Murder in Three Acts ** (1986, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, Emma Samms, Jonathan Cecil, Fernando Allende, Pedro Armedariz Jr) – Classic Movie Review 7208

Director Gary Nelson’s moderate 1986 Agatha Christie murder thriller Murder in Three Acts offers a new mystery to solve for Peter Ustinov’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who investigates some suspicious deaths by poison after he joins his confidante Captain Hastings in Acapulco, Mexico. When a clergyman called the Rev Mr Babbington (Philip Guilmant) dies of poisoning, and then Dr Strange (Dana Elcar) is poisoned too, Poirot hunts for the murderer.

Jonathan Cecil returns from Thirteen at Dinner (1985) and Dead Man’s Folly as Poirot’s assistant Hastings (though this character is Mr Satterthwaite in the book), while Tony Curtis as American movie star Charles Cartwright and Emma Samms as Daisy Eastman’s daughter Egg bolster up the unremarkable cast. But the film, Ustinov’s fifth as Poirot, is let down by the flabby pacing and lacklustre performances.

The script by Scott Swanton is based on Christie’s 1934 book Three Act Tragedy.

Also in the cast are Dana Elcar as Dr Strange, Lisa Eichhorn as Cynthia Dayton, Nicholas Pryor as Freddie Dayton, Fernando Allende as Ricardo Montoya, Pedro Armendáriz Jr as Colonel Mateo, Frances Lee McCain as Miss Milray, Marian Mercer as Daisy Eastman, Diana Muldaur as Angela Stafford, Concetta Tomei as Janet Crisp, Philip Guilmant as the Rev Mr Babbington, Jacqueline Evans as Mrs Babbington, Martin LaSalle as the doctor, Alma Levy as the nurse, and Julio Monterde as the manager.

Murder in Three Acts is the last of Ustinov’s trilogy of Poirot TV movies, preceded by Dead Man’s Folly and followed by Michael Winner’s cinema movie Appointment with Death (1988).

It is remade in 2010 in the long-running Poirot TV series starring David Suchet, restoring the title to Three Act Tragedy and the London setting, and reinstating Sir Charles Cartwright (played by Martin Shaw) as an English stage actor, instead of Tony Curtis’s American movie star Cartwright.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7208

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