Evil Under the Sun
It was the King of Tyrania’s summer palace on an island in the Adriatic Sea, now it is a hotel run by former actress Daphne Castle, the guests assembled including producers Odell and Myra Gardner, frustrated with Arlena Marshall who abandoned their show mid-run, the flighty diva present with her husband Kenneth and his daughter Linda, both of whom she mistreats, Rex Brewster who has written a book about Arlena’s indiscretions, and bickering couple Patrick and Christine Redfern.
Patrick and Arlena’s assignations obvious and causing embarrassment to their respective spouses, delayed en route is Sir Horace Blatt who seeks to recover the diamond he gifted Arlena before she similarly abandoned him, while already present is Blatt’s agent Hercule Poirot, observing with a keen eye as Arlena is found strangled on the beach, all of the guests having had reason to dislike her but each of them with an alibi as to their whereabouts, though all are reliant on another suspect for corroboration.
“The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and yet you forget that everywhere there is Evil Under the Sun,” states Poirot, Peter Ustinov in his second outing in the role of Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective following Death on the Nile, adapted from the 1941 novel by The Wicker Man’s Anthony Shaffer and directed by former four-time Bond man Guy Hamilton, released in 1982 and relocating the action from Devon to a location shoot in Majorca to better fit the glamorous themes and ensemble.
With cocktails and barbed resentment at eight sharp, all are conspicuously wealthy and dress to be noticed, Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg aiming to outshine each other as former stage rivals Daphne and Arlena, while Jane Birkin pouts under shrouding layers as downtrodden Christine, her impossibly handsome and impossible to control husband Patrick played by Nicholas Clay, while Roddy McDowell is Rex, bitter that Arlena will not sign the release on his biography and that his swimsuit is not as revealing as Patrick’s daring trunks.
The fourth major Christie adaptation produced by EMI over an eight year period, carried by the quirky and spiky ensemble Evil Under the Sun is undeniably lavish and slickly structured, as would be expected of the source material, but feels flat as events are re-enacted from the different points of view, Rashomon without the rush, the final reveal dependent on a hefty coincidence and Poirot having in his possession a specific document he would have had no reason to bring on holiday unless he somehow suspected a connection even before the killing.
Restored in 4K as part of StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics range, the new edition of Evil Under the Sun is supported by an audio commentary, a “making of” featurette, a video essay by David Cairns and a set of interviews with costume designer Anthony Powell, uncredited co-writer Barry Sandler, producer Richard Goodwin and Emily Hone who played teenager Linda, the only surviving member of the principal cast, along with the original trailer and behind-the-scenes and costume galleries.
Evil Under the Sun will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from StudioCanal from Monday 24th November alongside Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and The Mirror Crack’d and a box set containing all four films, The Agatha Christie Collection
