Movie Review: Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Witness for the Prosecution (1957) co-written and directed by Billy Wilder from the stage play by Agatha Christie

Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) is accused of murdering an older woman. A lot of circumstantial evidence makes him look guilty but he protests his innocence. Lucky for him barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) is just back from a serious illness. Sir Wilfrid is constantly pestered by nurse Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester), who tries to stop him from having cigars and alcohol. Most especially, she needs to keep him away from stress, like arguing in court. Sir Wilfrid is not interested in sitting around being pricked and prodded and swallowing pills on a regular schedule. So he takes Vole's case, which looks especially bad when they find out that Leonard will inherit a large sum from the older woman. Leonard's main hope is his alibi--his wife Christine (Marlene Dietrich) who will say he came home early, before the time of death. Leonard's main problem is when his wife shows up in court as a witness for the prosecution to testify that he did commit the crime!

The story is sensational and has plenty of twists. The mystery is intriguing and Sir Wilfrid's efforts are impressive. He is a master of the law and good at sussing out people. He feels there's something fishy about Christine but he can't put his finger on what it is. She is very careful about how she presents herself and defeats one of Wilfrid's little character tests. Their sparing is quite good, especially in court. Wilfrid's sparring with Miss Plimsoll provides enjoyable comic relief. The ending is a personal favorite of mine, so very satisfying on many levels.

Wilder does a good job turning the stage play into a movie. He breaks out of the courtroom and barrister's offices with a lot of background story for the Voles (Leonard met Christine in a German cabaret where she was performing during the war; they had a whirlwind romance and he brought to England as his wife) and visits to prison and the murder scene. Wilder has a great style and communicates a lot through images even in a talk-centric story like this. 

Highly recommended--among the best court room dramas in cinematic history.

Movie Review: A Haunting in Venice (2023)

A Haunting in Venice (2023) directed by Kenneth Branagh

Based on the Agatha Christie novel Hallowe'en Party, this mystery has a retired Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) living in Venice, Italy. He is visited by an old friend, the mystery author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), who wants him to go to a special Halloween party where a seance will be held. The palazzo is said to be haunted by orphan children who died there; the most recent death was the daughter of opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). Drake wants to reconnect with her daughter and has accepted the intrusion of psychic Mrs. Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh). Oliver wants to debunk the seance and needs Poirot's help. He reluctantly agrees. He successfully debunks the seance but then a murder happens. The situation is intriguing enough to pull him out of retirement, though is he really starting to hear and see the ghosts of the house?

The movie has an odd and not quite compelling premise--Poirot has given up investigations and is content to eat pastries on his rooftop patio. He's drawn in by an old friend but the movie seems more like a horror flick than a murder mystery for the first twenty minutes or so. Branagh as director goes for a lot of stylish angles and jump scares to amp up the horror but the production is never really strong enough to be a convincing horror. The disjointed tone does not help the story, making the fantastic twists appear more unbelievable than they should be. The actors do a good job though no one is outstanding and the large cast is more there to provide lots of suspects rather than lots of star-power or glamor. The ultimate resolution is less satisfying than it should be. This film was a ho-hum outing for Branagh's Poirot.

The plot is very far from the original novel, with a lot of the same character names but almost no one has the same personality. I don't mind doing something different for a movie version of a book (sometimes such changes are required to make a good movie out of a good book) but there aren't any real improvements here.

Not quite recommended.

Book Review: Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot is called by his crime-author friend Ariadne Oliver to a quiet English town outside of London because there has been a murder. During the preparations for a Hallowe'en Party, young Joyce claimed she witnessed a murder. Eeryone scoffed at her because she is an inveterate liar and braggart. By the end of the party that night, she's been drowned in the bobbing-for-apples bucket. Who would commit such a dastardly and desperate murder? Poirot does his usual questioning of everyone in town, finding out about previous murders in the hamlet and trying to piece together what happened in the past that would cause someone to commit a crime of opportunity now.

