The same year that Agatha Christie's "Evil Under the Sun" graced the big screen with a lavish all-star production, a lavish TV movie of another one of her stories came to the small screen. There have been some changes from the original plotline and setting, transferring this to modern times and eliminating Miss Marple, replacing her character with a visiting American played by Bill Bixby. Perhaps Miss Marple was removed so the character played by Helen Hayes (who would go on to play Miss Marple on TV later on) would have a young man to sweetly flirt with and give information to in regards to a series of murders in her village before she too became a victim. Hayes is adorable as always in her brief screen time, so that makes her fate rather sad.
It's also sad that she doesn't share screen time with another legend, Olivia de Havilland, who has a larger role as an eccentric patroness of the arts who claims to have become a target of the killer, ironically nearly struck by a planter falling off a window ledge a la "Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte". De Havilland is a dotty delight who is more clever than she lets on. Lesley Anne Downe is a gorgeous free spirited young woman living life on the edge. Patrick Allen, Shane Briant, Jonathan Pryce, Leigh Lawson and Freddie Jones are other major players, all suspicious and interesting. The film has a very quick opening, a rather slow and cumbersome middle at times, and of course unending with lots of twists and turns where's the results turn out to be least expected. Far from the best of the Agatha Christie adaptions, but well worth seeing because of the super cast.
It's also sad that she doesn't share screen time with another legend, Olivia de Havilland, who has a larger role as an eccentric patroness of the arts who claims to have become a target of the killer, ironically nearly struck by a planter falling off a window ledge a la "Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte". De Havilland is a dotty delight who is more clever than she lets on. Lesley Anne Downe is a gorgeous free spirited young woman living life on the edge. Patrick Allen, Shane Briant, Jonathan Pryce, Leigh Lawson and Freddie Jones are other major players, all suspicious and interesting. The film has a very quick opening, a rather slow and cumbersome middle at times, and of course unending with lots of twists and turns where's the results turn out to be least expected. Far from the best of the Agatha Christie adaptions, but well worth seeing because of the super cast.