Evil Under the Sun (1982 film)
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| Evil Under the Sun | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Guy Hamilton |
| Produced by | John Brabourne Richard B. Goodwin |
| Written by | Novel: Agatha Christie Screenplay: Anthony Shaffer Uncredited: Barry Sandler |
| Starring | Peter Ustinov James Mason Maggie Smith Nicholas Clay Jane Birkin Colin Blakely Sylvia Miles Denis Quilley Roddy McDowall Diana Rigg Emily Hone |
| Music by | Cole Porter |
| Cinematography | Christopher Challis |
| Editing by | Richard Marden |
| Distributed by | Columbia-EMI-Warner Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  5 March 1982 |
| Running time | 117 min |
| Country | UK |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Evil Under the Sun is a 1982 British mystery film, based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie.
Tagline: "Holidays can be murder."
Contents |
[edit] Production notes
The screenplay was written by Anthony Shaffer (who had worked on previous Christie films) and an uncredited Barry Sandler. The adaptation stayed fairly close within the plotlines of Christie's work, but truncated scenes for time constraints, removed minor characters and added certain humorous elements that were not present in the novel. Additionally, the novel is set in Devon, but the film is set on an Adriatic island in the fictional kingdom of "Tyrania." The Character line up is also changed a bit. The characters of Rosamund Darnley, Major Barry, and Reverend Stephen Lane are omitted, and the female character of Emily Brewster is now a man named Rex Brewster, played by Roddy McDowall.
The film was shot at Lee International Studios in Wembley, London and on location in Majorca, Spain on the island of Sa Dragonera. It made full use of its location to adequately convey the intricacies of Christie's plot, in which the hotel guests all appear to be at different parts of the island at the time of the murder.
Ustinov was making his second film appearance as Hercule Poirot, having previously played the Belgian detective in Death on the Nile (1978); with Albert Finney having played the role in the earlier Brabourne-produced Murder on the Orient Express. Of the other cast members, Smith and Birkin had also appeared in the same earlier film whilst Quilley and Blakely had featured in the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express. Guy Hamilton had previously directed another Agatha Christie film, The Mirror Crack'd in 1980.
[edit] Plot summary
The story is set on an island at an exclusive hotel, formerly the summer palace of the reigning King of Tyrania, now owned by Daphne Castle (Maggie Smith), who, we are told, received it from the King "for services rendered." Her guests include glamorous actress Arlena Stuart Marshall (Diana Rigg), Sir Horace Blatt (Colin Blakely), a self-made millionaire and recent recipient of a knighthood, Rex Brewster (Roddy McDowall), a Los Angeles based author of an unpublished tell-all biography of Arlena, Odell and Myra Gardener (James Mason and Sylvia Miles), New York theatrical producers, Patrick and Christine Redfern (Nicholas Clay and Jane Birkin), a handsome young man and his mousy wife, Kenneth Marshall (Denis Quilley), Arlena's husband, and Linda Marshall (Emily Hone), Kenneth's teenage daughter and Arlena's stepdaughter.
When Arlena is discovered murdered, Poirot, also staying on the island, quickly discovers that nearly all of the guests had a connection to her and that anyone of them could have wished her dead. Linda hated her stepmother who constantly cheated on her father. Daphne had a prior relationship with Kenneth and thus hated Arlena. Rex was working on a novel about Arlena but she was refusing to allow him to publish it. Horace was trying to retrieve an expensive blue diamond from Arlena (similar to the same hue as the one in Titanic) which he had given to her after a night of passion but she kept putting him off. Odell and Myra were recently upset Arlena had just backed out of a possible Broadway and London show which could cost them millions of dollars. Patrick seemed to be carrying on with Arlena rather indiscreetly thus earning Christine's emnity.
Poirot also discovers that each has an iron clad alibi all hinging around the supposed time of death, sometime between 11:00 and noon as everyone, except Odell, is able to supposedly account for their whereabouts at that time. Every day at noon a cannon sounds to mark the time.
On the morning of the murder, Arlena goes off on her own in a paddleboats for what appears to be a tryst in an empty island bay. Poirot assumes that her assignation is with Patrick, but this seems not to be the case when Patrick arrives shortly afterwards in plain view of Poirot & Kenneth in the hotel lobby.
