Old Movie Time - "Evil Under The Sun" (1982)

I have just spent a deolightful 1 hour and 57 minutes watching this 1982 movie version of Agatha Christie's whodunit of the same title.  It had everything you would want in an Agatha Christie story....a murder of someone in a confined setting....a limited number of suspects, each of whom had a motive to kill the victim and each of whom had an alibi.  Unfortunately, for the killer, Christie's most famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot also happened to be on the scene.

And as far as a movie goes, it had Peter Ustinov, once again playing Poirot brilliantly, a beautiful  setting, an exclusive resort hotel on an island in the Adriatic Sea, gorgeous costumes, music by Cole Porter, and an all-star cast including James Mason, Roddy McDowell, Sylvia Miles, Jane Birkin, and best of all...Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg.

The movie is worth seeing just to watch Smith and Rigg chew up the scenery as two old stage rivals. Rigg's character made it big time, and Smith's is now forced to running the hotel on the island.  Their meeting once again on the island gives them both some wonderfully bitchy dialog such as this between Smith as Daphne and Rigg as Arlena:

Daphne:  Arlena and I were in the chorus of a show together, not that I could ever compete. Even in those days, she could always throw her legs up in the air higher than any of us... and wider. 

and this:

Arlena : Oh, dear! I'm the last to arrive. 

Daphne: Have a sausage. You must be starving having to wait all that time in your room.

As you can see, Maggie Smith was great at delivering bitchy wisecracks long before "Downton Abbey."

There is also a great scene where Rigg hogs the attention of guests by singing Porter's "You're the Top" while Smith tries to horn in on her.  

Speaking of dialog, the screenplay for this one was written by Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock's "Frenzy", which I wrote about in this space a few days ago.  A look at his credits in IMDB includes other goodies like "Sleuth", "Death On The Nile", and "Murder on the Orient Express."  Quite a resume.

"Evil Under the Sun" will go on nobody's list of all-time great movies, but it was beautiful to look at, fun to watch, and very entertaining.  What more would you want in a movie?

Some photos of Miss Smith and Miss Rigg from the movie....

See what I mean about the costumes?