EVIL UNDER THE SUN: Blu-ray (EMI/Titan/Mersham, 1982) Kino Lorber

A plushily padded, escapist yarn that failed to capture the tail fires of that brief cinematic renaissance in Dame Agatha Christie’s copious authorship, director, Guy Hamilton’s Evil Under the Sun (1982) lost a boat-load of money at the box office and put an official period to the producing team of John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, who had thus far successfully brought both Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978) to the big screen. Christie’s milieu – the ‘locked room’ murder mystery has its difficulties as re-imagined in this Evil Under the Sun. And it isn’t only the excising of minor characters in Christie’s novel, or the sex-change of one of its central figures – Emily Brewster into Rex Brewster – to capitalize on the effete qualities of a bitchy bon vivant, deliciously realized by Roddy McDowell – that tanks the thrills early on. Relocating the action from Christie’s original North Devon/Smuggler’s Island to a nondescript and sun-drenched oasis somewhere west of Suez in the Adriatic Sea, lends the piece a gorgeous backdrop of shimmering warm waters, craggy cliffs, and sun-soaked golden beaches. It all looks very fine for a travelogue. And Christie’s colorful characters, headlined once more by Sir Peter Ustinov as the mistress of murder’s most famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot, is but one of the delicious bits of casting herein; other notables, Dame Maggie Smith (as hotel proprietress, Daphne Castle), Diana Rigg (as the haughty and exclusive actress, Arlena Stuart Marshall), and James Mason and Sylvia Miles (as scheming husband/wife producers, Odell and Myra Gardener). Colin Blakley is in this one too, but wasted as Sir Horace Blatt, with other toss away bits of misdirection lent to Jane Birkin – as the ever put-upon and perpetually tear-stained wallflower of a wife, Christine Redfern, whose hubby, Patrick (Nicholas Clay) may or may not be a murderer. 

Evil Under the Sun has some nice touches. But ironically, it’s the locale that gets in the way of the suspense. There is just something too laid back and refreshing about these exotic Mediterranean isles to portend of any genuine dangers lurking about. Hence, even when a body does eventually turn up, it is immaculately coiffed, laid majestically against the blistering sands in a slinky/kinky black one-piece bathing suit, and, vaguely bronzed by the sweltering cast of vitamin-D-inducing rays of golden sunshine. The other miscalculation here is using the immortal tunes of Cole Porter as orchestral background. I love Porter. But his sexy lyrics are part of these songs’ charm – unheard in this movie. They are also buoyant and breezy, totally incapable of building the necessary raw tension to make us even remotely care about either the victim of this heinous crime or Poirot’s cleverly contrived powers of deductive logic that, of course, culminate in Ustinov’s spectacular summation of events, possible suspects and eventual ‘not so’ big reveal of the actual murderer. The focus in Anthony Schaffer’s screenplay is mislaid; too heavily weighted on the skillfully assembled, if scaled down assortment of headliners to carry this load. Dialogue is pedestrian at best (odd for Schaffer, who contributed much to Paul Dehn’s screenplay for Murder on the Orient Express and damn near single-handedly wrote Death on the Nile – arguably, the best of the Christie big-screen adaptations). But here, suspense and stylized exchanges between the various conspiring cohorts eludes Schaffer’s genius. And so, the stars wing it on their charisma alone. This too, could have been marginally effective. But much of their performances seem, in retrospect, to be ‘phoned in’. The most enjoyable of the lot is McDowell’s carping homosexual, closely followed by Sylvia Miles’ gritted-teeth/tart-mouthed gargoyle. The least engaging is Nicholas Clay’s preening Patrick who, like his alter ego, appears to believe a bit of shirtless musculature can sell his brooding beefcake as the slick and enterprising villain of the piece. Dull turns too from Maggie Smith – whose casual hoity-toity-ness wears thin about a minute after she appears on the screen, and, James Mason, who just looks perpetually bored with it all.

