EVIL UNDER THE SUN

UK, 2001, 98 minutes, Colour.
David Suchet, Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson, Pauline Moran, Michael Higgs, Tamsin Malleson, Louise Delamere, Carolyn Pickles, David Mallinson, Russell Tovey, Ian Thompson, David Timson.
Directed by Brian Farnham.

Agatha Christie’s novels have been extraordinarily popular. So have the 70 television versions of Poirot stories featuring David Suchet who has become Poirot in the popular imagination. This version of Evil Under the Sun is much more faithful to the literal detail and characters of the novel than the lavish in 1982 version with Peter Ustinov as Poirot and a star-studded supporting cast.

The film is set on a British resort island (where Agatha Christie actually wrote the novel) where Poirot has been ordered to go after a heart turn. He goes through the routines of the health resort, some people thinking he is there because of the murder but he has a sense of evil under the sun.

There is a murder, the wealthy flirtatious wife of an older serious husband. She flirts with the journalist, his wife, rather mousy, is on holidays with him. There is a variety of characters at the resort, a cycling older woman, a former vicar who is obsessed with loose women, denouncing them as Jezebels, a military man who turns out to be investigating heroin dealing, a boisterous man who loves sailing and, of course, is the heroin dealer. There is also the teenage son of the actress’s husband.

Plenty of suspects, and ingenious solution – which, is virtually the same as the solution in Death on the Nile.

1. The popularity of Agatha Christie novels? The television versions with David Suchet as Poirot?

2. The setting, the period, the island, the tractor transport to the island, the lavish building, health spa, the cliffs, the beaches, the caves? The musical score?

3. Poirot, Hastings’ Argentinian restaurant, with Miss Lemmon, his collapse? His being sent to the island? The meagre meals, no alcohol, the sweating machine…? People thinking that he was there because of the murder? His sense of evil?

4. Patrick Redfern, journalist, flirting with the actress, his quiet wife? The wife and her sketching, taking Lionel with her, his going swimming? The background of the vicar, the initial murder in the woods, his sermons against Jezebeis? Horace Blatt, in the sweat box, the discussions about sailing? Miss Brewster and her cycling? The other members at the resort? The major and his interventions? Mrs Castle and her running of the hotel?

5. The cave, the two birdwatchers without binoculars, their return, the heroin box, pulling guns, arrested? The major and his surveillance of the heroin smuggling?

6. Miss Brewster, the bottle thrown out the window, Redfern asking her to go with him, the discovery of the body on the beach?

7. Hastings and Poirot, their friendship, the investigations? The arrival of Inspector Japp?

8. The interrogations? Clues? Gathering everyone together? The re-enactment of what happened, Lionel, his book, the librarian, Christine’s invitation, altering his watch, taking his glasses and planting them? The timing, Christine and the tan, the bottle, lying as the body, rushing up the ladder, the killing of the actress, her body on the beach?

9. The similarity of this plot to that in Death on the Nile?