A group of strangers are invited by a mysterious host to a mansion on a small island off the Devon coast where their past sins are expose and they begin dying one by one. Takes one of the greatest thrillers ever written and... clearly doesn't have a single clue what to do with it. A story like this needs atmosphere, suspense, and a mounting sense of dread, but there's none of that here. The direction is as flat as a Dutch landscape, and half the cast seem to think they're in some broad comedy and play to the gallery. Worst of all is the lame happy ending, which actually came from Christie. She changed it for the stage version (which this film adapts) because she didn't think audiences would want to see something so bleak.
Rating: ⭐⭐
After witnessing a woman being strangled to death on a passing train, Jane Marple (Margaret Rutherford) is determined to catch the killer. Based on Christie's 4.50 from Paddington, this was the first of four films starring Rutherford as Miss Marple and the only one actually based on any of of the Marple novels, although very loosely in order to give her a bigger role. One of the tricky things with adapting Marple is that she often takes a backseat in the investigations, letting her younger proxies do all the legwork while she figures out who did it from the comfort of her armchair, getting in a good bit of knitting while she's at it. Rutherford's Marple is far more proactive and heavily involved in events. Not only does she witnesses the crime herself, but she's the one who goes undercover as a maid to investigate it. This unfortunately comes at the cost of the character's credibility as the film is geared too much towards comedy, making Marple a more eccentric and sillier character complete with her own bumbling sidekick (played by Stringer Davis, Rutherford's husband). Christie herself strongly disliked these films, and isn't hard to see why. Tonally the film is a complete mess. It wants us to be horrified at the crime being committed, but also laugh out loud at Marple's antics to find killer. Fun fact, Joan Hickson, the definitive Marple for many, has a small role in this as Mrs Kidder.
Rating: ⭐⭐
While traveling on the Orient Express from Istanbul to Paris, famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is called upon to investigate the brutal murder of a fellow passenger. Christie's most famous story and the most adapted after And Then There Were None. I don't personally think anyone has ever managed to make a truly great version of this story, but of the many attempts over the decades I think this is clearly the best. Directed by Sidney Lumet, with some gorgeous cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth, this set the template for all Christie adaptations for the next two decades: glamorous locations, stylish period costumes, and enough famous faces to fill up an awards show, including Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, and Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot. Finney's Poirot is something of an acquired taste. By no means the worst, but still far from the best (that remains David Suchet). Along with that famously lavish train, the film is one big showcase for its impressive cast, although since there's so many of them a few have very little to do, and none of them have anything to do in the final reveal except sit back and watch as Finney chews up the scenery while explaining Dame Agatha's most famous twist. This was notably the only film adaptation of her works that Christie herself approved of, although she had a few complaints about the quality of Finney's moustache.
Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐
Poirot takes another lavish trip, this time a boat trip in Egypt with old pal David Niven, and finds himself with another dead body and another all-star line-up of suspects (Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury, Jane Birkin, George Kennedy, and Jack Warden). Finney chose not to return because he didn't want to wear the extensive Poirot makeup under the Egyptian sun and was replaced by Peter Ustinov. Lumet also didn't return and was replaced by John Guillermin, best known for making a famous disaster film (The Towering Inferno) and a famous film disaster (the 1976 remake of King Kong). The film trims a lot of the fat from the original novel, cutting a number of supporting characters and subplots, but that isn't enough to prevent this from being an inferior, yet serviceable, rehash of Murder on the Orient Express, only with more sightseeing, more killings, and more silliness (where was the killer hiding that cobra the whole trip?). Ustinov is the most prolific Poirot after Suchet, appearing in three films and three TV specials (which were bizarrely set in the present day). He has all the character's vanity and pomposity, but is a more relaxed, less fussy figure.
Rating:⭐⭐⭐
Hollywood comes to St Mary Mead and murder isn't far behind. The team that brought us Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile tried to apply the same formula to Miss Marple and found it was an awkward fit. Unlike Poirot, Jane Marple doesn't take lavish holidays or mingle with the glamorously wealthy. She lives in a world of quaint, picturesque little English villages full of middle class people still struggle with rationing or the declining landed gentry. No surprise then that the producers chose to adapt The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side (itself based on real events) as the plot revolved around a faded film star moving to St. Mary Mead, an ideal opportunity to cast a string of faded film stars to ham it up. None more so than Kim Novak, who vamps it up royally and steals the whole silly show (not that this is really a show worth stealing). Poor Rock Hudson, though, plays it like a serious drama and seems lost amongst all the campy melodrama. Angela Lansbury, made up to look 20 years older than she actually was, is a rather diluted Marple, more of dry run for Jessica Fletcher than Christie's crime solving spinster.
Rating:⭐⭐
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011 More Mark Greig
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