the leading man is my tpye

Takes itself way too seriously

just watch it!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Currently we are enjoying a spate of Joan Hickson's Miss Marple series on our free to air channel. I have watched the other adaptations of Agatha Christie's novel with Geraldine McEwan and while they were fine performances (story lines got a bit muddled) the JH ones are bringing back the original plots and stories. Only one thing is grating me is that the character of Gwenda supposedly from New Zealand is speaking with the most dreadful "Stryne" (Australian) accent. Good grief, the producers only had to go down to Earls Court and pick out a few Kiwis to hear the difference. Also, I get the picture that Gwenda was from a more refined family ( upper middle class) in which her accent would have been more cultured with a hint of "fush & chips" in it. Other than that I'm very much enjoying JH version.

Here Agatha Christie nearly becomes Gothic. A young couple comes back to England and buys a house on a fancy from the wife. And it so happens it is the house where she lived when very young before being sent to New Zealand where she spent her whole life. But it is also the house where her stepmother was assassinated just before she left. She is having strange recollections that are rather disturbing. So she decides to find out about her past in spite of the advice given to her by several people, including Miss Marple that the past should not be meddled with. And sure enough that will cost one more life and the capture of a criminal (once again at the cost of some staging). This story is special because these old Tudor houses are known to be built on strange layouts due to the practice in the past to have secret corridors and secret hiding places for religious difficult times that lasted up to the end of the 18th century, if not even later. But no matter how hard Agatha Christie hints at such a possibility in this Hillside house she manages to keep us away from the secret passage to some all the more secret dungeon with or without skeletons. But a body there is for sure, even if we do not see it.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Sleeping Murder is one of my favourite Agatha Christie books, I will warn you though I find it very creepy. As an adaptation, this version is surprisingly faithful, much more faithful than the Geraldine McEwan adaptation; that started off well but was ruined by some unnecessary plot changes. This 1987 adaptation looks wonderful, with some beautiful photography and lovely scenery and costumes without being too fancy. A number of scenes gave me nightmares when I first saw it, especially the ending. The book had real nervous edge and left some really haunting imagery inside your head, and the adaptation did very well in that aspect. The script is good, the pace isn't that slow, the music was haunting and beautiful and the acting was solid. Joan Hickson as usual is terrific in the title role, and Geraldine Alexander, like Sophia Myles in the recent version, was entirely captivating as Gwenda. Frederick Treves despite the shaky Scottish accent is quite effective as Kennedy, but John Moulder-Brown is rather wooden as Giles. All in all, a very effective adaptation of an excellent book. 9/10 Bethany Cox

POSSIBLE SPOILERSA young man called Giles Reed (Moulder-Brown) returns home with his New Zealand raised wife, Gwenda (Alexander). They buy a house in the small seaside town of Dartmouth in Devon and a number of strange things happen. Gwenda feels that she has been in the house before and she sees a strange apparition on the staircase of a man strangling a pretty blonde woman. The couple contact Miss Marple (Hickson) and after some investigation, they discover that when Gwenda's father sent her from India to live in New Zealand, they stopped off in England for a while and lived in the house that they have just bought. They also discover that Gwenda's father was committed to an asylum because he was obsessed with the fact that he may of strangled Gwenda's step mother and he committed suicide while inside. Giles and Gwenda are convinced that a murder did occur in the house, but the step mother had several affairs and any one of her lovers could have done it. Despite Miss Marple's advice not to dig up the past, they start their own investigation to find the real killer and clear her father's name even though it all happened twenty-years before.SLEEPING MURDER is a long and wordy adaptation of Christie's whodunit, but none of the talk is irrelevant to the film's plot twists and it is superbly acted throughout. Director John Davies does very able work and the settings are well chosen to suit the film's sinister mood. A few flashbacks would of helped things along.