User Reviews

As an avid fan of both the TV films and the books, I can honestly say that this adaptation of "The Hollow" is both faithful to its original material and also adds a certain sparkle to an otherwise weaker Agatha Christie story. Everything from the casting, to the beautiful costumes, to the enchanting music engrossed me right until the very end. This show is well known for its high production values, and almost always never fails to deliver.

In particular I was impressed with the portrayal of Henrietta Savernake. One of my favourite minor Christie characters, Megan Dodds was perfect as the "not terribly truthful" but beautiful Henrietta, and was exactly how I imagined her. Jonathan Cake gives a solid performance as the cheating John Christow and even manages to make the audience empathise with his character, something of which surprised me as John is not a likable character at all in the book! And of course we come to the character of Gerda Christow, played with integrity by Claire Price. She was utterly fantastic I thought, emphasising the character's fragility and inner strength as you will see later on in the film with ease.

Sarah Miles as the scatterbrained Lucy Angkatell was both amusing and endearing to watch, and Edward Hardwicke's welcome portrayal of her husband Henry was perfect also. The outrageous and often humorous portrayal of Veronica Cray by Lysette Anthony provided some light relief from the seriousness of the film.

The only niggle I really have about the film was how Edward and Midge's relationship appeared to be rushed and not explained particularly well - which I assume was down to a lack of screen time, but this does not detract from the overall success of the adaptation.

As usual, David Suchet is perfect as our little detective. In my opinion he is the definitive Poirot and his dedication to the character shines in this. Wonderfully enchanting, "The Hollow" is among one of the best of the Poirot adaptations.

This is an absolutely true and faithful adaptation of 'The Hollow'. It could be argued that the actual mystery here is not one Christie's best but what makes 'The Hollow' special is the characterisation and I found the actors here, more or less without exception, were perfect in their parts. In such a uniformly good cast it's difficult to select stand out performances but I have to say that Sarah Miles is just perfect as Lucy Angkatell. What is extraordinary is that she not only conveys Lucy's dottiness, tactlessness and her more lovable qualities BUT she also manages to pull off the underlying truth that in fact, Lucy is not really all that nice! Megan Dodds is also very good as Henrietta and Claire Price very affecting as Gerda. John Christow is really quite an unlikeable character but Jonathan Cake nevertheless manages to make us see what his women see in him.

As I said, the script follows the story quite faithfully. The only disconcerting thing I found was that Midge and Edward's relationship really comes out of nowhere and I do believe that some of it must have ended up on the cutting room floor! Theirs a secondary story however and the primary story is very well done. The whole thing looks beautiful as well, really capturing a perfect English autumn.

Its a beautiful film in every respect and well worth seeing.

This episode is a surprisingly good one thanks in large part to a particularly strong cast. Sarah Miles, Edward Fox and Megan Dodds (an actor I had never heard of before although undoubtedly had seen her) were especially good. Suchet as Poirot was not as annoying as he sometimes is in later episodes and his final scene with Henrietta is quite interesting and indeed his portrayal throughout the movie is spot on. There are a plethora of suspects in the murder of Dr. Christow, a good- looking but controlling, self-centered man. Christie played fair with the reader and if one wanted to bother doing so it could pretty easily be figured out who the murderer was - all the clues were there. The episode could have been much improved by having Inspector Japp instead of Inspector Spence; yes, I know it was Spence and not Japp in the book. Still would have been better with Jackson as Japp.

An another one of Agatha Christie's country house whodunnits, The Hollow is a story about a murder case that happens during a country weekend where Hercule Poirot is spending time at his cottage. He's invited to a dinner party next door at the lavish home of Lady Angkatell, where he gets to meet the colorful family: the eccentric Lady Angkatell, her artist cousin Henrietta, the bland Gerda Christow who arrives with her playboy husband John, etc. Veronica Cray, a one-time fiancée of John and a celebrated actress, crashes the party with the intention of catching up with him, and the two end up having sex while Gerda is asleep at the house. The following day, however, he's found bleeding into the swimming pool to his death, with Gerda standing there, a gun in her hand. As usual, Poirot takes on the task of finding the guilty one, and there's a whole array of suspects to choose from, as usual. In terms of the Poirot series, this one of the best episodes when it comes to the production design-the house, the grounds and the costumes are breathtaking. John Christow's outfits are timelessly elegant and could just as well be straight off the current runways. Henrietta, her cars and clothes are the female equivalent of him. Then there's the hopelessly dainty, boring Gerda and her counterpart, the gloriously quirky Lady Angkatell, who keeps obsessing about lunch even before the corpse has cooled. If there's anything I hate about some of the Poirots is that it turns out that your first suspect is the actual killer, and the whole plot is about a detour on the way to him/her. Still, definitely one to enjoy. I've already seen it twice.

