Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse (1997)

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Let's be realistic.

Excellent adaptation.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The leads in movies based on Agatha Christie books should not wear leather jackets, like Colin Buchanan does for about 80% of the time in "The Pale Horse". It gives the movie a too-contemporary feel. It's officially set in the mid-1960s, but it seems to exist more in an unspecific time zone between the 1960s and the 1990s. The other problem with this story is that, for anyone even vaguely familiar with Christie's gimmicks, the entire "satanic witches" section of the plot is one giant transparent red herring, as the deaths that occur have of course a much more practical, factual explanation. The cast is adequate, Jayne Ashbourne as Kate is certainly very cute and likable. ** out of 4.

We rented this expecting to have a cozy evening at home. I came away very disappointed. Most Agatha Christie adaptations are very good, and I was not familiar with this particular story. The first 15 minutes promise an entertaining experience, but then it more or less runs off the tracks.The writing is pretty poor and should have provided additional exposition. Watching this was like reading a novel and skipping the even numbered chapters. I had only a faint clue as what was going on and could not figure out why the characters were doing or why they were doing it, mostly the latter.In the future, I will stick to the Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple stories. With them, you know what you are getting and won't be disappointed.

Very good actors, but one of the worst productions of Agatha Christie's works I've seen. The soundtrack tried to add to the feel of the period but only helped to make the film seem "dated". I've only recently re-discovered Agatha Christie as I had read only a couple of her books as a child in the 50's, and I've now been devouring all the works NetFlix has to offer. I've especially enjoyed Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and was looking forward to seeing one of Agatha Christie's later works having been released in 1961.I was so very disappointed in this "made for TV" movie as it was full of cliché's, miserably wrong music, incredibly bad direction and was one of those movies where I want to yell at the characters on the screen, "How can you be that stupid." I've not read the book but it appears that this could have easily have been an exceptional movie, but instead I felt that my intelligence was being assaulted more and more by the minute. The ending was a huge let-down. What a waste.

Spoilers herein.Christie isn't appreciated much these days. She wasn't great at evoking the tone of a place, nor creating fully dimensional characters. She wasn't a master of the language. Today, we seem to prefer florid language, novel insertions into situations, (cats, priests, exotic locals and professions) and `psychological' weight.But where she excelled was at understanding the elements of the mystery and devising plots that were not just clever but clever in ways that recognize the fact that it is a mystery story. Often the characters include a writer (or someone in showbusiness). And the twist would be an artifact of the telling of the story rather than the action within the story. She might have the narrator be the murderer, or have the murder victim be misidentified by the reader (and incidentally the people involved). Reading her work, at least in the middle years, is a lesson in understanding the form and bending the content to suit. It is a postmodern idea not appreciated in our postmodern times. That is especially so when films are made of her stories. The BBC usually does a `faces and places' treatment, where characters and settings are supposed to amuse us until the end when we are surprised. The ending isn't the resolution of a puzzle, a tussle between writer and reader, but rather an expected but undeserved gift.This particular production is less offensive than the BBC ones, especially the Poirot ones. It bears little resemblance to anything she wrote. But the spirit is dimly there: we have a confusing barrage of individuals and situations. The clues aren't presented fairly enough, but in a story this abbreviated they cannot be. I think there is a lesson here. This script is close in tone to the overwhelming possibilities and suspended clearances of the books. But it is a dreadful film because we expect to know where we are and where we are going. I am convinced that mixing Christie books and film is quite a challenge. I have not seen it done well, and imagine it to be a fruitful filmschool exercise.The business of the MacBeth witches was too clumsy to have come from anyone who actually knows the play.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.