Stylish Films: Murder In Three Acts

Peter Ustinov is one of my favourite Poirot’s, and his first two Poirot films, Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, are probably my favourite Agatha Christie film adaptations, and are traditional Christmas viewing in my house. It is a less known fact, however, that there were further Ustinov as Poirot adaptations during the 1980’s. These included Appointment with Death, a Michael Winner film, and also the TV movies, Dead Man’s Folly, Thirteen at Dinner, and Murder in Three Acts. Yesterday I finally got to watch Murder in Three Acts and rather enjoyed it.

Murder in Three Acts is better known as Three Act Tragedy, and is a lesser Poirot novel, although, as with all Agatha Christie books, it has a very clever premise. It is all about a seemingly random killing by poison, at a dinner party. The victim seems to have no enemies, and the murder is initially believed to be natural causes, until a second murder in similar circumstances occurs. Poirot has to really employ the ‘little grey cells’ to this case, which has the most charming of killers at its heart.

This adaptation, from 1986, transports the action from Cornwall to Acapulco, and, like other 80’s adaptations (I’m thinking Murder with Mirrors, and Murder is Easy) transports the action to the present day, rather than it’s 1930’s origin. To be fair, this works quite well, and doesn’t affect the story, as the setting is pretty gorgeous and glamorous, matching the main characters. As with the ITV adaptation, Mr Satterthwaite is discarded, with Hastings being added here as Poirot’s way in to the dinner, which does work quite well, as we were told that Hastings had moved to South America after his wedding to Dulcie, although that was supposedly to Argentina, rather than Brazil.

The main draw to this film, other than Ustinov himself, who I absolutely adore, is Tony Curtis in the lead role of Charles Cartwright. An acting legend playing an acting legend is bound to be a winner, and Curtis is great here in his second Christie adaptation after The Mirror Crack’d. Emma Samms adds some glamour playing ‘Egg’, the much younger object of Charles’s attention and the key to the whole mystery, although she doesn’t actually realise this. The rest of the cast is fine, although pretty unremarkable, but, after all, this is a TV movie.

You can currently watch the whole movie on Youtube, along with many other Agatha adaptations.

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