Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. 'Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?' she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent.
UK
UK
Double entrée: soirée Spider's Web + l'épisode de Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp
Spider's Web: 3 1/2 étoiles + coeur. Le film est d'une absolue laideur (qu'est-ce qu'on pouvait attendre d'autre d'un téléfilm des années 80?), mais nonobstant les affreuses nuances de tons de vert composant l'image terriblement terne, c'était assez bien. Si Hitchcock l'avait réalisé, ça aurait été absolument glorieux (une belle occasion manquée, car il se serait beaucoup amusé avec la pièce principale du film —c'est adapté d'une pièce de théâtre d'Agatha Christie (que je n'ai jamais lue, alors je ne connaissais pas la fin!)— et ça n'était pas sans me rappeler Dial M for Murder, mais en plus laid).
Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the…
That this was first broadcast on a Boxing Day evening tells you all you need to know: light froth, plumply delivered. And so it is.
Penelope Keith does what she does and holds the figurative French doors together. Adapted from a Christie stage play, not a novel, finds the style trapped in a West End amber along with Noel and Ivor. I presume this is how The Mousetrap operates (almost a suffix to say “still running after xx years”): an amping-up short of pastiche. Perfectly acceptable for the forthcoming mince pies though.
A comedy mystery from Agatha Christie, but most of the "comedy" in this version only comes from Penelope Keith's winning smiles and smirks!
Glynis Johns did the original filmed version of this soooooo much better. If interested in Agatha Christie's #2 most popular play see the 1960 version instead of this 1982 version.
4.75/10
SPIDER'S WEB (1982) colour, 103m.
Directed by Basil Coleman.
This DELIGHTFULLY filmed 1982 BBC television version of the 1954 West End play by Agatha Christie goes completely HAYWIRE.
Caressing all puzzle conventions in rapid speed, bordering on screwball comedy, yet manages to continually challenge my opinion of what should happen next.
Penelope Keith is to the manor married. She has three reliable male friends. There is a nutty female gardener and a married couple as servants.
Murder, fraud, theft and much monkey business occurs.
Available in a R2 (2017) DVD with English subtitles from Dazzler Media.
Had never heard of this before I held it in my hand and promptly bought it.
REALLY SUPERB for golden age detective puzzle aficionados.
I had a great time watching Spider's Web. A TV film adaptation of Agatha Christie's famous play, that is propelled by a wonderfully comic Penelope Keith performance as Clarissa Hailsham-Brown. The film feels like a play, it has that kind of energy and relaxed direction. But it manages to maintain a high pace, unlikely twists and lot of silliness, but within the structures of a real mystery. The mystery itself is quite easy to unravel, once you realise everything with the husband, the foreign office and the minister is a complete detour. I rather enjoyed Christie playing with my expectations and playing with my guesswork. Every scene with Thorley Walters, Robert Flymng, and David Yelland is a delight, as Keith marshals them around the screen and around mystery. A very pleasing 105 minutes, if you like Christie as much as I do.
Murder amongst the toffs in an original Agatha Christie play that isn't The Mousetrap or Witness for the Prosecution. Penelope Keith flounces about in a charming turn as the mistress of the household who may or may not have committed a murder. There may be death but everyone is having such fun.
Oh how I love movies made in the 80s/90s and set in the 40s... this is now one of my favourite Agatha Christie adaptations.
The slow paced, comedic, and cozy environment takes away the horror of a murder, and makes for a very enjoyable watch!
With false identity and confusion worthy of a Shakespearean comedy, it almost makes it into my top five!
And I looooove how it was filmed on only one set! It would make a fabulous stage play.
(Surprise surprise Milena I have yet ANOTHER idea for the play)
I love my plays, and so it's probably natural that I took to this Christie in play-treatment mode much more than some of her more famous film adaptations. I don't think I've been this smitten with something Christie since I first saw Witness for the Prosecution a decade ago (and it turns out she wrote this during the final rehearsals for Witness). This '82 BBC teleplay is very well done, a cracking cast playing an enjoyable bunch of characters, and the play itself is the very epitome of a fun night out, is charming, compelling and very tongue-in-cheek with just enough mystery and panic in its stage-bound thrift to keep it whimsically whipping along. Like Jack Trevor Story's concurrent The…
Ich hab schon die Verfilmung dieses Stoffes von 1960 gesehen. Die war schon nicht so gut. Aber diese ist leider nicht viel besser. Die Figuren waren im Film von 1960 viel sympathischer und individueller, in diesem kann man die männlichen Figuren kaum unterscheiden. Ansonsten fügt der Film dem Stoff nichts Neues hinzu und war für mich dann hauptsächlich langweilig.
Auch ist der Film schlechter inszeniert als der andere, so ist zum Beispiel die Entdeckung der Leiche durch Clarissa im 1960er viel besser gemacht.
