Hercule Poirot: Tödliche Parties

Agatha Christie's Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot and his ever faithful Tonto like companion Captain Hastings are in Acapulco for Murder In Three Acts. As you gather by the title their are three murders, but their connection to each other is in some cases non-existent and to the murderer they are known in varying degrees of acquaintanceship.

The first is of a clergyman Philip Guilmant at a cocktail party given by retired expatriate actor Tony Curtis when a lethal cocktail is given the victim. At another cocktail party with a different setting the same happens to Dr. Dana Elcar. Lastly a poor catatonic woman in an asylum is slipped a box of chocolates laced with the same poison. The old switch is used like in many a magician's act.

Peter Ustinov as Poirot is present at the first and that was the perpetrator's fatal mistake. As Dana Elcar says all too prophetically for him, crime seems to follow him around.

Agatha Christie purists will object to the way poor Jonathan Cecil is treated like such a boob. He's not in the David Suchet BBC series. It's very much like Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson who slowly became a befuddled idiot in the Universal Sherlock Holmes movies.

Still the film is all right not up to the standard of Ustinov big screen Hercule Poirot films. And the murderer when revealed truly steals the film.

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Having read all of the Agatha Christie books, I have to say that David Suchet was the ultimate Hercule Poirot as written by Agatha Christie. But my favorite Poirot, having nothing whatsoever to do with either Poirot or what Ms. Christie wrote, is Peter Ustinov. It always reminds me of what someone once said about Zero Mostel in "Fiddler on the Roof" - "He's fabulous...but what he does has nothing to do with Fiddler." Ustinov is a sheer delight in every way - he's funny, he's charming, he's warm, he's relaxed - all things that, frankly, Agatha's Hercule just wasn't.

"Murder in Three Acts" is a slapped together TV movie without the usual star power except for Tony Curtis and several TV actors - the gorgeous Emma Samms, who was a big TV star in the '80s, Diana Muldaur, Concetta Tomei, Dana Elcar, Nicholas Pryor, and several others. The characters have been Americanized, and though set in Acapulco, aside from a few exterior shots, you don't get much atmosphere.

Though the story is very interesting (it is, after all, based on an Agatha Christie novel), the production has a certain blandness to it. You know there's a problem when Diana Muldaur announces that she and the Tony Curtis character did "Private Lives" together. Now, I happen to be very fond of Tony Curtis - I did research for his autobiography, he's on the cover of a book I wrote, I found him a very charming man - but come on, PRIVATE LIVES? With that New York accent? I don't think so. He does, however, look really fabulous, and if you watch the scenes in his house carefully, you'll catch some fantastic photos of him on the wall.

It's an okay way to pass the time, and the plot is intriguing, Tony's Tony, Emma's beautiful and sexy, Nicholas Pryor is funny, and Ustinov is - well, he's Poirot even if he's not what Dame Agatha had in mind.

Ustinov is great, as always, but the movie is your basic made-for-TV fare. The setting is changed from the novel. I think this really hurt the production. You feel more like your watching an episode of "The Love Boat" than an Agatha Christie mystery. The plot is pretty decent, but it feels as if the cast is just going through the motions. And in my opinion, being that many of the stars just seem to have small parts, I find it's rather easy to spot the murderer. Still, it makes sense and everyone does a decent job with what's there, but I'd def. like to see this remade, esp. with David Suchet. Still, not bad for an afternoon's viewing.

"Murder in Three Acts" starts off rather poorly: the updating of the action to the 80's takes some getting used to, Hastings is portrayed as too much of a buffoon, and even Peter Ustinov himself seems to be hamming it up a bit too much in his first scenes. However, he gets more serious later on, and his climactic verbal reconstruction of the crimes is as delightful as ever - I just love the way he emphasizes certain words. The plot itself is quite clever - it begins with an apparently motiveless murder that turns out to be part of a grander scheme. For a TV movie, "Murder in Three Acts" has rather high production values: the Acapulco locations are beautiful, the houses and the hotels are lavish. But the cast cannot compare with those of Ustinov's theatrical Poirot outings, and most of the characters are very poorly defined. Still, if you are a mystery fan, this one is just about worth having in your collection. (**1/2)

Murder In Three Acts certainly isn't terrible, but compared to Death On the Nile and Evil under The Sun, it has a certain blandness to it. That I can understand because it is a TV film, so would be limited in budget in comparison. There is some lavish scenery, costumes and locations, and the acting is good on the whole. Peter Ustinov certainly seems to be enjoying himself as the dapper detective, while Tony Curtis, Lisa Eichlorn and Emma Samms give able support. Jonathan Cecil is wonderfully naive as Hastings as well. However despite a good cast, and the lovely production values, the film does have a number of failings. One was the script, badly underdeveloped in places, and bore little resemblance to the book, which is brilliant by the way, I suggest you read it. There are numerous plot changes too, even characters's names were changed, Hermione Lytton Gore's name was changed to Jennifer for some obscure reason, and Bartholemew Strange's portrayal wasn't at all what I imagined. And I did think the murders were clumsily handled. However, there are a number of redeeming qualities, it is very entertaining and enjoyable, but isn't like the book. 7/10 Bethany Cox