VHS : Sparkling Cyanide [1989]

Rating: - Agatha Christie meets Dallas
This ' adaptation ' bears little resemblance to the novel . The book keeps you on the edge of your seat with captivating twists & turns . The TV movie is rather like mediocre soap opera . If Agatha Christie had written an episode of Dallas then it would have been like this . I have long maintained that given the fact that there was a Poirot short story with a similar plot line called The Yellow Iris then the solution was obvious . They could have written out Colonel Race & brought in Captain Hasting's ( they excluded Mr Satterwaite from Murder In Three Acts on that basis ) and brought in Poirot . In short they could have used Poirot & Hastings , stuck to the basic story line of Sparkling Cyanide and called the TV movie The Yellow Iris . The actors were weak & going through the motions , the story was shallow and all the glitz & glamour cannot disguise this . Seeing Sir Peter Ustinov and Johnathan Cecil turn up as Poirot & Hastings would have been a gift . It was so feeble even Helen Hayes cropping up as Miss Marple would have been an improvement ! A real pity since the novel was brilliant !