Guthrie was too independent for his own good.
In the Inspector's own words, the first two murders had unusual aspects, yet Philip has now formally confessed despite there not being a lick of evidence that he committed them. But I suppose it's a discussion better left til later.
Since Michael Hackett obviously could not have been any relation of Buzz's, and James Blair wouldn't have been related to Nicholas, I'm guessing that we're not supposed to infer any familial ties between Lawrence and Dr. Peter Guthrie.
Carolyn to Amy, who is too frightened to speak with Quentin: "There's not a reason in the world not to talk to him."
Quentin: "No, Amy. There's not a reason in the world."
Not in
this world, anyway.
Was this the final appearance of Quentin's ghost?
Inspector Guthrie had a nice early Sixties look to him, I thought. He seemed like sort of a lightweight, which may have been part and parcel of that nice early Sixties look.
Using his performances in
Sam's Song (made the year before he was on DS) and
The Swap (which added new scenes of him as the same character that were filmed 10 years later) as a reference, I really appreciate the acting he did on DS. As Andrew, he's the polar opposite of Guthrie-- he's smarmy and privileged, and he makes no secret of having the hots for the girlfriend of Robert DeNiro's character (the Sam in the first title), eventually dumping his wife for her, which I'm guessing is the part of the plot that inspired the 2nd title. I won't even get into why Andrew is revealed to be gay in the 2nd movie, but whatever. Anyway,
The Swap is dreadful, but I think DS fans should see it, though that's mostly because DeNiro's gal is played by Terry Crawford. It's also the movie in which she got topless, if you care about that.