This month over at Five Books For we’ve been looking at summery books – the kind of book where you can feel the heat rising off the pages. Perfect for reading by the pool of you’re on holiday, or even in the rain if you just want to imagine you’re by the pool instead. There are great summery books in pretty much every genre and this month here at Great Adaptations today we’re looking at Agatha Christie’s Evil Under The Sun, first published in 1941.
Agatha Christie, often described as the Queen of Crime, has sold more than two billion copies of her books and is the best-selling fiction writer of all time. Lots of her books have been adapted, whether for TV or film, including the recent big budget Kenneth Branagh adaptations of some of the Poirot novels (please discuss! Are you a fan? I’d love to hear your thoughts) but the adaptation of Evil Under The Sun probably qualifies as vintage now and is, I think, much better for it.
The legendary Poirot is on holiday. He’s staying at an exclusive resort in Devon, and as always with Christie, the other guests are a mixed bunch. We have an attractive but widely-disliked young woman called Arlena, who is holidaying with her husband Kenneth and her stepdaughter Linda, who she treats appallingly; a handsome teacher and his timid wife; a retired Major, a vicar, a spinster (!) and a couple of others: a very Christie-esque assortment indeed. When Arlena is found strangled on the beach of a secluded cove, Poirot finds his holiday spirit rapidly disappearing.
Much of the mystery revolves around the fact that the resort is on an island, with the geography of the island playing an important role on the various alibis, which everyone seems to have. Poirot must use his skills of deduction and observation to work out which alibi is false, and how the seemingly-impossible murder could possibly have been committed. Of course it’s an ingenious plot, probably one of Christie’s cleverest solutions, which is saying something.
There’s even a (very) small love story in the background, which gives the book more of a happy ending than a lot of Christie’s novels, although it’s by no means the main focus of the book.
Whether you’re already an Agatha Christie fan or just love a mystery or detective story, Evil Under The Sun is the perfect summery read.
As for the movie… WELL. Where to start?
Released in 1982, we have an all-star cast: Cole Porter did the music, Jane Birkin and Diana Rigg feature and Dame Maggie Smith (yes, Professor McGonagall!) plays the appropriately named Daphne Castle, the former mistress of the King of Tyrania, who has been gifted his former summer castle/palace (presumably as thanks for being a great mistress as she heads into mistress-retirement), which she’s turned into a luxury hotel and resort.
There is much despairing over the locals (so difficult to get the staff these days, etc) and many jokes about how the Tyranian military had one successful engagement back in 1193 that is still celebrated today, lest we should forget what an odd country we’re in.
Furthermore, in the film, Poirot isn’t actually on holiday but instead is investigating the disappearance of a rare and valuable Tiffany diamond on behalf of a London insurance company. He finds out that Arlena, upon being asked to return the diamond to her lover (a millionaire with his own yacht, an incredibly broad Yorkshire accent and a Hitler-style moustache), has substituted a paste copy and kept the original. So Poirot travels to the island to recover the diamond, risking the perils of seasickness to fulfil his purpose. I never thought that miming vomiting could be funny but Ustinov somehow manages it.
There is a seeming non-sequitur in the opening sequence of the film as a body is found on the Yorkshire moors, but of course we can rely on Poirot to work out the connection to our glamorous getaway and reveal it in traditional fashion when he gathers all the suspects together at the end.
While the murder and solution to it are the same as the book, the other characters have been changed in various ways. In the film, there’s an old friend of Arlena’s who has written her biography and already spent the advance on it, only to find that Arlena won’t sign the release for the book to be published. He spends the whole film wearing a sailor suit (yes, for real). There are also a couple of American theatre producers whose show Arlena has quit, costing them huge amounts of money, and Daphne/Dame Maggie is an old rival of Arlena’s herself. She gets some brilliantly caustic lines and of course she delivers each one perfectly.
The camera work on Arlena and Daphne when they’re insulting each other reminded me a bit of Dynasty, or perhaps a telenovela: plenty of close up face shots – it’s fabulously soapy.
Poirot himself is played by Peter Ustinov. He has none of David Suchet’s suavity, and I must admit that when I picture Poirot, it’s usually David Suchet who I see in my mind’s eye, perhaps because the long-running Poirot TV series was so ubiquitous when I was growing up; I’m pretty sure any Brit my age would also picture Suchet if asked to think of a Poirot.
However, Ustinov brings a genial charm to the role, albeit that of a faintly comical bear. Watching him do a magic trick with an egg to amuse a grumpy teenager is… different. There’s a great scene where he goes for a swim and gets out of the water after just a few moments, although he does walk in the ankle-depth water making swimming motions with his arms first, and then fibs about having a lovely refreshing swim when he gets back to the hotel. I like him a lot – I had never realised that Poirot could be so fun!
Now, let’s take a moment for the fashion. Aside from the aforementioned sailor suit (on a grown man!), Poirot’s beach gear is one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
I’m not convinced that people were still wearing that style of swimming apparel in the late 1970s/early 1980s, which is clearly when the movie is set, but I enjoyed seeing it nonetheless.
There are some incredible caftans, some astonishing hats, and of course some great moustaches. And the jewellery! Honestly, it’s worth watching for the fashion and the 80s feels alone.
As you might expect, Arlena gets the most fun dresses – lots of sequins and sparkles, as well as a decorative turban or two.
Anthony Powell, the costume designer, had a long and illustrious career and even worked on the Indiana Jones movies, winning various Oscars and Baftas along the way, although none for this particular film, which is mind-boggling. This is costume design full of joy and exuberance.
As for the 80s references, at one point Dame Maggie serves cocktails and canapes and there are cocktail sausages on sticks, protruding from what might be half of an orange. It brought back very happy memories of all the cheese and pineapple hedgehogs at the birthday parties of my 80s childhood.
There are also decoratively-cut vegetables and the kind of British English dialect that only makes sense if you read Enid Blyton as a child. The words tickety boo, poppycock and balderdash all make at least one appearance (you could have fun doing some kind of drinking bingo game with this movie, were you so inclined) and Arlena is described at one point as a “snake-eyed hussy”.
I looked up Anthony Shaffer, the screenwriter, and found out he also wrote The Wicker Man, which I have never seen but I understand is considered a classic of the horror genre, as well as being the screenwriter for Murder On The Orient Express and, much later, Sommersby, so it seems like this film must have had not just a great cast but also lots of talent generally.
If you love campy, comical movies with great plots and even more fantastic costuming, then this is the summer movie for you. It’s great fun and keeps all of the suspense of Christie’s original book but adds the extra element of the missing diamond to the mystery so skillfully that I can’t help but think she would approve.
Image: themostinept