EVIL UNDER THE SUN

Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith

EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982). Director: Guy Hamilton.

"Even in the old days she would throw her legs up higher than anyone -- and wider." Daphne referring to Arlena.

At a resort run by former showgirl Daphne Castle (Maggie Smith), one of the guests is a former colleague and now star, Arlena Marshall (Diana Rigg of The Avengers). Although married, Arlena is fooling around with Patrick Redfern (Nicholas Clay), who is also married, to the plain-Jane Christine (Jane Birkin of Seven Deaths in the Cats Eye). When Arlena is strangled in an isolated cove, the suspects also include her wannabee biographer Rex Brewster (Roddy McDowall), and the producing team of Myra and Odell Gardener (Sylvia Miles and James Mason). Then there's Arlena's husband, Kenneth (Denis Quilley) and his obnoxious young daughter, Linda (Emily Hone). It is up to the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to find out who the true murderer is. Evil Under the Sun is another over-produced, not quite "all-star" Agatha Christie adaptation, with a script by Anthony Shaffer that makes some changes but doesn't do too much damage to the novel. Overlong, the movie is very slow-paced and often dull, although some of the actors, especially Maggie Smith [Downton Abbey] and James Mason, do their best to keep things interesting with their performances. Mason and Sylvia Miles certainly make a very odd pair, and Miles is vivid if typically vulgar. McDowall does his usual middle-aged fop act. Ustinov is not the perfect Poirot, but he is amusing at times, and indeed the movie often plays like a parody. The picture only really picks up in the final quarter when Poirot assembles the suspects and reveals the clever solution, which (as usual) works better on the printed page than spelled out in wide screen and TechniColor. Still, it sends the audience out possibly fooled into thinking they've seen a better movie than they actually have. The film has absolutely none of the suspense of the novel, and you probably won't even care who killed Arlena. Rigg is excellent as the victim, and Clay and Birkin also make their mark as her lover and his discarded spouse. Smith's character refers to McDowall's with a stupid comment about "cherchez la fruit." The score consists of adaptations of the songs of Cole Porter. Since Porter's bouncy music is hardly appropriate for an alleged movie of suspense and intrigue, it almost kills the movie, lovely tunes notwithstanding, right there. Ustinov also played Poirot in Dead Man's Folly, which was a better Christie adaptation than this.

Verdict: Read Christie's book instead for a much more entertaining experience. **1/2.

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971). Director: Guy Hamilton.

"Making mud pies, double oh seven?" -- Blofeld.

Although it is generally considered that Roger Moore's Bond films -- with a couple of exceptions -- were the most absurd and cartoonish of the series, it was clear that Diamonds are Forever was already a step in that direction. George Lazenby wasn't interested in playing Bond again after On Her Majesty's Secret Service -- possibly a bad career choice -- so Sean Connery was again drafted to do duty as 007. Bond takes the place of a man involved in a stolen diamond pipeline, a scheme that takes him to Las Vegas where Ernst Stavos Blofeld (Charles Gray of The Devil Rides Out) has taken the place of a Howard Hughes-type, Willard White (Jimmy Dean), and where the master villain has yet another diabolical plan that Bond must demolish before the end. Connery is quite good as Bond, Jill St. John [The Lost World] makes an impression as jewel thief Tiffany Case (as does Lana Wood as "Plenty"), and Gray is excellent as the sinister, smirking Blofeld. In Ian Fleming's novel there are two homosexual hit men, but they are not the caricatures of the movie, with Bruce Glover as Wint being even more offensive than Putter Smith as Kidd. The sixties sensibility also includes the two female bodyguards Bambi (Lola Larsen) and Thumper (Trina Parks), who are like a condescending nod to women's lib, but who are dispatched by Bond fairly easily. Leonard Barr is fun as the deadpan comic "Shady Tree." Despite its many flaws, Diamonds Are Forever is very entertaining and colorful, with at least one excellent fight scene in an elevator, a nice bit in a crematorium, and an interesting interlude in a scientific laboratory and an underground desert pipeline, not to mention Bond scaling skyscrapers and the like.

Verdict: Lots of mindless fun.***

A TOUCH OF LARCENY

James Mason and George Sanders

A TOUCH OF LARCENY (1959). Director: Guy Hamilton.

Sure, it isn't fair to review a film for what you were hoping for instead of what it is, but let's face it: When James Mason and George Sanders, both fine actors and masters of sardonic repartee, are cast in the same movie as gentlemen interested in the same lady, you expect a battle of wits, something sophisticated and amusing. Instead, we get this ... Commander Max Easton (Mason) runs into an old acquaintance, Charles Holland (Sanders), and is immediately smitten with his fiancee, Virginia (Vera Miles). Easton pursues the lady while Holland is out of town, but decides that she must have a man with money. So he concocts a scheme to make it look like he's been accused of treason, disappearing for awhile, and then coming back to sue the papers for libel, thereby gaining lots of cash. What an idiot -- right? Perhaps with a certain kind of bumbling comedian in the role, or an actor with a very light touch like Cary Grant, the character might have been more palatable, but while Mason is certainly not bad, he is horrendously miscast. Sanders' role practically amounts to a bit, as he's only in a couple of scenes, and while his attitude toward Easton is appropriate, he's merely dismissed as being priggish. The film is morally confused, to say the least. Vera Miles [The Wrong Man] is fine, and looks beautiful, but this is a case of three actors who are all way above their fairly wretched material.

