Agatha Christie Classic Mystery Collection (Murder Is Easy/Caribbean Mystery/Murder with Mirrors/Thirteen for Dinner/Dead Man's Folly/Murder in Three Acts/Sparkling Cyanide/The Man in the Brown Suit)

This collection has a combination of Poirot and Ms. Marple movies and two others, 8 in total. Helen Hayes plays Miss Marple, an elderly British lady who gets entangled in a number of mysteries in her small town. Peter Ustinov plays Hercule Poirot, a Belgian private detective. There are a number of guest stars including Bette Davis, Tony Curtis, David Suchet and Olivia de Haviland.A Caribbean Mystery is set in St. Honore where Ms. Marple went for a vacation paid by her nephew after ill health. She runs into Major Palgrave who boasts that he has a picture of a murdered, before showing her the picture, Major Palgrave suddenly changes the subject. Ms. Marple finds him looking at a group of people. Shortly after, Major Palgrave turns up dead. Ms. Marple is sure it is murder and starts inspecting the other people at the hotel. This includes the owners, a clergyman and his sister, a wealthy businessman and his secretary and nurse, an American and his wife, and three other guests. The maid that found Major Palgrave then turns up dead and the owner's wife starts having nightmares. It is up to Ms. Marple to figure out what is going on at the hotel.Murder with Mirrors has Ms. Marple visiting her friend, Carrie Louise at the request of Carrie Louise's son, a lawyer. Carrie Louise's husband turned their house into a halfway house for convicts. Carrie Louise's husband tells Ms. Marple that he believes someone is slowly poisoning Carrie Louise, but he has not told her. Carrie Louise's son comes to the house but shortly later is found murdered. Also, a lot of drama is produced by the convicts, one of them insisting he has a connection to the household. Ms. Marple has to find a way to get the killer and determine what was going on with Carrie Louise.Thirteen for Dinner is a Poirot mystery starting with Poirot attending a performance by an impressionist, Carlotta Adams. He meets Jane Wilkinson who requests that Poirot help her get a divorce. Poirot meets the husband, Lord Edgeware, who states that he already agreed to the divorce. The next day, Lord Edgeware dies and Poirot starts an investigation. Poirot begins to suspect that Carlotta Adams might be involved but before he can question her, she turns up dead. Poirot has to find the thread connecting all these people and find who would want them dead.Dead Man's Folly introduces a new character to the Poirot mysteries, Ariadne Oliver, a mystery writer. Poirot and Hastings, his sidekick are called to a manor in Devon on Ariadne's request. Ariadne is organizing a mystery game but believes that there is something foul going on. The game goes ahead, but a young girl playing the game is found dead. An old man is later dredged from the lake, found dead. One of the ladies of the manor also suddenly disappears. Ariadne, Poirot and Hastings has to find the danger surrounding Dead Man's Folly.Murder in Three Acts, Poirot and Hastings vacation in Acapulco, Mexico. There they run into Charles Cartwright, an American actor at a party along with a clergyman, a writer, Daisy Eastman and her daughter, Egg, Ricardo Montaya and a doctor. Later Babbington is murdered, but no one seems to have opportunity or motive. The crime goes unsolved, but later the doctor also shows up murdered the exact same way. If Poirot does not solve the murder now, the murderer may go away forever.Murder is Easy starts with Luke Fitzwilliam, a professor from MIT, on a train with Lavinia Pinkerton who states she is heading to Scotland Yard to report a murder. Before she can get there, Lavinia dies. Curious, Luke attends the funeral and looks for someone that Lavinia stated would die next, Dr. Humbleby. A couple of days later Dr. Humbleby is found dead. Luke looks at the townspeople and tries to figure out which one could be a serial killer. At the time, he bonds with one of the townspeople, Bridget, however she is entangled with someone.The Man in the Brown Suit, Anne Beddingfield a tourist is a witness to a murder, when looking at the body, she sees a man in a brown suit run from the scene. She books a trip on a boat and runs into a number of people connected to the murder. Sir Eustace Pedler, Suzanne Blair and Colonel Race. She befriends Suzanne and on the boat, she runs into the same intriguing man in the brown suit. Anne keeps investigating and finds that certain items were hidden on the boat she's on. As people realize Anne is investigating, people start trying to stop her, is the man in the brown suit out to help or her harm her?Sparkling Cyanide, the movie starts out at a dinner party where Rosemary Barton, the wife of a lawyer dies. Cyanide is found in Rosemary's drink and a suicide note is discovered, however the circumstances are still suspect. Tony Browne, a guest at the dinner party, starts looking further into the death. Soon later, another body shows up. Aided by Iris, Rosemary's sisters, Tony seeks the truth.

