Watch Ordeal by Innocence For Free

I love this movie so much

the audience applauded

So much average

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

In this realization of yet another Agatha Christie novel there is a good cast who gives average acting , nice set design , a twisted intrigue and logic absent . An American Paleontologist called Dr. Arthur Calgary (Donald Sutherland) visits Mister Argyle (Christopher Plummer) to give him an address book that belongs to his son Jack Argyle (most of the scenes featuring Jacko Argyle were cut because of budgetary reasons) , but the latter has been executed , condemned for murder his mother (all of Faye Dunaway's cameo is a black and white flashback) . Calgary has proof that the convicted killer is innocent , but no one , neither Police (Michael Elphick's police inspector, modeled to some extent after a harder-nosed American-style police officer) , nor villagers wish to reopen the case . Once the murder was solved , the real mystery began and Calgary learns that justice has been ill served in a small British community . After the clues have been shown we will get a chance to give the answer with Calgary finding out about the culprit at a twisted finale with outstanding surprises . Who is the killer? , can he find the true guilty?The film is a detective story with Sutherland as an amateur sleuth , in which you are the detective ; being middlingly shot , though filmmaker conjures up some atmospheric scenes . Too much red herrings it makes a little bit boring, pedestrian , endless and overlong . Stellar cast , but frankly wasted and interpretations are almost all phoned in . In the picture there are mystery , emotion , murders , suspense , pointless scenes and gorgeous outdoors . It packs a very good British support casting such as Sarah Miles , though miscast as Faye Dunaway's daughter , Ian McShane as Philip Durant , Diana Quick as Gwenda Vaughan , Annette Crosbie as Kirsten Lindstrom , Michael Elphick as Inspector Huish , George Innes as Archie Leach , and a young Phoebe Nicholls as Tina Argyle in some nudism scenes . The movie gets a lush costume design and acceptable production by known Cannon films , Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan , being well set in 1950s England .Colorful and glowing cinematography in Eastmancolor by excellent cameraman Billy Williams . Filmed on location in Dartmouth, Devon, England, UK ; the scene dealing with shooting a rabbit in the woods was filmed in New Jersey and not Devon, where the rest of the film was shot , this was a scene added after principal photography had been completed and Christopher Plummer could not return to work in England for tax reasons . The inappropriate and anti-climatic soundtrack was not by Dave Brubeck but by Pino Donaggio, who wrote his typical , lush and beautiful score ; when the film didn't test well, they decided to jettison the Donaggio score and replace it with Dave Brubeck music. Brubeck included an obtrusive jazz score seems to belong to some other film , but was told he'd have two weeks to write an original score , he said no ; they then agreed that they'd use already existing Brubeck tunes and newly record them . The picture was a Box office flop , though received a Royal Premiere in the presence of HM Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip . The motion picture was regularly directed by Desmond Davis though contains some flaws and poor edition . Davis is an an expert on TV movies and episodes , he also filmed some movies such as the notorious ¨Clash of titans¨, ¨Girl with green eyes¨ , ¨Smashing time¨, ¨The uncle ¨and a Sherlock Holmes flick , ¨The sign of four¨.

It is difficult to describe this film without profanity. The rights to the book were clearly bought because of the title. I am a purist Agatha Christie fan, so I dislike adaptations which spoil her work. Normally, after the first three or four viewings, they grow on me (It happened with "Appointment with Death", it happened with the remake of "Murder on the Orient Express" and it happened with the remake of "Sparkling Cyanide"). I still hate this film. The cast are talented, but wasted - especially Faye Dunaway, who has about three words. The music is completely out of place. I expected them to start playing "The Merry Old Land of Oz" at the hanging. The story is unraveled ploddingly; a fiasco. I didn't understand it until I read the book. This is a pure waste of film.

This is indeed one of the weakest films based on Agatha Christie's work, a lifeless, muddled mystery that clearly lacks the grace (and the budget!) of its predecessors ("Death On The Nile", "Evil Under The Sun") and Donald Sutherland is a pale shadow of Peter Ustinov as far as screen detectives go (of course, he is playing a character much less interesting than Poirot). The film manages to coast as far as it does on the strength of Christie's plot alone (all her plots have a certain amount of inherent interest), but the direction is hopelessly flat. (*1/2)

The film begins with some style with the viewer taking a leisure boat ride to a small village in England with a pleasant Dave Brubeck score in the background. Brubeck's score continues through the movie and by the first half hour becomes annoying due to its over use. Donald Sutherland is layed back as an American doctor who after a two year expedition to Antarctica learns he was the only alibi to a hitch hiking stranger accused of murder and ultimately hung. True to Agatha Christie Sutherland becomes a sleuth and we are introduced to the stranger's family and associates. All the actors do a good job but are given little to do. Rarely do we see them interact with each other and nearly the entire film Donald Sutherland is interviewing each of the cast one-on-one...including the police! It doesn't seem any of the suspects get much screen time at all. Mid-way the director makes a truly terrible decision to replay some of the audio from previous scenes over present scenes (to represent Donald Sutherland thinking) including muddled whispering under more of Dave Brubeck's score. The plot is such a boring mess and impossible to keep up with. We never meet anyone long enough to remember their name! By the end of the film it becomes clear it really doesn't matter. At the beginning the police tells Donald Sutherland not to get involved that it is not worth it and at the end Donald and the viewers agree. THEN WHY MAKE THE FILM?????? The one joyous spark to the entire film was Cassie Stuart (Isabella in BBC's "Northanger Abbey") as the innocent stranger's wife. Her face and voice literally lit up the dark and damp film in her two scenes which occur in the last twenty minutes of the movie. She has such fun with her topless scene she should have won a special award just for attempting to bring some entertainment to an otherwise dreary movie.