't even suspect Billy!  I really thought it was going to be me, based on my first page 'keep it a secret' info, but Michael also looked pretty suspicious, being in the drug trade!  Luckily for me, I got to be the murderer again!!  Contrary to what you might think, we both slept well that night! = )

I wish the weather had cooperated at little bit better, but it was a fun party and any excuse to dress up is a good one!  As always, I feel so thankful for finding a group of people who will put time and energy into their characters, and make the night so fun!

later days

edit 9-21-25: backdated for continuity.