Evil Under the Sun is a 1982 British mystery film, based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie.
Production notes
The screenplay was written by Anthony Shaffer (who had worked on previous Christie films) and an uncredited Barry Sandler. The adaptation stayed fairly close within the plotlines of Christie's work, but truncated scenes for time constraints, removed minor characters and added certain humorous elements that were not present in the novel. Additionally, the novel is set in Devon, but the film is set on an Adriatic island in the fictional kingdom of "Tyrania." The character lineup is also slightly different. Whereas the characters of Rosamund Darnley and Mrs. Castle are merged, the characters of Major Barry and Reverend Stephen Lane are omitted, and the female character of Emily Brewster is now a man named Rex Brewster, played by Roddy McDowall.
Ustinov was making his second film appearance as Hercule Poirot, having previously played the Belgian detective in Death on the Nile (1978); with Albert Finney having played the role in the earlier Brabourne-produced Murder on the Orient Express. Of the other cast members, Maggie Smith and Jane Birkin had also appeared in the earlier film whilst Denis Quilley and Colin Blakely had been in the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express. Guy Hamilton had previously directed another Agatha Christie story, The Mirror Crack'd, in 1980.
Filming locations
The film was shot at Lee International Studios in Wembley, London and on location in Majorca, Spain The actual island used was Sa Dragonera, but only for visual shots. The Actual locations used were the Formentor Beach (39°55′38.6796″N 003°08′22.254″E / 39.927411°N 3.139515°E / 39.927411; 3.139515) for the South of France (Sir Horace's boat), Cala d'en Monjo (39°31′44.7168″N 002°25′50.4948″E / 39.529088°N 2.430693°E / 39.529088; 2.430693) for Daphne's Cove and Hotel (Hotel was a private estate owned by a German, but has now been bought by the Majorca Council and demolished to its foundations which can still be seen today. Gull Cove was a cove on the Formentor Peninsula and Ladder Bay was filmed near Camp De Mer (39°32′9.1968″N 002°24′55.764″E / 39.535888°N 2.41549°E / 39.535888; 2.41549). The other hotel exterior shots were filmed at the Raixa Estate (39°40′50.9628″N 002°40′22.2528″E / 39.680823°N 2.672848°E / 39.680823; 2.672848) north of Palma (currently closed to the public). Finally Poirot boards his boat to the Island from Deiá. The locations were well stitched together to give the appearance of a few locations near each other on a small island when in reality they are spread across Majorca. It made full use of its location to adequately convey the intricacies of Christie's plot, in which the hotel guests all appear to be at different parts of the island at the time of the murder.
The flashback scenes of the finding of the murdered hiker on moors at the beginning of the film were shot in the Yorkshire Dales, England, with the exterior of the Police Station being the former Literary Institute in Muker, Swaledale.[1]
Plot summary
A hiker rushes into the local police station at the moors in Yorkshire. She has found the body of a woman who appears to have been strangled. The victim's name is Alice Ruber but the detectives find no leads.
Hercule Poirot is brought in by an insurance company, asked to check out a blue-hued diamond belonging to Sir Horace Blatt. Poirot notices it is a fake, confirming the opinion of appraisers working on behalf of the firm. They ask him to investigate, so he goes to Blatt's yacht. Blatt is not only surprised at the news of the fake, but expresses resentment that "that woman" could do this to him. Blatt explains he had a torrid affair with a woman he met in New York, and gave her the diamond which he had purchased for US$50,000 or ₤10,000 ($600,000 in 2008 dollars). He asks Poirot to retrieve it.
Poirot goes to an island at an exclusive hotel, formerly the summer palace of the reigning King of Tyrania. It is now owned by Daphne Castle (Maggie Smith), who, we are told, received it from the King "for services rendered." Her guests include:
The Murder
Poirot discovers that each guest has an ironclad alibi hinging around the supposed time of death at some time between 11:00 and noon; all of them, except Odell, claim to be able to account for their whereabouts at that time. Every day at noon a cannon sounds to mark the time—a Tyranian tradition going back to the 13th century, and this sound features in each of the guests' alibis.
On the morning, Arlena goes off on her own in a paddleboat for what appears to be a tryst at an empty island bay. Poirot assumes that her assignation is with Patrick, but this seems not to be the case when the detective and Kenneth witness Patrick arriving in the hotel lobby shortly afterwards.
As the morning progresses, Myra tags along on a boat trip with Patrick, who is transparently attempting to rendezvous with Arlena. When they reach the secluded beach, they see the body of a woman on the sand. Patrick goes ashore, and shortly thereafter announces to Myra that the body is the strangled corpse of Arlena. Myra goes to fetch help while he waits with the body.
