Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Mystery (1981)

"The Seven Dials Mystery" is yet another great mind game from Agatha Christie, which starts out as a rather lighthearted romp, then turns into a fairly simple spy story, but as it approaches the end it takes several 180-degree plot turns that make you re-examine everything you THOUGHT you knew or had taken for granted. These turns also reveal that James Warwick's somewhat exaggerated "jolly-good-British-fellow" performance is actually well-thought-out. As a film, "The Seven Dials Mystery" is flat, paceless, chatter-y and stagy, and although the production is handsome, the fact that it was shot on video makes it look cheaper than it would otherwise. But the strength of Christie's story carries it through - if you're patient. **1/2 out of 4.

Personally, I rather enjoyed the whole film put together. The beginning was relatively confusing to people who are not familiar with the British style of doing things, as well as the numerous characters which popped up without proper introductions... There were also several misleading moments whereby the character's portrayal of themselves caused you to wonder if this character is important to the whole plot, yet the character disappears after a while. I rather liked Bundle Brent... She added much mischief and fun to the mystery, which seemed distinctive of an Agatha Christie mystery - the element of witty characters added into the story. The ending is really surprising though. All in all a good mystery, though i do agree that the film is not very well directed.

I recently saw the DVD of this film and i must say I Loved It ! Campbell and Warwick are great and John Gielgud is funny. The joy of movies like this is that you can actually understand everything that 's been said because they don't use background music as soon as things become more quiet. As i am from The Netherlands and only could get a copy with no subtitles this is a very great plus. If you like the Partners in crime series or the A C TV movies Secret Adversary or Why Didn't They Ask Evans ? Then you'll like this one as well ! Of course it also provides the things we have come to expect from an Agatha Christie movie. There are several twists in the plot that will leave you guessing who the killer is.

Even hardcore Whodunnit fans will probably be disappointed in this one, a slow, confusing and badly directed tv film, based on an Agatha Christie novel. Cheryl Campbell is sometimes irritating as Lady Brent, while James Warwick is adequately convincing as Jimmy Thesinger. The story is dated and lacks credibility, but this is probably due to the aforementioned poor direction; more interest was shown in recreating the late 30s era (which was achieved, by the way), which resulted in nervous editing and bad acting. Only to pass the time.3