Sparkling Cyanide

Sparkling Cyanide was a definite favourite as a youngster, and it still holds up well today, yes the hair and makeup are very 1983, there are mullets, rouged cheekbones and printed dresses galore, but they all add to the charm of the film.

The book is rather good, it's a cleverly written story, and the changes that were made to the film actually help with the setting. A time when American producers believed anyone English needed an RP accent.

The acting is a little shaky at times. Anthony Andrews is rather good, wonderfully English. For years I was told Aunt Lucilla was a man, you'll believe most things as a child!

All in all it's a fun film, definitely better then the stale remake! For the ultimate version of this story you have to check out Poirot's Yellow Iris.

7/10

I am a fan of Agatha Christie, and I quite enjoyed Sparkling Cyanide. The 80s updating aside, the story and dialogue is fairly faithful. The locations/sets are really quite nice and the photography is good enough. Some of the hairstyles, make-up and fashions are on the tacky side, but I can live with that, if anything it added to Sparkling Cyanide's fun.

The story is intact and very interesting to watch, the final solution I feel could have been developed a little more though and could have done with being less rushed. When it comes to the pace, it probably doesn't help that the film is perhaps too short, but some of it felt a little rushed, while some of the direction is flat and the music is annoying overdoing it with the jauntiness. Although there is a bit of cheese in abundance, the dialogue is entertaining and sticks well to the story.

The acting is nothing exceptional, but it is serviceable enough. Deborah Raffin comes off best, I'd say the way her character is written and explored- she is very spunky here- is a marginal improvement over the source material, and Raffin is very good indeed. Anthony Andrews is dashing and likable and seems to be having fun.

Overall, quite good, nothing special but watchable. 6/10 Bethany Cox

No, I have not read the book, nor read any Agatha Christie (when so many of them are done into movies? Why read?) but I would see this one on the telly years ago and I guess I strived to actually solve it to see how intelligent I was and there was no way I would have guessed the ending.

Now I don't know how it occurred in the book, but the little glitch in this movie with Nancy Marchand being the last person to leave the dinner table was about the most remarkable plot twist I have ever seen.

I really didn't follow how it could be recreated with Anthony Andrews changing his seat toward the end with only two other people, but the main dinner table scene, actually I think it was the second murder, totally blew me away.

I could have stood to watch it become a stronger focus of the story actually.

Yes, the movie is updated, very eighties. Truthfully I think I would rather have seen this story done in the thirties or forties, but if this stands as the only available imagery of this story available (apparently there was one made in 2003. I wonder if that one was any good.) then it is worth checking out if you aren't a diehard Christie fan and just like to watch a decent mystery.

It definitely was a different mystery, that's for sure.

I saw some criticisms over at YouTube from Agatha Christie purists who resented the American location of this made for television film. I also believe that Christie novels should always be in their original settings, but this was an all right production. And Anthony Andrews as the lead sleuth in Sparkling Cyanide is as English as you can get.

Andrews is hobnobbing with the rich and somewhat famous and strikes up an acquaintance with Deborah Raffin who is visiting her sister Christine Belford who is currently married to Josef Sommer, but deep in an affair with the married David Huffman. I've already given a few reasons for a murder and others come out during the investigation by LAPD homicide detective Harry Morgan.

Belford is victim number one as she drinks some champagne laced with cyanide at a dinner party. Later on Sommer who thinks he's Hercule Poirot gathers all the suspects together at a duplication of the same dinner party and he gets the cyanide champagne as well.

A matter as simple as the seating arrangements provides the solution.

I'm sure the original English version is better, but this certainly will do for less fussy Christie fans.

This was fun to watch, mainly because of people like Anthony Andrews whom I feel I don't see enough at best. I think it would have been far more entertaining and taken more seriously, had it not been billed as "Agatha Christie". One look at the scenery, sets, and costumes tells us that it was not set in Christie's originally-intended places nor at the times she knew. When movie-makers start toying with the author's intent, the result is questionable and sometimes disastrous. Because the cast was good, this one was not disastrous, but definitely questionable; if we tune in for a good old-fashioned Christie, we'll be disappointed because this clearly isn't it! If we view it just on its own, and don't think of it as Christie, we'll have a better chance of enjoying it on its own merit. I think it's worth a couple of hours of viewing, but I'd also recommend reading the book and trying to find a version that's truer to the original.