It’s light entertainment, and Christie purists (of which I am not a specimen, being more of a Dorothy L. Locations, music and costumes once again are a big plus for the movie. My love of Cole Porter lasts to this day, and it was fun, much later, noticing that as an in-joke Porter appears in the movie, if just as a signature in the hotel’s register, together with Ivor Novello, Maurice Chevalier, Fred and Adele Astaire, Charlie Chaplin and a mysterious “M.D.” from Berlin (Marlene Dietrich?)

Once again I saw this movie in a drive in during the summer, back in 1983, and it was there that I was completely fascinated by Cole Porter’s music, which is used extensively on the soundtrack.

The original story was set off the coast of England, but here we are in an exotic locale, with a hint of Ruritania – Tyrania is basically Albania with the number plates changed Ustinov plays Poirot in a light, humorous way, and has a great cast supporting him: James Mason and Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg and Roddy McDowell, Colin Blakely and Jane Birkin, among others. It’s been working for almost a century, in book, theatre, movie and TV series. In the end, it’s the same old story: select a bunch of eccentric characters, trap them somewhere (a train, a steamboat going along the Nile, a luxury hotel on island), give each one of them a good reason to kill, then off the most insufferable of their number, and let Poirot loose. But there’s also a missing diamond, a body found on the Yorkshire moors, and a number of red herrings.īut Hercule Poirot is also a guest of miss Castle’s establishment. Here the usual group of characters is reunited, to witness the bitching and wild shenanigans of Arlena Marshall (Diana Rigg), that ends up dead, and everybody had a good reason to want her dead.

The plot in a nutshell: on a small island off the coast of fictional Tyrania, in the Adriatic Sea, former actress Daphne Castle (Smith) manages and owns a luxury hotel. The result is on a par with the previous film: a good adaptation, with a cunning plot and an unexpected finale, with a beautiful look and a great selection of great actors.

Hercule poirot evil under the sun