As the morning progresses, Myra tags along on a boat trip with Patrick who is transparently attempting to rendezvous with Arlena. When they reach the secluded beach, they see the body of a woman on the sand. Patrick clambers ashore, announcing the body to be the strangled corpse of Arlena. Myra goes to fetch help while he waits with the body.
[edit] Alibis and Details
The investigation turns up a number of confusing details. A mysterious bottle has been thrown into the sea, seen by Rex Brewster, and a phantom bath was taken shortly after midday, denied by all of the guests.
Kenneth was in his hotel room typing a reply to a letter which he'd received that morning. This is confirmed by Daphne even though she could not see him from where she was standing as Poirot demonstrated.
Christine was sketching landscapes with Linda during the morning at Gull Cove. On realising the time was 11:55, Christine remembered she had a tennis match at 12:30 back at the hotel and quickly left. Linda said she saw Christine waving at her from the top of the cliff as the cannon went off.
Sir Horace had a loud argument with Arlena on the beach in Ladder Bay where she was later found but his own crew saw the whole exchange and they verified she was alive when he left about half eleven.
Daphne was walking along the top of the cliffs and saw Arlena on the beach at Ladder Bay. She also saw the argument between Arlena and Sir Horace. She then returned to the hotel to chair a staff meeting.
Patrick's alibi was that when he left the hotel at about half eleven for his rendezvous with Arlena, he was accompanied in the speedboat with Myra. En route they saw Sir Horace's yacht sailing towards the hotel. They arrived at Ladder Bay at exactly 12:00 as the noon day gun sounded. Patrick found Arlena dead on the beach, this was witnessed by Myra.
Rex was pedalling his pedalo when he entered Gull Cove at 12:00, he saw Linda there and asked if she'd help him pedal it back. She refused, and so he started to head back to the hotel, on the way he said someone threw a bottle from the cliff. It narrowly missed his head.
Odell claimed he was reading and he was sure no one saw him so he had no alibi. However he was seen, though he did not know it by Daphne and her staff. He did mention he was trying to shower about 12:15 for the tennis game but the water pressure was low because someone was showering at the same time.
[edit] Solution
It later turns out that the plan had been elaborately staged with a simple motive, robbery or, in this case, grand theft. To prove this Poirot checked the hotel register and then read a report he submitted to an insurance firm several months earlier.
The solution to the murder hinges several things: Linda's bathing cap, a bath no one would admit to taking, a mysterious bottle flung into the sea and the fact that people sunbathing from a distance look a lot alike. This came upon the fact that it was actually Christine posing as Arlena's corpse on the beach. She has used a temporary self-tanner to match Arlena’s skin color. Christine posed as Arlena lying on the beach by donning Arlena's bathing costume and face-obscuring Chinese red hat waiting to be "discovered" by Patrick in the plain but distant view of Myra. Arlena, meanwhile, has been struck earlier with a rock by Christine and stashed in a nearby rock grotto.
To establish her alibi she wore the heavy clothes not to protect from sunburn but to cover the self-tanner and her own wristwatch. She had carefully nurtured the notion that she sunburned easily and was the wounded wife while her husband was carrying on a dalliance with Arlena. She had pre-set Linda's twenty minutes before they went sketching ahead to give her the impression it was later than it really was. She even suggested to Linda to wear the bathing cap (common among beachgoers in the 1920's) because it would cover her ears and thus she would not be able to tell if she heard the cannon or not. Before she left the area she took care to re-set Linda's watch to the correct time.
Poirot broke Christine's alibi by pointing out that when Rex was upset when Linda said he did not see him there, he did not go to his second possible witness, Christine. He did not mention seeing Christine there even she had supposedly left Gull Cove just before noon and thus he would have seen her.
When Patrick pointed out his wife had vertigo and thus could not have have climbed down the ladder, Poirot mentions that in order for Linda to have seen her waving she would have to have stood at the edge of the cliff. He tried and he became dizzy so no one with vertigo would have even dared to try.
They also point out that Arlena was strangled and Christine's hands could not have matched the strangle marks. Poirot admitted that was true but that Arlena was strangled later after Myra left, by Patrick.
