Watch Thirteen at Dinner For Free

Why so much hype?

not as good as all the hype

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This is the first of the three made for TV movie adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels. It's probably the best of three, which sadly doesen't mean much. All three of them are bad ("the other are "Dead man's foley" and "Murder in three acts"). All of them have low and cheesy production values , obvious dramatic commercial pauses and American feel to it. They also have been updated from the 30's to mid-80's. Why ? Well because it was probably cheaper that way. This along should tell you how much "effort" was put into making those movies.Peter Ustinov has nothing to do with Poirot as written. He doesn't look like him and doesn't have his quirks. His Poirot is more like a clown who strangely seems to be intelligent. I have to say that Ustinov's version of the character while not my favourite and not really loyal to the books is kinda OK in it's own right. Ustinov does manages to make his character likable , charming and overall memorable. Ustinov is definitely the best thing in those movies.Appearing here as Inspector Japp, David Suchet later played Hercule Poirot in the TV series Poirot (1989) and subsequent TV specials, including Poirot: Lord Edgware Dies (2000), another version of this story. It was strange to see Suchet as Japp and yet fun. His Japp is much more nasty version than the one from the TV series. Faye Dunaway doesn't have that much to play in her double role , but she definitely does good job.The rest of the cast is mediocre at the best. Jonathan Cecil who plays Hastings (Poirot friend) is incredibly annoying ( I mean both his acting and dumb look). The rest is rather forgettable.The original Christie novel is great and both simple and very sly whodunit. The movie follows the original plot faithfully. Unfortunately , the script plods a bit and delivery is not all it could be. The biggest problem are: updating the story from 30's to 80's. The motive makes sense in the conservative 30's , but not in the liberal 80's. And it's not really hard to figure out who the murderer is (not like in the book) ! The script is not altogether clear on some of Poirot's conclusions, or how he came to them. It's too bad , because this was one of Christie's best books.Director Lou Antonio directs the whole thing in a very bland , superficial way . There is no sense of joy here or tension here. It seems he wasn't really interested in this project. Too bad, because you obviously feel it while watching the movie. A great director said : "The only time I feel that I'm wasting my time while watching a movie is when I've feel that the movie makers didn't put there heart in it" . It's not an exact quote , but it sums up my feelings completely.There are some little things I liked here : the comedy is restricted , the film is shot on location around London , we see Poirot's apartment and we meet Japp. It can't really save this movie from being a failure , but at least it isn't a total failure. I give it 1/10.

I absolutely loved the movie! It's my second favorite adaptation of Poirot novels (after Death on the Nile). The actors are brilliant, especially Peter Ustinov and Faye Dunaway. The changes made to the novel plot were minor, and they didn't spoil the movie. The intrigue is just as thrilling as it was in the book.I liked the characters being practically the same as in the novel. None of the major ones was omitted, and everyone almost always looked and behaved just as Dame Agatha Christie had portrayed them.Only one thing annoyed me a little: the plot was modernized. I don't like it, because it usually changes the atmosphere of the movie. But here I rarely noticed it (except for the very beginning of the film), so it's not a big defect.So, I give the movie 10 stars out of 10.

So, lately, I've been conducting a Hercule Poirot retrospective of sorts. Today I saw the 1985 film Thirteen At Dinner (based on the book of the same name). This is the fourth Poirot I have seen featuring Peter Ustinov as the Belgian detective. To many (myself included), David Suchet IS Poirot. Yet there is something Ustinov's Poirot has that Suchet's lacks: charm. Ustinov is funny and subtly charismatic - I can completely understand how the detective would be successful at interrogation. He does not always need to employ threats to receive his answers. A simple smile or an understanding observation can frequently invite the confidence of a suspect. Thirteen at Dinner I rank as the second best of the Ustinov Poirot films, behind only Death on the Nile. The attempt to modernize the story-line was very well done. Usually an attempt to modernize appears hackneyed and awkward. Rod Browning's teleplay flows well, allowing for the retention of most of the original clues, and the direction achieves a sense of suspense in the final denouement. The supporting cast was good too, with a minor but important turn by Bill Nighy. Faye Dunaway is beautiful and effective in just about all her scenes; without her I do no think the picture would work, as she takes what could be very vapid lines and manages to make an effective character out of them. Also impressive is a much younger David Suchet as Inspector Japp. There are a few shortcomings. Given Dunaway's acting abilities, I had hoped for more scenes with her. The movie was made for TV, so there are a few annoying breaks in the action for commercial slots. Hastings (played by Jonathan Cecil) is an almost invisible caricature of the devoted friend who documents the case. (This not Cecil's fault, who injects an element of dry English wit into the proceedings on occasion). And, finally, there are the usual problems I have found in translating Agatha Christie to the big screen. The largest issue is usually that her books follow the problems and events that occur when as many as a dozen people are in one locale for a period of time (nearly always involving murder). Many-threaded narratives such as these tend to be clumsy and fragmented when transferred to a visual medium. Happily, the resulting choppiness is minimized in Thirteen at Dinner. While a trifle long and slow, it is a quality production in which good acting takes the film much farther than the quality of its lines.

A new batch of old TeeVee Christie adaptations have become available on DVD. I've been marching through them valiantly, looking for anything of value. Here it is. This one is good.The story on which it is based is one of Christie's more interesting experiments in playing with the mystery form: moving the narrative structure from one untrusted device to another. These sorts of narrative folds are challenging for filmmakers, which is why I movie versions of Agatha sleight of hand.Here, the adapters did something clever in changing the whole focus of the story from the dinner in question to the surrounding lives of the actors (and the aristocrats, same thing). If you ignore the generally cheesy production values, you'll be faced with one of the best Christie film adaptations I know.But the real gem is Ustinov's Poirot. Now I know I am in the minority here, but I find his Poirot the most satisfying. Its a tricky thing, making these evaluations, but the reason why has to do with his relationship to the process of discovery. With Marple, the process is a matter of already knowing what needs to be known about why things occur. All she has to do is match the circumstances she finds with what patterns she has stored.Poirot is a different sort. He is engaged in a genuine battle with evil, an obsession which he camouflages as a way to address boredom. His method is closer to the Sherlock model, reasoning from cause; following paths and possibilities. When you travel with a real Poirot, you are always living in the future, many speculative futures mapped onto data from the past to extend cause. So the second murder in a Poirot mystery is always preventable, but for his openness to too many possibilities. He then punishes himself, resulting in his most characteristic personality traits.TeeVee has taken the detective in a different direction. The engagement in the mystery is simply to present a series of baffling scenes and then explain them at the end. Along the way, you have to be, well, "entertained." So they create characters to do so. In the books, the humor was laid on top of the detective spine. Its because though Christie was a great plot designer, she was poor when it came to wordsmithery. She made up for this by creating engaging characters. The formula is reversed in TeeVee. That's why you have Suchet's Poirot, and Brett's Holmes. Their twitching and poking makes them amusing regardless of what happens around them. Ustinov creates a Poirot more in the spirit of one engaged with the narrative, and inspired by the drive to deduce.The bonus here is that his foil is on screen, Inspector Japp. Japp plays a different role in the detection than Holmes' Lestrade. He is competent, but limited in the ability to live in the future. He is, in fact, a junior Poirot. Here he is played by the very David Suchet who would become the much admired Poirot in a later series. His mannerisms are apparent here and distracting.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.