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Sparkling Cyanide (1983)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
9/25
9/25:
Sparking Cyanide brings out the worst of 80's.
The football shoulder pads, the copious makeup, the dated hairstyles, the old-looking furniture,
the airy performances...and this is an Agatha Christie film?!? Are her stuff supposed to get an all-star
treatment like Murder on the Orient Express and
Death on the Nile? Instead, it's a bland cast of nobodies save
for a few.
At least, there's a murder mystery which is precisely the reason what I came for. I actually had my eyes set
on George's secretary (Pamela Bellwood) as the one who did it. It's only because she was secretly in love
with him, but why? He's so old. When George was later killed, it completely changed everything, and I thought
for a while that he was faking his own death, hence the element of "surprise." Lucilla (Nancy Marchand) became
the red herring, forcing me to focus on her. It was George's secretary who did it after all in concert with
a mystery man who would be obviously involved from the get-go.
Given everything that happened, the movie has been redeemed in the final thirty minutes and can be thought of
"rewatchable" to try to put everything together in mind clearly. The problem is not knowing everybody's
ulterior motive (this is where I got confused the most). At the end, when Tony Browne (Anthony Andrews)
explained everything, I was like, "Yeah, duh...that's because most of the information was withheld from me."
But the transfer of the entire story from England to the United States is most bewildering, especially when
law enforcement is concerned.
All in all, as far as Agatha Christie films go, Sparking Cyanide is a fair choice.