The plot here was intriguing, but a bit too scattered. We have an unfinished film from 30 years before suddenly finished. It had remained unfinished because the director died while it was being made.
We have his surprise adopted daughter show up to claim ownership of the film.
We have a mysterious young man who seems to appear and disappear from nowhere.
We have the possibility of a movie bootlegging operation getting access to finished reels and dubbing to bootlegged VHS tapes. Yes, that was THAT far back. LOL
We have a former child star trying to make a comeback.
And then we have the expert on the murdered director suddenly murdered himself ... at the screening of the completed film.
This is simply too many subplots for an hour-long screenplay to properly support, and it doesn't. Nothing much is really made of the appearing and disappearing man (Jim Caviezel). The bootlegging operation is never really tied to the murder, though it would have been easy to do so.
However, I watched the episode because of Mike Conners, as I was a big Mannix fan. He never disappoints, and his scenes with Angela Lansbury are a delight.
And my tried-and-true method of determining the killer worked yet again. Find the big-name guest start with no other good reason for appearing in the episode. LOL.