Just after having moved into his new cottage in the English country, Hercule Poirot gets an invitation to dinner from Sir Henry and Lady Angkatell, the owners of a large mansion nearby. But the next day, one of the guests is found shot near the pool, and his clumsy wife is holding a revolver a few steps away....
This Agatha Christie mystery is somewhat thin, though the killer's plan is still very clever. It's the exquisite filming and cinematography that elevate the story to a higher level. This episode mostly keeps the serious tone of "Five Little Pigs" and "Sad Cypress", but contains more dark humor than them. The cast includes possibly the two most famous actors to have worked in the series by this point, Edward Fox (as the butler) and Sarah Miles (as Lady Angkatell), though the standout performance is given by the dazzlingly beautiful Megan Dodds as the ahead-of-her-time Henrietta: her one-on-one confrontations with Suchet sparkle and are the highlights of the film. Oh, and since an English police inspector does get involved in the case, I think they could have brought Philip Jackson back for this one. (***)
This Agatha Christie mystery is somewhat thin, though the killer's plan is still very clever. It's the exquisite filming and cinematography that elevate the story to a higher level. This episode mostly keeps the serious tone of "Five Little Pigs" and "Sad Cypress", but contains more dark humor than them. The cast includes possibly the two most famous actors to have worked in the series by this point, Edward Fox (as the butler) and Sarah Miles (as Lady Angkatell), though the standout performance is given by the dazzlingly beautiful Megan Dodds as the ahead-of-her-time Henrietta: her one-on-one confrontations with Suchet sparkle and are the highlights of the film. Oh, and since an English police inspector does get involved in the case, I think they could have brought Philip Jackson back for this one. (***)