This is a great collection of super fun mysteries. My copy has one strange flaw, the subtitles turn on for a moment in "Dead Man's Folly" but they turn off again after a couple of lines. And it contains my absolute favorite "The Man in the Brown Suit" which is so much fun. I highly recommend this to any hardcore Christie fan. The films are full of great stars, great plot twists, and the 80's hair and costumes are worth the price alone.

A lot of women have played the great sleuth, Miss Marple, of Agatha Christi fame. But, none does it like the First Lady of the Theater..Miss Helen Hayes. Totally enjoyable movies and I have passed them on to be shared by other fans of Miss Christie's. Worth the money and you'll watch them more than once, I'm sure.

Great collection

I saw some of these on TV when they first came out, and I have to tell you this set is well worth the price. First, we get Helen Hayes twice as Miss Marple and once as the victim with my old childhood hero Bill Bixby as the sleuth. Then we get 3 of the 6 mysteries with the only native born Russian to become a knight of the British Empire, Sir Peter Ustinov as Poirot (the other 3, 2 are available on Lion's Gate (older copies on Anchor Bay when I wrote this originally and 1 on MGM but only in England: Region 2). Watch for soon to be popular British TV star David Suchet on London Weekend Television's (PBS & A&E here) version of Poirot soon after, in one of these films, but as Japp. Finally, 2 other Christie Classics: Sparkling Cyanide and The Man In The Brown Suit, all with all star casts. Interesting to note, that the Hayes and Ustinov sets can be bought as separate items as well, but these latter 2 appear NOT to be available separately. If you wanna complete this great collection, I recommend the fore mentioned 3 pack by Lion's Gate with the other 2 Ustinovs available here (Evil Under The Sun and Death on The Nile) and Angela Lansbury (pre Murder She Wrote) as Miss Marple in The Mirror Cracked. These 3 are also available separately, but side by side these 2 multi disc sets would look great together. If you wanna see how "it was done" before Suchet and Hickson told us, buy these films.:-)

I love Agatha Christie Mysteries and I love Helen Hayes. Now days you don't see good acting as in years past. This collection is worth the price. Included in this package is: A string of murders rocks an English village, and it's up to a visiting American computer expert to catch the killer, in "Murder Is Easy" (1982); Bill Bixby, Helen Hayes star. A vacation becomes "A Caribbean Mystery" (1983) for septuagenarian sleuth Miss Jane Marple (Hayes) when she must solve the murder of a retired British army officer. What starts out as an elegant society party turns into a double murder, in "Sparkling Cyanide" (1983), with Anthony Andrews. Hayes is Miss Marple in "Murder With Mirrors" (1985), coming to the aid of an old friend (Bette Davis) who thinks someone is trying to kill her. The death of an actress's husband brings Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) into the world of filmmaking, in "Thirteen At Dinner" (1985). Poirot (Ustinov) is tapped to help plan a mystery game, but a real murder occurs, in "Dead Man's Folly" (1986). A reverend and a doctor are poisoned in Acapulco, and Poirot (Ustinov) must prevent a third death, in "Murder In Three Acts" (1986). And an American woman caught up in a Middle Eastern diamond heist, in "The Man In The Brown Suit" (1989), with Rue McClanahan.