The mystery is a fairly standard Christie case, with a lot of possible suspects that don't seem probable. Several characters leave out key information, even from what they tell Poirot, but he is able to get the separate strands together to get the whole story. I enjoyed the novel. It's not as great as Murder of Roger Ackroyd or Evil Under the Sun but makes for an entertaining read.

Recommended.

Movie Review: Death on the Nile (2022)

Death on the Nile (2022) directed by Kenneth Branagh based on the novel by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is vacationing in Egypt when he's drawn into a couple's (Armie Hammer's Simon Doyle and Gal Gadot's Linnet Ridgeway) honeymoon. They've brought a bunch of friends along to celebrate because she's fabulously rich and can afford it; the only problem is Simon dumped Jacqueline (Emma Mackey) six weeks ago when he met Linnet. Jacqueline is following them around, making things awkward for the newlyweds. Linnet asks Poirot to help them though he demurs when it is clear that Jacqueline has done nothing illegal...yet. Poirot joins the destination honeymoon group and quickly discovers that a lot of other people also don't like Linnet (who does seem fairly nice) for various reasons. The couple rents a boat to try and avoid the ex but she shows up anyway. One evening when Linnet goes to bed early, Jacqueline winds up shooting Simon in the leg, causing chaos. The next morning, Linnet is discovered dead. Poirot is on the case now.

While the novel is a labyrinthine murder mystery, this movie can't quite decide between that and being an examination of how tragic and difficult love is. The movie starts with a black and white scene of young Poirot on the World War I battlefield where he is horribly injured. His nurse/girlfriend recommends he grow a mustache to hide his scars. The various suspects in the honeymoon party (why a destination honeymoon?) have a variety of relationships with each other that are slowly revealed throughout the movie. Poirot turns out to be as much a relationship therapist as a private detective; he's also infatuated with one of the suspects. After the mystery is solved, there's a good ten minutes of resolving various romantic relationships, which I would have been happy to skip. I can see what they were going for but I did not want to go there.

The cinematography is interesting with some nice, sweeping shots. Egypt looks great for the most part though some scenes look like CGI, especially on the deck of the boat. So the visuals were a mixed bag too. A couple of the characters are jazz musicians, so the movie has a lot of nice blues and jazz songs from the 1930s (or at least in the 1930s style).

Not recommended--the Peter Ustinov version is better, though the book is (naturally) best. 

Game Review: Exit the Game: Dead Man on the Orient Express

Exit the Game: Dead Man on the Orient Express designed by Inka and Markus Brand

See my review of previous Exit the Game games here.

The Exit the Game series is a bunch of at-home escape rooms in a box. Designers Inka and Markus Brand craft various puzzles that players have to solve in order to complete the mission or story in the game. In Dead Man on the Orient Express, they give a new twist to the final puzzle.

As the title suggests, the game is inspired by Agatha Christie's famous novel Murder on the Orient Express. The game's story includes the iconic train and has a "master detective" (named Achilles Pussot). He was solving the murder of Edgar Ratchington, a lone traveler on the train. Unfortunately, Pussot has disappeared in the midst of his investigation but has left many cryptic notes that should lead to the murderer's identity. Eight other passengers are on the train, all claiming to have alibis and having no relationship to the victim. Of course, someone is lying.

Play proceeds like most other Exit the Game games until the final puzzle. In order to find the code for the final puzzle, players have to identify the killer. Clues are found on various game components and can be put together to narrow the field of suspects down to one.

Various game components

One new and different component is the train compartments which are opened individually as the game proceeds. The compartments reveal more puzzles and more evidence for the murderer's identity.

Inside the compartment from the components above

We enjoyed all the riddles and were very close to discovering the identity of the killer. One small detail went unnoticed by me so I accused the wrong passenger. I was glad that I put together other clues that supported the other passengers' alibis. If it wasn't for one detail, I would have solved it completely. Even so, I enjoyed sifting over the evidence and coming to conclusions, even if I was ultimately wrong.

Highly recommended, especially for Agatha Christie fans and gaming fans.