Verdict: Even with this cast you should skip it if you can. *1/2.

THE MIRROR CRACK'D

Novak, Hudson and Taylor

THE MIRROR CRACK'D (1980).  Director: Guy Hamilton.  Based on "The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side" by Agatha Christie.

"Chin up, darling -- both of them!"

Move star Marina Gregg (Elizabeth Taylor) and her director husband Jason Rudd (Rock Hudson) have taken over a British country estate while in England to film Marina's comeback film when during a party a young fan (Maureen Bennett) talking to Marina is given a poisoned drink and dies. It isn't long before it is determined that Marina was the true target of the poison -- or was she?  Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury) asks questions while her nephew, an Inspector (Edward Fox), investigates, but it's sure bet who'll solve the case first. Agatha Christie got the germ of her idea from an actual tragic incident that happened to actress Gene Tierney, although Marina does not seem otherwise based on that particular movie star. Taylor is perfect casting as the difficult, whiny, needy fading actress going to fat, but that is not to say her performance is any more than passable. Kim Novak is better and much more fun as a movie rival of Marina's who trades bitchy remarks with her. Hudson is okay, if a bit dour and superficial, and Tony Curtis is fun enough as a vulgar producer.  Geraldine Chaplin is Rudd's suspicious secretary, and Charles Gray is his butler. This is better than another adaptation done on Masterpiece Mystery in 2010. Lansbury looks more like Miss Marple than Margaret Rutherford did, but she's not as funny nor meant to be.

Verdict: At least it has an interesting cast and Novak looks sensational. ***.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974). Director: Guy Hamilton.

The film throws out the storyline of Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name, but retains the arch villain, master assassin Scaramanga (who gets one million dollars per hit) and also pits him against Bond. The locale is switched from Jamaica to Southeast Asia, and instead of a bunch of mafioso at a planned resort, the supporting cast includes a sinister businessman and his allies at a Kung Fu school. (As a sop to the Kung Fu/martial arts craze of the time, one of Bond’s associates has two schoolgirl nieces who are experts at karate and join in a battle at one point.) The prize everyone wants in this venture is a solar cell that helps power a huge solar battery and laser gun on Scaramanga’s island retreat. As in the novel Scaramanga -- well-played by Christopher Lee -- has three nipples, and his first long-ago murder had to do with a circus elephant. Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland), 007's former secretary in the novel, is a sort of half-assed agent/assistant in the film. Maude Adams appears as Andrea Anders, who is Scaramanga’s lover but wants Bond to free her of him by killing him. Herve Villichaize is fun as Scaramanga’s little assistant Nick Nack, who hopes his boss will die so he can inherit everything he owns. Dressed in costume as a li’l devil, Nick Nack figures in an amusing scene when Bond is attacked by two huge Sumo wrestlers.

007 does not appear in the lengthy prologue (which depicts a gunfight between Scaramanga and an ill-fated hit man played by Marc Lawrence) except as a life-size dummy. The fat cop, J. W. Pepper, who first appeared in Live and Let Die, shows up again and is just as unfunny as before, serving only to slow down the action and irritate the viewer. Roger Moore is okay doing the rough stuff with the ladies and others – he slaps around Maud Adams at one point when she won’t give him information – but not nearly as convincing at it as Sean Connery was. The climactic duel between Bond and Scaramanga in a kind of fun house atmosphere may have influenced John Gardner when he wrote the climax to his novel "Never Send Flowers." The theme song is mediocre – not one of the worst, but hardly top-drawer, either. Pop singer Lulu does an okay job although her vocal peculiarities may not be to everyone’s liking. M has a headquarters inside the derelict Queen Elizabeth ship we see overturned in the harbor.

The Man with the Golden Gun is not a bad film and will hold your attention, but it is lesser Bond, without a single really outstanding sequence that stays in the memory (although there is some suspense worked up over the business with Bond working on the solar device at the end involving the laser beam). The photography is good but not great, and director Guy Hamilton seems to do little more than cover the action. Some beautiful locations, however. It is an improvement over Live and Let Die but not on the level of the Roger Moore 007s that would come later.

Verdict: Has its moments. **1/2.

LIVE AND LET DIE

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973). Director: Guy Hamilton.

Always one of the lesser Bond flicks, this pic has improved with age, although it will never be top-drawer Bond. The first half is quite good, both suspenseful and intriguing, but then it briefly turns into a Smoky and the Bandit clone with way too much screen time given over to a fat, supposedly comical Southern sheriff trying to get a handle on a boat chase between Bond and his Black pursuers. The movie never quite recovers from this, winding up with a so-so climax in an underground grotto. Jane Seymour as Solitaire and Yaphet Kotto as Dr. Kananga (he merely masquerades as the novel's Mr. Big in this) are comparatively colorless and make little impression; Gloria Hendry does better as Big's double agent. Kananga is in the heroine trade instead of smuggling Bloody Morgan's treasure as in the novel. Never as thrilling as it could have been, but not awful; the only stand-out sequence, however, is when Bond is cornered by a bunch of hungry gators. Quarrel's son, Quarrel Jr., shows up to lend a hand (in the book it was Quarrel himself, but he was killed off in the first Bond movie, Dr. No). In his first outing as James Bond, Roger Moore is excellent. The photography is first-rate as well. The theme song by Paul McCartney is fairly wretched. The novel's best sequences wound up in later Bond movies. NOTE: To read a review of the novel by Ian Fleming, click here.

Verdict: Mediocre Bond. **.