Suspects
Poirot quickly discovers that nearly all of the guests had a connection to her and that any one of them could have wished her dead:
- Linda hated her stepmother for constantly cheating on her father.
- Daphne had a prior relationship with Kenneth and never quite got over it. Thus she thoroughly resented Arlena. Moreover, they had a long-standing bitter rivalry going back to their days as chorus girls.
- Rex had written a tell-all biography on Arlena, but she was refusing to allow him to publish it and the publishing house was demanding the return of royalties paid to Brewster.
- Horace admitted that Arlena was the woman he had earlier described to Poirot.
- Odell and Myra were upset that Arlena had just backed out of a possible Broadway and London show, potentially costing them millions of dollars.
- Patrick seemed to be carrying on with Arlena rather indiscreetly, thus earning Christine's enmity.
Alibis and Details
The investigation turns up a number of confusing details. Rex Brewster witnessed a mysterious bottle being thrown into the sea, and someone took a bath shortly after midday, although each guest denies being the bather.
Kenneth was in his hotel room typing a reply to a letter which he'd received that morning. This is confirmed by Daphne even though she could not see him from where she was standing as demonstrated by Poirot.
Christine was sketching landscapes with Linda during the morning at Gull Cove. On realising the time was 11:55, Christine remembered she had a tennis match at 12:30 back at the hotel and quickly left. Christine said that as the midday cannon went off, she was waving to Linda from the top of the cliff as Linda was swimming in the sea. Linda confirms this.
Sir Horace had a loud argument with Arlena on the beach in Ladder Bay where she was later found, but his own crew saw the whole exchange and they verified she was alive when he left at about half past eleven.
Daphne was walking along the top of the cliffs and saw Arlena on the beach at Ladder Bay. She also saw the argument between Arlena and Sir Horace. She then returned to the hotel to chair a staff meeting.
Patrick's alibi was that when he left the hotel at about half past eleven for his rendezvous with Arlena, Myra accompanied him in the speedboat. En route they saw Sir Horace's yacht sailing towards the hotel. They arrived at Ladder Bay as the noonday gun sounded. Patrick found Arlena dead on the beach, witnessed by Myra.
Rex was pedalling his pedalo when he entered Gull Cove at 12:00. Seeing Linda there, he asked if she'd help him pedal it back. She refused, and as he headed back to the hotel, saw someone throw a bottle from the cliff, narrowly missing his head. When Poirot tells him that Linda had denied seeing or talking to him, an agitated Rex gets her to confess in front of both the detective and her father that she has lied.
Odell claims he was reading and he was sure no one saw him so he had no alibi. It transpires, however, that he was seen by Daphne and her staff. He mentions he was trying to take a bath about 12:15 for the tennis game, but the water pressure was low because someone was bathing at the same time.
Solution
It later turns out that the plan has been elaborately staged with a simple motive: robbery, or in this case, grand theft. To prove this Poirot checks the hotel register and then reads a report he submitted to an insurance firm several months earlier.
The solution to the murder hinges on several items: Linda's bathing cap, a bath no one would admit to taking, a mysterious bottle flung into the sea, the particular geography of the island, and the fact that people sunbathing from a distance look similar.
This reveals the fact that it was actually Christine posing as Arlena's corpse on the beach. She had used a temporary self-tanner to match Arlena’s skin color, and donned Arlena's bathing costume and face-obscuring Chinese red hat. She then waited to be "discovered" by Patrick in the plain but distant view of Myra. Arlena, meanwhile, had been struck earlier with a rock by Christine and was unconscious in a nearby rock grotto. Poirot knew Arlena was in the grotto because he had smelled her particular brand of perfume in there and had also found the imitation paste diamond—which had been given to her by Sir Horace during their earlier argument—in there as well.
To establish her alibi Christine wore heavy clothes, not to protect herself from sunburn, but to cover the self-tanner and her own wristwatch. She had carefully nurtured the notion that she sunburned easily and was the wounded wife while her husband was carrying on a dalliance with Arlena. She had pre-set Linda's watch twenty minutes ahead before they went sketching to give her the impression it was later than it really was. She even suggested to Linda to wear the bathing cap (common among beachgoers in the 1920s) because it would cover her ears and thus she would not be able to tell if she heard the cannon or not. Before she left the area she took care to re-set Linda's watch to the correct time.
Poirot disproved Christine's alibi by asking why, when Rex became upset when Linda denied seeing him, did he not go to his second possible witness, Christine? He did not mention seeing Christine at the top of the cliff even as she was supposedly waving to Linda when he arrived in his boat. Moreover when Rex accosted Linda, she did not hear him approach from about three feet away because the bathing cap covered her ears. (To emphasize this point the audio in the movie was muted at that stage.) If Linda could not hear Rex approaching from such a short distance then how could she have heard the cannon?
