Sparkling Cyanide (1983) [D: Robert Michael Lewis. Anthony Andrews, Deborah Raffin, Pamela Bellwood] Transplanted to Los Angeles, with a British private eye and a local cop co-operating on the case, this isn’t Agatha Christie’s story, but it’s close enough to give us what all Christies supply: plentiful red herrings, numerous misinterpretations, and the slow revelation of the essential facts. There’s even the scene in which the sleuth gets all the suspects together and sifts through the clues to arrive at the truth. This version was made for TV, which means it softened and even avoided the dark subtexts. This makes for a rather bland movie, competently acted, photographed, and scripted, but lacking the sense of evil that pervades all of Christie’s stories, and which more recent adaptations take pains to show. **
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