Murder in Three Acts

Watching a less-engaging Agatha Christie movie adaptation is like watching an extended episode of Murder, She Wrote. Like Hercule Poirot, Jessica Fletcher is a walking crime magnet, making you wonder if the world wouldn't be a safer place for the rest of us if people like them were put away for good.

Agatha Christie movies often host a potpourri of stars to be the suspects. Sometimes they're a mix of renowned actors, like Vanessa Redgrave, John Gielgud, Ingrid Bergman et al, in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express; and sometimes, like in Murder in Three Acts, they're a mix of actors you vaguely recall seeing on some TV show or other, like Emma Samms from Dynasty and Diana Muldaur from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Though the former makes for a more attractive package, even when they're the latter, they usually still turn out to be decent viewing, as this movie is.

Ustinov is great, as always, but the movie is your basic made-for-TV fare. The setting is changed from the novel. I think this really hurt the production. You feel more like your watching an episode of "The Love Boat" than an Agatha Christie mystery. The plot is pretty decent, but it feels as if the cast is just going through the motions. And in my opinion, being that many of the stars just seem to have small parts, I find it's rather easy to spot the murderer. Still, it makes sense and everyone does a decent job with what's there, but I'd def. like to see this remade, esp. with David Suchet. Still, not bad for an afternoon's viewing.

This is a fine movie. Watching Peter Ustinov play Poirot is always a treat. The dialogue between him and Hastings provides adequate humor. And the Agatha Christie whodunit puzzle is fairly good.

The film suffers though when compared to two previous Ustinov films: "Death On The Nile", and "Evil Under The Sun", both of which were grand and stately big-budget theatrical productions. By contrast, "Murder In Three Acts" is a made-for-TV movie, and therefore seems small and cheap. The scenery, the music, and the casting cannot compete.

Further, the suspects in "Murder In Three Acts" seem too "normal"; there are no really eccentric characters. The women especially seem bland and undifferentiated.

Still, if you can avoid the temptation to compare this film to other Hercule Poirot films, as well as Christie's source novel, the movie "Murder In Three Acts" is still entertaining.

Having read all of the Agatha Christie books, I have to say that David Suchet was the ultimate Hercule Poirot as written by Agatha Christie. But my favorite Poirot, having nothing whatsoever to do with either Poirot or what Ms. Christie wrote, is Peter Ustinov. It always reminds me of what someone once said about Zero Mostel in "Fiddler on the Roof" - "He's fabulous...but what he does has nothing to do with Fiddler." Ustinov is a sheer delight in every way - he's funny, he's charming, he's warm, he's relaxed - all things that, frankly, Agatha's Hercule just wasn't.

"Murder in Three Acts" is a slapped together TV movie without the usual star power except for Tony Curtis and several TV actors - the gorgeous Emma Samms, who was a big TV star in the '80s, Diana Muldaur, Concetta Tomei, Dana Elcar, Nicholas Pryor, and several others. The characters have been Americanized, and though set in Acapulco, aside from a few exterior shots, you don't get much atmosphere.

Though the story is very interesting (it is, after all, based on an Agatha Christie novel), the production has a certain blandness to it. You know there's a problem when Diana Muldaur announces that she and the Tony Curtis character did "Private Lives" together. Now, I happen to be very fond of Tony Curtis - I did research for his autobiography, he's on the cover of a book I wrote, I found him a very charming man - but come on, PRIVATE LIVES? With that New York accent? I don't think so. He does, however, look really fabulous, and if you watch the scenes in his house carefully, you'll catch some fantastic photos of him on the wall.

It's an okay way to pass the time, and the plot is intriguing, Tony's Tony, Emma's beautiful and sexy, Nicholas Pryor is funny, and Ustinov is - well, he's Poirot even if he's not what Dame Agatha had in mind.

I cannot say the same about this film. Poirot dotters about...Hastings is a wimp! Quite frankly, the whole thing put me to sleep. Read the book instead.