Murder Is Easy (1982)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

American adaptations of Agatha Christie (especially for television) tend to be on the low end of the scale. It's principally the writing, secondarily the directing – i.e. the writers and directors mold the Christie work into something they *think* American audiences want instead of giving us what we actually *do* want – which, when it comes to English murder mysteries, is the same thing the English want.So, I was greatly taken by surprise so see that *this* adaptation of *Murder is Easy* was NOT bad. It is not grade 'A' quality by a long shot; but it is definitely a high 'B' grade. And it is certainly more faithful to the original than the 2008 adaptation (which has a lot of *very* bizarre flights of fancy that do NOT make for a better story; just a bizarre one).In this version, Luke is not a retired policeman from India but a computer expert from America; but the age difference is the same (or at least Bixby was 20 years older than Down, which is the age difference in the novel). Lavinia Pinkerton has become Lavinia Fullerton for some reason, but she's killed the same way under either surname. Gordon Ragg, Lord Whitfield (no known relation to June) has become Lord Easterfield (in full credit, Lord Gordon Easterfield; but Easterfield would be his lordship, not his surname - so he might still be a Ragg, at least by birth). Honoria Waynflete, Rose Humbleby, and the rest (so far as I can tell) are all the same.The plot develops steadily and cleanly, as the suspense slowly builds. As in the novel, Luke believes the killer is a certain individual – which, of course, is a classic signal to reader and viewer that it must be someone else; but who? Ah, therein lies the mystery – and when the identity of the killer is finally revealed, it *is* a surprise (unless, of course, you have already read the book) because it is somebody whom nobody would suspect.And as long as nobody suspects you ... Murder is Easy.Side Note for Radio Fans: The best adaptation of this novel to date (November 2016) is one that was done a few years ago for BBC Radio 4 by Joy Wilkinson. It stars Patrick Baladi (New Tricks, Poirot), Lydia Leonard (The 39 Steps - 2008 version), Michael Cochrane (Downton Abbey), Marcia Warren (Agatha Raisin, Dangerfield), and a lot of other very good British actors that most Americans will not have heard of.

Basically Agatha Christie is not my cup of tea (Exceptions: "And Then There Were None" & "Murder On The Orient Express"), but this film is different. The reason is Leslie-Anne Down (Bridget Conway), beautiful as always (And perhaps never more so than in this film). Spoilers: The basis for the film is interesting where Luke Williams (Bill Bixby) meets Lavinia Fullerton (Helen Hayes) on a train heading for London because of the mysterious deaths happening in her small Village. When he sees her get run over by a car, and get killed, he realized it is statistically impossible for so many deaths in one small town to occur, so he decides to play amateur detective and prove his theory correct. There he meets and falls in love with Bridget( Who is engaged to a much older man (Major Horton (Patrick Allen). Now although his computer said Bridget was the killer, he refused to believe it, and of course, she is not. Who is the killer? It was pretty obvious, but I will not say. Needless to say, at the end, Maj. Horton who also is NOT the killer, realizes that marriage is not for him, and Luke has a very quick marriage proposal for Bridget, which of course, she accepts and they leave the village and live Happily Ever After. I give it 9/10 stars, mostly for Leslie-Anne but also for Constable Reed (Freddy Jones) who is a fun chap always loving to ride his bike, and is very happy when the small town returns to normal.

Wooden performances, the usual dire changes to make it fit better with the main target audience- how on earth did so may good actors find their way into something as awful as this? I suppose being paid is the answer as it cannot have been challenging in any way shape or form as far as a performance was concerned, they could do this stuff in their sleep.The final scene ( and this isn't a spoiler!) is monumental in its awfulness-I actually sat open mouthed at ineptitude of both the dialogue and performances.I have to write ten lines but there is nothing more to say! I can only thank heaven that I will never have to see this again!

Pretty good mystery. Lesley-Anne Down has never looked better and Bill Bixby portrays the hapless American well enough. Plot twists abound and the viewer is left with a very satisfying mystery. Agatha Christie would approve!