When Patrick points out his wife has vertigo and thus could not have have climbed down the ladder at the cliff leading to the grotto, Poirot mentions that in order for Linda to have seen Christine waving she would have to have stood at the edge of the cliff. He reveals that he tried and became dizzy, so no one with vertigo would have even dared to try.
The guests also point out that Arlena was strangled and Christine's hands could not have matched the strangle marks. Poirot admitted that was true but that Arlena was strangled later after Myra left, by Patrick.
After Myra leaves the bay, Christine changed out of Arlena's bathing costume, pitched the bottle of self-tanner into the sea and dashed back to the hotel to wash off the self tan and keep a tennis date. Patrick could then strangle Arlena at his leisure in the grotto, and eventually be discovered by Poirot to be the cause (along with Christine) of Arlena's demise.
Motive and Truth
There is one problem: motive. Christine certainly had motive but what was Patrick's? (As he puts it, "adultery may be reprehensible but not criminal".) It turns out that Patrick was actually interested in the same diamond Horace wanted, and thus switched the real one for a paste copy, probably in the middle of one of his "trysts" with Arlena. There was the chance Arlena could eventually discover the theft and figure out there was only one person who could have done it. In fact Arlena would have probably gotten wise to it after her argument with Horace on the beach when he gave her back the paste copy—which would be found after the murder in the grotto by Poirot. The main problem is proof of guilt. Poirot sadly admits he had none, just circumstantial evidence.
As the smug Redferns are about to depart, Christine, now no longer the vulnerable sympathetic wife but dressed to kill, so to speak, confidently remarks, "Give us some time and we may discover how you (Poirot) did it. After all, where were you between 11:30 and noon?" As they are leaving she even remarks to Daphne about her awful ensemble. Then Patrick unwittingly makes the first of two mistakes: he pays the hotel bill with a cheque.
Poirot notes the signature on the cheque and calls Redfern by his alias, Felix Ruber. Poirot realises that Felix Ruber is Latin for Redfern, and remembers that Patrick had earlier mentioned he was a teacher of Italian and Latin. Poirot looks at the cheque and sees a signature which was not on the register (signed by Christine). He explains that he matches the distinct "R" to a signature on the insurance form he was reading earlier, the signature of Felix Ruber, husband of Alice Ruber, the woman who died in an apparent accident on the moors of northern England some months in the past. A police investigation indicated that it could have been a homicide, but a female hiker said she witnessed the accident, and Felix could prove he had been on a train to London. Witnesses complained he smoked in a non-smoking compartment, a little too obviously. Poirot was called in but could not determine homicide at that time. The death seemed to parallel this one even though he never met the husband nor the hiker but the coincidence was too great for an investigator like Poirot to ignore. That was why he was reading the insurance report. When Redfern protests that it's simply a signature, Poirot points out that the pictures of the hiker (Christine) and the grieving husband (Patrick) are being sent by the local police to Scotland Yard and the local authorities.
At that point Patrick makes his second mistake: he puts his pipe in his mouth. Poirot strikes a match and asks Patrick why he doesn't light it, as the pipe has never once been lit during the Redferns' stay. Poirot takes the pipe, empties it and hidden in the tobacco is the diamond. He then reveals to Patrick that the main solution came with a name game he played a few nights earlier. Redfern, who said he had taught Latin to schoolboys, said the name Giuseppe Verdi meant "Joe Green" in Italian so Poirot pointed out that the Latin "Ruber" means "Red Fern".
The movie ends with a police launch taking the Redferns into custody for two murders and a decoration being announced for Poirot by the King of Tyrania.
Differences between the novel and film
The differences between the film and novel are small, but there are some. Maggie Smith's character, Daphne Castle, has a smaller role in the novel than she does in the film. Also, the character list in the book lists her simply as "Mrs. Castle". Here, she has a first name.
In the novel, it is the character of Emily Brewster who almost gets hit on the head with the falling bottle and discovers Arlena Stuart Marshall's body lying on the beach. The film replaces Emily Brewster with the effeminate character of Rex Brewster who sees the falling bottle and it is Mrs. Gardener who finds Arlena's body.
In the novel, Mrs. Gardener's first name is Carrie. Here it is Myra.
In the novel as in the film, when Arlena sees Christine coming down the ladder, she simply hides in the grotto, which is far enough away from where Patrick and Myra (in the book Emily Brewster) find the "body" so she does not hear them. Here she is knocked unconscious.
In the novel by Agatha Christie, the resort was located in Devon, England while in the movie it is in the Adriatic.
The final difference is that the Gardeners knew who Arlena was but did not have a grudge against her, and there was no tell-all book about Arlena being published.
References
External links