After Myra leaves the bay, Christine changes out of Arlena's bathing costume, pitches the bottle of self-tanner into the sea and dashes back to the hotel to take a cleansing bath and keep a tennis date. Now, Patrick can strangle Arlena at his leisure in the grotto and eventually be discovered by Poirot to be the cause (along with Christine) of Arlena's demise.
There was one problem -- motive. Christine certainly had motive but where was Patrick's? As he put it "adultery is reprehensible but not criminal". It turned out that Patrick was actually interested in the same diamond Horace wanted and thus switched the real one for a paste copy, probably in the middle of one of his "trysts" with Arlena. There was the chance Arlena could eventually discover the theft and figure out there was only one person who could have done it.
The main problem was proof of guilt and thus the Redferns are about to depart with smugness. Christine, now no longer the vulnerable sympathetic wife but "dressed to kill" (sic), even makes the remark to Daphne about her awful "ensemble". That was when Patrick unwittingly makes the first of his two mistakes proving their guilt. This was when Patrick paid the hotel bill with a check.
Poirot sees the the signature which was not on the register, signed by Christine, and matched the distinct "R" to the insurance form he was reading earlier. It was signed by the husband of a woman who died in an apparent accident in the Moors of northern England a some months earlier. The woman's name was Anne Ruger. A police investigation ensued that it could have been a homicide but a female hiker said she witnessed the accident while the husband Felix was on a train to London. He was seen by witnesses who complained he smoked in a non-smoking compartment, a little too obvious. Poirot was called in but could not determine homicide at that time. The death seemed to parallel this one even though he never met the husband nor the hiker but the coincidence was too great for an investigator like Poirot to ignore. That was why he was reading the insurance report. When Redfern protested that it simply a signature, Poirot pointed out that the pictures of the hiker (Christine) and the grieving husband (Patrick) were being sent by the local police to Scotland Yard and the local authorities.
At that point Patrick makes his second mistake, he puts his pipe in his mouth but then Poirot strikes a match and asks why he doesn't light it. It was never lit during their stay. Poirot takes the pipe and hidden in the tobacco is the diamond. Then he tells Patrick that the main solution came with name game he told a few nights earlier. Redfern, who said he had taught Latin and Italian to kids, said the name Giuseppe Verdi meant "Joe Green" in Italian so Poirot pointed out that "Felix Ruger" meant "Red Fern".
The movie ends with police launch taking the Redferns into custody for two murders and a decoration being announced for Poirot by the King of Tyrania.
[edit] Trivia
When Poirot examines the hotel register for signatures of previous guests, he discovers the names of several international celebrities during the 1930s, including Cole Porter, whose music is featured in the film: Ivor Novello, Maurice Chevalier, Fred Astaire (and his sister Adele Astaire), Charles Chaplin, and possibly Marlene Dietrich. (An entry listing a home address is listed as Berlin, although the signature is illegible aside from the capital M and D). The register is likely a private joke by the filmmakers since it appears on-screen for only a brief second or two.
[edit] Differences between the novel and film
The differences between the film and novel are small, but there are some. Maggie Smith's character, Daphne Castle, has a smaller role in the novel than she does in the film. Also, the character list in the book lists her simply as "Mrs. Castle". Here, she has a first name.
In the novel, it is the character of Emily Brewster who almost gets hit on the head with the falling bottle and discovers Arlena Stuart Marshall's body lying on the beach. The film replaces Emily Brewster with the effeminate character of Rex Brewster who sees the falling bottle and it is Mrs. Gardner who finds Arlena's body.
In the novel, Mrs. Gardner's first name is Carrie. Here it is Myra.
In the novel, when Arlena sees Christine coming down the ladder, she simply hides in the grotto, which is far enough away from where Patrick and Myra (in the book Emily Brewster) find the "body" so she does not hear them. Here she is knocked unconscious.
In the novel by Agatha Christie, the resort was located in England while in the movie it is in the Adriatic.
The final difference is that the Gardners knew who Arlena was but did not have a grudge against her, and there was no tell-all book about Arlena being published.
[edit] External links
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