Evil Under the Sun begins with a murder - a nondescript hiker discovering the strangled remains of a woman on the North York Moors. The victim is later identified as Alice Ruber. Poirot unearths from insurance documents the murdered Yorkshire woman’s husband’s name is Felix. This tidbit will play itself out in the picture’s final act when Poirot, realizes, in Latin, ‘Felix Ruber’ loosely translates into ‘filix’ or ‘red’ and ‘Ruber’ into ‘Fern’ – Redfern – the culprit of both the North Moor murder and the one, as yet to unfold as the central focus of Poirot’s investigation herein.  Instead, at the outset, Poirot is asked to investigate the bait and switch of a diamond, bequeathed by millionaire industrialist, Sir Horace Blatt (Colin Blakely) to his mistress, the arrogant actress, Arlena Stuart Marshall (Diana Rigg) who has since given back this token of his affections after the affair cooled. One problem: the diamond returned to Blatt is a fake. Hence, Poirot agrees to rendezvous with Sir Horace at an Adriatic island retreat and confront Arlena. The only hotel is owned by Daphne Castle (Maggie Smith) – a fading diva. Arlena arrives for a respite with her aloof husband, Kenneth (Denis Quilley) and Kenneth’s impressionable daughter, Linda (Emily Hone), whom she is belligerent and very cruel towards. Alrena also flirts with Patrick, whose wife, Christine is the tortured wallflower.

Unaware Arlena has arranged this rendezvous, Kenneth turns to Daphne for solace. Arlena has also created a financial bottleneck for producers, Odell and Myra Gardener, walking out on her contract – leaving the pair penniless. Writer, Rex Brewster has spent the royalties advanced to him to produce a tell-all biography about Arlena. Mercilessly, she refuses to sign the release for the book’s publication. The next day, Arlena takes a paddle-boat to Ladder Bay. Patrick and Myra sail around the island and observe what appears to be a body lying motionless on the beach. Patrick investigates, presumably, discovering Arlena strangled. Now, Poirot begins his inquiry. Daphne confides, she heard Kenneth in his room typing at the time of the murder. Christine was with Linda at Gull Cove. Horace admits to an argument over the diamond, but left Arlena very much alive, and, promising to explain everything later that very evening. In his search of the cove, Poirot discovers the fake jewel sloppily concealed in a nearby grotto. Patrick’s alibi is Myra. Meanwhile, Rex met Linda entering Gull Cove at noon, precisely the time of the murder, but also reports of a mysterious bottle being hurled from the top of the cliff, damn near to miss striking him in the noggin. Finally, Odell was seen by Daphne, absorbed in a book in the hotel lobby, his noon-day shower delayed by low water pressure, even though no other guest admits to using the facilities at the time.

Assembling the suspects, Poirot accuses Christine and Patrick of the murder. Christine struck Arlena, rendering her unconscious but still very much alive, leaving Patrick to finish the job via strangulation. Next, Christine, posing as Arlena, her face concealed by Arlena’s large red hat, gave the illusion to Myra that her lifeless remains were discovered and mis-identified by Patrick. Having smelled the remnants of Arlena's perfume in the grotto, Poirot deduces Christine set Linda's watch twenty minutes ahead and was responsible for tossing her lotion bottle over the cliff, almost hitting Rex. She then bathed off her sprayed-on tan, thus creating the loss of water pressure to prevent Odell from his shower. Poirot also reasons Patrick and Christine deliberately switched Horace's priceless gemstone with the fake, unbeknownst to Arlena, who was then murdered to further conceal their crime of theft. The Redferns scoff at Poirot’s solution. Indeed, he has offered nothing but ‘pure conjecture’. However, upon departing the hotel, Patrick pays for their stay with a check signed with an ‘R’ reminiscent of the ‘R’ in Felix Ruber – the husband of the victim on the moors. Christine ‘discovered’ the body provide Patrick with an alibi. Patrick now sucker punches Poirot. He awakens a short while later – nursed by Daphne – to discover the Redferns did not escape capture. The pipe Patrick never smoked contained Horace’s priceless gem. As Poirot looks on, the Redferns are taken off the island by the local police. Blatt, Brewster, and the Gardners gleefully celebrate with champagne from Blatt's yacht.

