An elaborately set but badly acted (nearly all the actors seem to placing emphasis on the wrong words) TV movie version of Rex Stout's novel. Maury Chaykin is visually ideal but otherwise unmemorable as burly sleuth Nero Wolfe, who never leaves his ornately appointed house, and Timothy Hutton intensely annoying as his hyper-active sidekick Archie Goodwin - in this tedious yarn that makes a boring business of lining its suspects up like a cinema audience in Wolfe's sitting-room at the end. At least, the screenplay sticks commendably close to Stout's original, and Bill Duke's noirish direction conjures up nice period atmosphere, if no control of the actors, apart from Saul Rubinek, who skilfully supplies the telefilm's one good performance. The story? A boy comes to old Nero for help after seeing a kidnapping, but is soon killed off. Nero follows a clue -- a woman with the golden spider earrings of the title. Now read on... if you can stay awake.

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