the audience applauded

Don't Believe the Hype

Absolutely brilliant

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The Secret Adversary was Agatha Christie's novel which launched her Nick and Nora Charles characters of Tommy and Tuppence. This story shows how they met and the first case they got involved in.It was back on the Lusitania in 1915 when both were passengers. Some other passengers on that ill-fated ship were involved in a lot of intrigue relating to the late World War. That's over now, but Toria Fuller during the chaos of those passengers abandoning the torpedoed ocean liner grabbed herself a piece of a secret treaty and has had it for lo these many years.Now some Bolsheviks want it to stir up some revolution in the United Kingdom. There's a cell of them operating under the lead of the illusive Mr. Brown. British Intelligence knows about Brown, but no one knows who he is.James Warwick and Francesca Annis as Tommy And Tuppence renew their acquaintance from the Lusitania and get themselves involved in the case as a pair of amateurs. They're needed because the Bolsheviks seem to know all the professionals. They prove to have a knack for solving mysteries.A lot of this might seem melodramatic today, but Agatha Christie was a good observer of the times this was written in. The Russian Revolution had occurred and a lot of governments were pretty uneasy in their seats of power. Christie alludes to a General Strike and she turned out to be a prophet because one did happen in the UK in 1926 a few years after The Secret Adversary came out. It was real enough to the population in the United Kingdom back then.The Secret Adversary is a good introduction to Tommy And Tuppence and proved to a pilot for a BBC series of their mysteries. Recommended for those who think Ms. Christie wrote about Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple exclusively.

Having just read the book, I went looking to see if a film had been made and found this. I felt the filmmakers did a very fine job in two hours and stayed very true to the original story. The actors playing Tuppence and Tommy were a little too old for their characters but looked youthful enough to pull it off.Other reviewers complain about Gavan O'Herlihy playing the American, Hersheimer, however I felt he was believable in the role and didn't distract at all from the story. The scenery, props, clothing, autos and music are authentic to the story's time frame of around 1920 and so even though it was made in 1983, it doesn't feel like an "80's" production and for Christie fans, is definitely worth seeing.

The Secret Adversary serves as the beginning of the BBC series "Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime". A full-length film, I've seen it claimed that it was filmed after the ten episodes of the series, and IMDb lists the series as preceding this film, yet it's the story of how "Partners in Crime" protagonists Tommy and Tuppence meet up as adults and start their sleuthing career, and according to IMDb, at least, it aired a year or so before the series on BBC.It's a decent but flawed film that will probably be enjoyed most by hardcore Christie fans. One main flaw is that the story is too complicated for its own good--probably the result of trying to translate a novel to a two-hour film. There are just too many characters, too many threads, and occasionally, too little explanation of characters and threads.One major problem here is the core of the plot--maybe I'm just lacking some knowledge from the real world that I need to understand it, but the plot hinges on a political document that if found, is predicted (with little lack of certainty) to bring about a complete revolution/overthrow of England. It is never explained why this would be or how anyone could be so certain of it, and I sure couldn't deduce or intuit it from the information given. I was also confused about the implied ethics of the situation--the document seemed to be authentic, yet the "good guys" seemed to want to get it so that they could keep it a secret, so effectively, it is sanctioning the "good guys" lying about some piece of history. Maybe the document was supposed to be more like a Hitchcockian MacGuffin, but if so, it seemed like too many details were given (as well as left out).On the other hand, it didn't help that I'm a bit hard of hearing, that I have an even more difficult time making out English spoken with accents different than mine, and that this DVD didn't have subtitles. But I could pick up most of the dialogue, and I was still occasionally confused about who someone was and why our chief characters were going where they were going and doing what they were doing. Some cuts and scene transitions were very rough dramatically, so that didn't help, either, and the pacing gets a bit draggy at times.The other primary flaw comes with some of the performances, especially Gavan O'Herlihy, playing an American, Julius P. Hersheimmer. He is fairly awkward throughout, and he's an important character. It kills too many scenes. The stars, James Warwick and Francesca Annis, as Tommy and Tuppence, respectively, are much better--enough that I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the series, which I'm also predicting might not be so overcomplicated and underexplained because of being written for a shorter television slot.

If you like the TV series Partners in crime you will like this movie as well. It was filmed after the series but is in fact the story of how Tommy meets Tuppence. It also shows how Alfred comes into their lives. In this story they become involved in a search for a girl who has some very important papers in her possession that could start up a revolution. A group of people , led by a Mister Brown, want to use those papers to overthrow the government. Who this Mister Brown is ,is a mystery up until the end. At one point you will suspect several people of being Mister Brown as is usual in a Christie story. There is a DVD box for sale containing this movie and all ten episodes of the Partners in crime TV series. I have it and love it.