Book Review: Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie

Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie

The wealthy Boynton family is vacationing in Israel which you'd think would be a pleasant experience. Unfortunately matriarch Mrs. Boynton is possessive, manipulative, and cruel to her children, who are all adults at this point. They live in misery and isolation. The trip serves only to emphasize their subservience and inability to connect to the outside world. Until Mrs. Boynton is found dead. Naturally, if foul play is involved, all the children are suspect. They stand to inherit equal shares of the family fortune. More importantly they will be free at last from her tyranny. Some other characters outside the family are part of the story, including one Hercule Poirot, Belgian detective extraordinaire.

The murder takes a long time to happen in the book, around page 100, almost half way through. In that first hundred pages, Hercule Poirot appears on maybe four of them. So the family situation is set up in great detail, providing interesting characters and a fascinating mystery. The story is a bit unusual for Christie but is very satisfying.

Poirot's investigation is more psychological than technical. He interviews the family and the other people involved. The situation is complicated enough that any one person makes a good suspect. By sifting through their statements he is able to come to the right conclusion. The epilogue is surprisingly sweet, like the end of a Shakespeare comedy or a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

The investigation is particularly interesting for two reasons. Almost everybody recognizes that the world is better off with Mrs. Boynton dead. Still, murder is murder and the evildoer needs to be identified and hopefully brought to justice. Doing evil to an evil person does not suddenly make the act good. The double negative principle in math doesn't apply to morality. Second, Poirot promises to discover the murderer but does not guarantee that he'll have evidence that holds up in court. His psychological approach yields the truth and circumstances provide satisfaction of justice (to some extent) outside the court of law.

Highly recommended.

The book will be discussed on A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast on July 10, 2018. Check it out!

Movie Review: Agatha Christie's Crooked House (2017)

Agatha Christie's Crooked House (2017) directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Agatha Christie's novel, Crooked House, is given a lavish treatment. Private investigator Charles Hayward (Max Irons) is approached by former lover Sophia Leonides (Stephanie Martini) to investigate her grandfather's death, which she believes was murder. Aristide Leonides was a Greek immigrant to England who became quite wealthy by developing a restaurant and catering business. He had two sons, Philip and Roger, and three grandchildren. They all live at Three Gables (the titular crooked house), under the grandfather's rather oppressive thumb. His first wife died and he met his second, much younger wife in Las Vegas where she was a dancer. The death looks like poisoning and suspicion naturally falls on the seeming gold digger of a wife. The rest of the family has plenty of acrimony toward the old man and each other. Hayward has no shortage of suspects and only a few days before Scotland Yard will sweep in and expose family secrets along with the murder.

The plot is fairly intricate, which is only natural for a Christie story, and provides a lot of classic twists and shifts in suspicion. The cast gives fine performances and the estate looks beautiful. The time is mid-1950s, so the film has a bit of the clash of youth culture (popular music and dancing) with the estate life of England's upper class. The ending is shockingly bleak (and true to the novel if Wikipedia is to be believed) which may be why the movie didn't get much of a theatrical release. I hadn't heard of it when it came up on the local library's list of new DVD releases. I enjoyed watching it once but probably won't watch it again unless socially.

Recommended as a rental.

TV Review: The Witness for the Prosecution (2016)

The Witness for the Prosecution (2016) directed by Julian Jarrold and adapted by Sarah Phelps from a short story by Agatha Christie

The team that created the impressive adaptation of And Then There Were None has subsequently adapted The Witness for the Prosecution, though they have chosen to go back to the short story which was the first version of what eventually became the stage play (to which most productions adhere). The ending of the story is a bit different than the stage and various movie versions though I don't want to spoil what those differences are.

The beginning of the story is the same. Leonard Vole (Billy Howle) is accused of murdering Emily French (Kim Cattrall), an older woman with whom he has been keeping company. Or perhaps being a "kept man" is a better description. She leaves all her wealth to him, so naturally he is the primary suspect. Vole's foreign-born wife Romaine (Andrea Reisborough) is brought in as a witness, but she is a witness for the prosecution to satisfy her jealousy and get her two-timing husband hanged. Solicitor for the defense Mayhew (Toby Jones) is convinced of Vole's innocence and searches for any way to get his neck out of the noose.

