The Spider's Web
Director: Godfrey Grayson
Year: 1960
Rating:
7.0
It is Agatha Christie and that of course means
murder most foul. Or is it murder most funny? A dead body in the living room,
the police are at the door and the inhabitants are trying their best to hide
it. Based on a 1954 Agatha Christie play with a touch of suspense but mainly
aiming for your funny bone. Comedy is not something that one associates with
Christie, but this is charmingly amusing and light on its feet. Almost a
screwball comedy but through a British lens. It has the basic Christie ingredients
- a murder, a body, a large manor with servants, a house full of suspects
and a deadline but it has no Poirot or Miss Marple to solve it. It is up
to a scatterbrained woman of supposes. Suppose you go on a secret mission
and get caught and executed she asks her husband or suppose the gardener
is digging a trench for a body or the cook and butler are killers. Suppose
you find a dead body and have to hide it before your husband in the Home
Office comes home with a few high officials. Much of the film takes place
in one room with people popping in and out like jack-in-the-boxes, so you
can easily envision the play.
The Hailsham-Brown's have rented a home
in the country full of antiques and a hidden closet. Clarissa (Glynis Johns)
is the second wife of her diplomatic husband Henry (John Justin) and his
young daughter Pippa. A few friends are staying with them and it seems like
any other night of the week. But the husband is called off for duty to pick
up a VIP and bring him back to the house at 9 pm. The three male guests all
go to the club for dinner and a spot of golf. And then a perfectly pleasant
peaceful evening is disturbed by her finding that body. The husband of her
husband's first wife. A total bounder. What is a wife to do? Hide it in the
secret closet of course so not to disturb her husband's guest.
But it's heavy and so she calls her three
friends back to help. You want us to help you hide a dead body? Are you serious?
Of course. And so they do and then the cops are at the door. Someone called
and said there was a murdered body here. Oh really, we were playing bridge.
Three rubbers. And it takes off from there as everyone tells different stories
and Clarissa runs around like a whirling dervish changing her story by the
minute and the clock is ticking towards 9pm and the Inspector (Peter Butterworth)
turns out to be much smarter than he first appears. It is a delightful performance
from Glynis Johns who is both ditzy and yet resourceful and suppose the killer
is . . .
