Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse (1997)

The Worst Film Ever

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is a 1997 version of "The Pale Horse," based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie.Ariadne Oliver is in the book, but she's not in this production.The story concerns a sculptor, Mark Easterbrook, who finds a priest dying in an alley. The priest has a list of names. When the police arrive, they take the list away from Easterbrook and accuse him of murder.He and an art restorer, Kate Mercer, work to prove his innocence, using whatever Mark remembers of the list. He's shocked to learn that everyone on the list is dead, save one, and all from natural causes.Mark and Kate are led to a house called "The Pale Horse," where three women who claim to be witches live. Can their spells actually kill people? What about the booking agent Mark meets? Can he think someone dead, or does he set it up? This could have been a more interesting story, but it isn't, due to the fact that it's somewhat confusing. Also, while some of the women's clothing appears to be from the '60s, nothing else seemed very '60s to me with Easterbrook walking around wearing a leather jacket. The era is amorphous.The acting was okay. I enjoyed seeing Hermoine Norris in a different kind of role from the one she played on MI-5 and her character on Wire in the Blood. She was very good. Also, Michael Byrne and Leslie Phillips give outstanding performances. The rest of the acting was so-so, as were the production values.After watching the Hercule Poirot series, it's hard to go back to anything less than the characterizations, production values, and costumes found in them.

The leads in movies based on Agatha Christie books should not wear leather jackets, like Colin Buchanan does for about 80% of the time in "The Pale Horse". It gives the movie a too-contemporary feel. It's officially set in the mid-1960s, but it seems to exist more in an unspecific time zone between the 1960s and the 1990s. The other problem with this story is that, for anyone even vaguely familiar with Christie's gimmicks, the entire "satanic witches" section of the plot is one giant transparent red herring, as the deaths that occur have of course a much more practical, factual explanation. The cast is adequate, Jayne Ashbourne as Kate is certainly very cute and likable. ** out of 4.

Taken from the 1961 novel of the same name, this Anglia TV rendition of The Pale Horse was filmed in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Oxon, and London. Notable differences from the novel are the absence of Ariadne Oliver and some of the other characters from the book.The story concerns young sculptor Mark Easterbrook (Colin Buchanan) who discovers a priest dying from a head wound-the man gives Mark a list of names before he dies. The police don't exactly believe Mark's story, even to the point where they suspect him in the priest's death, but Mark determines to follow up the list-which leads to other murders before he finally solves it with the aid of Kate Mercer (Jayne Ashbourne), a friend of one of the victims.The Pale Horse is nothing superlative, rather more like average, and the two young leads are somewhat bland. The good things about this production are the photography, and very fine performances from Sir Leslie Phillips and Michael Byrne-that alone makes it worth watching. Martin Kennedy is also quite good in the small part of Tate, a tough henchman. Jean Marsh plays one of the three witches who reside at the house known as The Pale Horse.

"The names...you'll take them to the police?" The dying woman gives the priest a list of names on a slip of paper. Not long after, Mark Easterbrook (Colin Buchanan) runs down a dark alley to assist a man being beaten. The assailant disappears. As the man dies he hands the list of names to Mark. Yes, the man is the priest. Hmmm. The Pale Horse, or Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse, has a clever plot and occasionally good acting, It also has a muddied story line, a use of the three witches from Macbeth that teeters between silly and melodramatic, an unfulfilled hint of horror, an irrelevant red herring, too few suspects and a villain who is easily fingered. When Mark gives the list to the police, they naturally think that Mark himself beat the priest to death. The inspector is no Morse or Dalgliesh. Think of Elmer Fudd with a working class accent and a dumb, sly nature. It's up to Mark to prove his innocence, uncover a dastardly murder business and expose a mastermind who overacts. Mark, his girl friend Kate Mercer (Jayne Ashbourne) and Sergeant Corrigan (Andy Serkis), a young, friendly copper, eventually realize that all except one of the names are of people who have died far earlier than nature most likely intended. Eventually Mark discovers that the three eccentric old ladies who live in The Pale Horse, their ancient home that long ago had been an inn, believe themselves witches...and witches who have the power to bring death. This seems to give them great satisfaction. Then Mark learns of a bookmaker who has a sideline of accepting wagers on people's lives. With a proper introduction and evidence of financial reliability, he will, for instance, bet Mark that Mark's inconvenient former wife will be dead within two weeks. Mark will bet that she won't. In this case, Mark doesn't have an ex- wife, only Kate...and with her posing as the object of the bet, they'll expose a neat little murder-as-wager business. Ah, but what is the role of the three witches, for they must forecast the death. And if there is, indeed, murder, how can it be so well disguised as illness that no questions were raised about all those names on the list? Things become desperate for Mark when Kate soon takes to her bed, deathly ill and fading fast. The plot, indeed, is clever. However, the combination of a script which sprawls, direction which allows this, and a basic misconception of how to play up Macbeth's witches with our horrid three, gives us 100 minutes with long stretches of dullness. Colin Buchanan, a good actor, makes an engaging Mark Easterbrook. For years he has been the Pascoe in the long- running Dalziel and Pascoe series. Andy Serkis is an unexpected gem as the sergeant...young, friendly, careful around his dunderhead superior, smart enough when it counts. Overshadowing them all are two practiced, pungent scene-stealers, Leslie Phillips and Michael Byrne. Phillips' talent to play plumy-voiced rogues is unmatched. Byrne is equally adept at arrogant, condescending bullies. Whenever they appear they provide the real pleasure in this story. There have been many, many British television productions of Agatha Christie mysteries. Most have been very good. A few are a matter of taste (I've never warmed up to Tommy and Tuppence), and some simply have not worked well. The Pale Horse, I'm afraid, falls in this last category. It's not embarrassing or amateurish; it's just not very well done.