In the play, the search for truth and justice is the guiding theme; here, betrayal is the overriding theme. This story adds Janet McIntyre, a female servant for French who is passionately (and almost crazily) devoted to her mistress. She's seen young men come and go; she tells Vole he won't last two weeks. Vole lasts considerably longer and threatens McIntyre's security (she's been written out of the will), so she becomes a plausible secondary suspect. Solicitor Mayhew has guilt over a son who died in World War I (this version is set in the 1920s, so everyone is living under the shadow and sadness of that conflict) and over his fascination with Romaine, who is an actress and singer and beautiful. Mayhew's wife is devoted but frumpy and emotionally detached. Mayhew is willing to take anything to get his man proven innocent, so he betrays his calling to find truth and justice. I find betrayal an interesting theme but it is not as satisfying as the search for truth and justice.

The production is very atmospheric, which doesn't quite work well with the courtroom drama and better fits the investigation outside the courtroom. Fortunately, this version has plenty of action outside the courtroom. Even so, it occasionally lapses into incoherence, e.g. Mayhew seems to practice law in the very prison where he first meets Vole, which seems absurd. The atmosphere comes off more like a affectation than a natural way to present the story. It didn't work for me.

While this presentation had a lot of interesting ideas and adaptations, overall it was not satisfying for me and I can't quite recommend it. Watch the classic movie version with Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich instead.

TV Review: And Then There Were None (2015)

And Then There Were None (2015) directed by Craig Viveiros and script by Sarah Phelps based on Agatha Christie's novel

Ten strangers meet on a Soldier Island to either meet with or work for U. N. Owen. He's hired a couple as house servants and a woman as secretary; the others are invited under various pretenses, all of which turn out to be false. Everyone except the host is present when an album is played after dinner. An ominous voice accuses all ten people of various murders for which none of them have been punished. One by one they die under mysterious circumstances, all following a nursery rhyme that has been framed and put in every room in the house: "Ten little soldier boys went out to dine;/ one choked his little self and then there were nine...." U. N. Owen is obviously "unknown," so is there an eleventh person on the island killing them or is one of them the killer? It's 1939 and the island is private with only one boat coming and going, only it's not coming anymore. With no phone to signal the mainland for help, they are on their own, facing harsh and inevitable justice.

Agatha Christie's novel is a classic and possibly her best work (at least, it's my favorite). The characters are fascinating--sympathetic but obviously guilty. The least guilty are the first ones to go, building up the tension and the theme of vengeful justice as the story proceeds. The mystery is fascinating and the resolution highly satisfying.

This television adaptation is in three hour-long episodes. They are quite faithful to the book with some minor changes. The poem is "Ten little soldier boys," a politically correct adaptation from the version I read in my youth, when it was "Ten little Indians," though apparently the original name was even less PC. Apparently the current version of the published novel follows the "soldier boy" version. This change didn't really bother me but I did notice it. Another change was the characters occasionally dropping f-bombs, which was more surprising to me. And there's an odd scene when the last four people have a drinking and coke snorting party, presumably to relieve the tension of their immanent demises. I can see why the film makers put the scene in but it goes on too long and doesn't fit too well into the narrative.

The biggest change is a tonal shift. This adaptation is more of a psychological horror thriller. Most of the characters are haunted by their past misdeeds. In addition to flashbacks showing some of the homicides, there are scenes where the present-day characters see their victims on the island. The on-island scares go overboard once or twice but otherwise are great, adding to the tension and giving the show a very cinematic feel. But it looks more like a horror film than a whodunit.

The acting is top notch, what you would expect from a BBC production. The actors communicate their guilt, denial, fear, and suspicion with a realism that draws the viewers in. The period costumes and setting are also convincing.

Overall, this is a fine adaptation of Christie's book and definitely worth watching.