EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Guy Hamilton
Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Jane Birkin,
Roddy McDowall, Diana Rigg, James Mason,
Denis Quilley, Colin Blakely, Nicholas Clay
Belgian (not French) detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) finds himself on a small island in the Adriatic where the center of activity is a luxury hotel run by Maggie Smith. There are other affluent guests, and it takes about half the movie before one of them gets bumped off and Poirot can put his sleuthing skills to work. A murder mystery that gets by on its cast and locations as much as its whodunit plot. The music is Cole Porter, and Ustinov mangles English and French with equal abandon. Other standouts among the suspects: Roddy McDowall as a flaming gossip writer, and Smith and Diana Ring as old theater colleagues who don't much like each other. Filmed in Majorca.