I adore David Suchet, of course, and the enjoyed the glimpses of England's green and pleasant land.

But . . .

It was hard to connect with the film without a sympathetic character. Poor Gerda was a simp, though my respect for her rose at the end. Henrietta was an iceberg, and John a cad (though easy on the eyes). Veronica and Gudgeon bordered on cartoon characters. Lucy was a self-absorbed twit, though some of that may have been an act. Henry was close to a cipher. Edward seemed genuinely nice but a bit dim, and I didn't see enough of Midge to form an impression of her.

This isn't one of those "locked room" mysteries in which it turns out that none of the suspects could have done it. Not like "Ten Little Indians". Any one of the half dozen or so visitors to The Hollow, an isolated rural mansion, could have done it. In fact one of them, the dead man's jealous wife, was found standing over his dying body with a smoking pistol in her hand. But she's promptly gotten out of the way as a suspect because, as it turns out, the ballistics of her gun don't match the bullet in the victim.

At least this is one of the tales in which you can keep the characters straight. They look different from one another, and they include some familiar faces -- Sarah Miles, Edward Hardwicke, Lysette Anthony, Edward Fox -- and at least one of the less familiar faces is memorable of its own accord. Megan Dodds as Henrietta Savemake is one of those blond English beauties with intense sky-blue eyes and a nose like that prow of a sailing ship. All perform flawlessly.

It was rather a shock though to see Sarah Miles as the half-loony middle-aged wife of good old reliable Edward Hardwicke. I remember her best as the teen-aged temptress who drives Olivier mad in "Term of Trial," and as the semi-incestuous, totally nude sister of Dirk Bogarde in "The Servant," and as the proper young Devonshire nymphomaniac in "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea." Megan Dodds, the exquisite blond, gets the palm for looks. Beauty is so ephemeral but it's the first thing we notice about a person -- unless the person is aiming a cannon at us. Kind of silly too. A foolish millimeter here or there, a subtle arrangement of the soft parts of the face, and we have the kind of gorgeous person who winds up a movie star with no talent, a Rob Lowe, or who is married to a doctor and who thinks that Hippocrates was the original liar.

Don't get me started on the scientific studies of attractiveness that have appeared over the last two decades or so. Well, I'll mention one finding. They become sexually active at an earlier age. Big surprise, right?

I hate to ramble on like this but I'm a psychologist and, after all, what is there to say about the movie, really, if you can't reveal the details of the plot, let alone the mystery's solution? The period detail is, as always in this series, impeccable. There's very little levity in the series, for which reason I generally prefer the big screen Poirots. No one in the series has been half as funny as Angela Lansbury festooned with cheap jewelry in "Death on the Nile."

A good deal of effort has gone into this production and it's not bad. Some of the motivation is a little weak, I thought, and left unexplained. And a lady who has abetted a murder is in turn allowed to go free by Poirot at the end. What are you guilty of if you abet an abettor? What the hell does it mean, to "abet" something in the first place? I'd call my lawyer about this if I didn't think he'd charge an outlandish fee to answer a simple question.

In a better civilization, this and many other of the David Suchet movies would be released in theaters. The plots are fabulous (no, I'd no clue who had done it, but the clues were all there if I'd been more imaginative - the best kind of mystery), the production values astounding, the acting (from Edward Fox, Sarah Miles, Lysette Anthony, Megan Dodds, and of course David Suchet as Hercule Poirot) simply perfect, the dialogue wonderful, the music and sens of suspense and tension just wonderful stuff.

One of the pleasures of these Hercule Poirot movies for a man is how many beautiful women star in them! Here were have two - the sexy sinuous Megan Doods and the stunning Lysette Anthony.

You really can't go wrong renting these - they're just wonderful - like the most wonderful dinner in the most wonderful restaurant with the most perfect company you can imagine - your mind constantly working because it's all there and you struggle but by keeping your mind constantly thinking can keep up with everything - and the settings gorgeous.

I can't think of movies that stimulate thought more than these Hercule Poirot/David Suchet movies. It's impossible to over-praise them - and I had never seen one before a few months ago nor read an Agatha Christie.