I'm a huge fan of EUTS since I first saw it like 15 years ago and I keep watching it over and over again.The acting, the script, the score, Maggie Smith and Sylvia Miles...everything rocks.I thought I was the only one to really like it(nobody around me even KNOW the movie!)until I came on this board.
Forget Murder on the Orient-Express and Death on the Nile...Evil under the Sun is one of the most underrated film ever.
I've also been a huge fan of this film for about 25 years! It's just such a wonderful balance of stunning scenery, fantastic musical score, perfect casting and really tight scriptwriting with an appropriate touch of comedy. In fact, I consider it one of very few examples of a film adaptation which is better than the original book. The Suchet version of 2002 is in fact far more faithful to Agatha Christie's novel, which was set on a Cornish island, not an exclusive resort in the Adriatic. Nevertheless, that (2002) adaptation seems pallid and rather depressing when compared to the exuberant costumes, script, sets and casting of this (1982) version.
share[deleted]
So glad to see that I'm not the only one who loves it!
I don't know what it is about this film - but there was something there which made me watch it constantly when I was a kid - I always annoyed my parents by renting it all the time. It's a film that cemented itself in my memory. I watched it again recently after a few years, and unlike many films that pale in comparison to memories - I loved the film, and was drawn in to it, just as I had as a kid all those years ago.
Funny how you can say something in your head and it sounds fine...share
I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes you watch something you loved years ago and find it's not as good as you remembered it to be. But with Evil Under the Sun it gets better every time I see it. Some films are like that, they grab you but you can't explain why.
share[deleted]
...working as an usher back in 1981, and just this trickle of audience that kept showing up, enjoying every second of it.
The tail end of the 70s/80s Christie craze, but the absolute best, "Evil Under the Sun". A compact, easy to follow, amusing mystery tale in a setting, and with characters, that makes you wish you were there, in that crazy resort where a murder happens.
Yes ! It gets better over time.I love it more each time I watch it. It's true not every film is as good as you remember it this is not one of them.
I 'm so glad everyone likes it better than the other one although I agree that series as a whole is much better than their attemtp at EUTS.
It's a good mystery and doesn't take itself too seriously yet is highly entertaining.Very important if you want to watch a whodunit again and again.
[deleted]
I agree with you! I am a big fan of this film. The actors and location as well as the script are simply amazing. Great touch of humor too.
shareThe direction in EUTS is somewhat better than in the series, and production values obviously up a few notches, but otherwise it`s little different - the same broad caricatures passed off as characters, the same largely clunky dialogue. And here we also have one of Christie`s more convoluted stories (which somehow also manages to be surprisingly straight-forward as far as identifying the culprit(s) is concerned). On the other hand, what else could have been expected...? After all, all these throwbacks go right back to Christie`s books themselves that had very little value beyond having these finely constructed mysteries. I`d rate it something like 5,5/10.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
me too, there are movies I watch periodically every year.
In summer I watch this one.
Everything is great, it's 10/10 for me -
I like it all - actors, interesting script, hollywood glamour at rural Adriatic coast, disagreements between actors - I like details like talking behind the back and pretending they like each other, sea scenery as background, humour.
Ustinov was a fun Poirot. Suchet a more serious and closer to what Agatha Christie had in mind I'm sure. It is fun to see Ustinov and Maggie Smith together again after their brilliant outing in Hot Millions.
Also Death On The Nile four years earlier.
And of course we have the beautiful, wildly talented Diana Rigg. Who I've had a crush on since the 1960's.
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."
-Dennis
"Everything is great, it's 10/10 for me -
I like it all - actors, interesting script, hollywood glamour at rural Adriatic coast, disagreements between actors - I like details like talking behind the back and pretending they like each other, sea scenery as background, humour." - oknar1977
Sorry, it's a terrible film. The direction is boring and amateurish. The characters are cartoons and the whole thing is campy, not just Roddy McDowell. It has no atmosphere at all or subtlety. It is completely the wrong tone being jokey and silly and like a sitcom with the characters bitching at each other. How many times in a murder mystery do characters have to say, "I could kill her!" Yes, we know, you have a motive....from the brilliant Murder on the Orient Express it was a quick slide down to Death on the Nile which was pretty bad to this travesty...no wonder they stopped making Christie movies.
share[deleted]
My favourite Poirot film. Nice easy pace so there's time to relish all the acting talent on show.
share