Evil Under the Sun was begun in earnest as a valiant successor to the aforementioned Agatha Christie big screen/all-star whodunits. Indeed, EMI Films’ head of production, Nat Cohen announced Goodwin and Brabourne would also produce Evil Under the Sun as part of a 6-film deal, reportedly worth £6 million. Ironically, EMI ended up committing to 5 other movies, but passed on Evil Under the Sun. Despite the success of Death on the Nile (1978) the studio allowed their interests on Evil Under the Sun to lapse. Then, in March, 1981, studio exec, Barry Spikings broadcast EMI would make Evil Under the Sun for $10 million; a decidedly scaled down affair. An un-credited Barry Sandler joined in the writing duties, the screenplay strictly adhering to Christie's work, truncating scenes for time constraints, but adding humor not present in the novel. Ustinov was very much ‘on board’ with these changes, even suggesting another Poirot was already in the works to immediately follow this movie – likely, Appointment with Death, never made by EMI, but eventually coming out of Cannon in 1988, with Ustinov again reprising the role of Hercule Poirot. Although Ustinov reveled in reincarnating Poirot for the movies, he affectionately reasoned the character – as written – would not have been a man he would have personally liked to know, too “vain, self-contained and finicky”. The bulk Evil Under the Sun was shot in Sa Dragonera, off the west coast of Majorca, with other locations supplied by Lee International Studios in Wembley, London, Yorkshire Dales and Muker, Swaledale. And, in hindsight, the picture would be nothing at all without them.

Comparatively speaking, Evil Under the Sun is a scaled down affair, marginally impressive for its location work, but otherwise, a forgettable entre into the Christie cinema canon. It fails to inspire or, even at its base level, retain our interests for a good crime thriller. The cast is solid. Unfortunately, none is actually giving us their best work respectively here.  Rather, a good many are resting on the laurels of their past reputation and successes to buoy their performances. While there is nothing inherently terrible about any of the acting on tap, there is equally nothing extraordinary or even intermittently remarkable about it either. So, in the end we are left with a glossy little film of the ‘chestnut’ rather than the ‘little gem’ class.  Ustinov’s claim at the time, that ‘Evil’ outdid ‘Death’ was a rather shameless plug for a movie that in no way recaptured the former glory of his debut effort as Christie’s most fastidious crime solver. And now, Evil Under the Sun arrives on Blu-ray state’s side via Kino Lorber’s alliance with StudioCanal. Dirty little secret. Evil Under the Sun has been available via StudioCanal in the U.K. and, in a ‘region free’ offering since 2009 that is virtually identical to this Kino effort. Unlike StudioCanal’s remastering efforts on Death on the Nile (finally, to have found its way to Blu-ray state’s side via Kino in the identical sparkling transfer), Evil Under the Sun was always a uniformly impressive-looking disc.  So, no additional tinkering required.

The image here is bright, with vibrant colors, exceptional clarity, a light smattering of film grain looking very indigenous to its source, and exquisite contrast. Flesh tones are appropriately sun-kissed and tawny. The color palette favors verdant foliage, sandy brown beaches, and sparkling blue skies and waters, with the occasional splash of violent red to augment. It all looks as it should and will surely not disappoint. Minor black crush exists. But this is a movie that takes place, primarily, under the stark light of day. So, the ‘crush’ here is minimal. Age-related artifacts are not an issue either. The main titles, presented over water color paintings of the exotic locales soon to follow, reveal minute traces of the original parchment paper texture on which they were sketched. Very impressive work, but again, already available for the eye of the beholder from StudioCanal in a ‘region free’ box set from 2009, to have included Murder on the Orient Express, an inferior transfer of Death on the Nile (later corrected by StudioCanal in a ‘region locked’ remastering effort) and a passable effort on The Mirror Crack’d (1980).  Kino has shelled out for a new audio commentary by historians, Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. Their reflections occasionally ramble, but there is a lot of good stuff here to digest and reconsider. Bottom line: Evil Under the Sun is not Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie or Peter Ustinov’s finest hour as that master of deductive reasoning. It has its moments, but on the whole is a merely passable movie, fit for the viewing only when nothing better appears to be on. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

1