Anastasia Kharlamova I absolutely loved the movie! It's my second favorite adaptation of Poirot novels (after Death on the Nile). The actors are brilliant, especially Peter Ustinov and Faye Dunaway. The changes made to the novel plot were minor, and they didn't spoil the movie. The intrigue is just as thrilling as it was in the book.I liked the characters being practically the same as in the novel. None of the major ones was omitted, and everyone almost always looked and behaved just as Dame Agatha Christie had portrayed them.Only one thing annoyed me a little: the plot was modernized. I don't like it, because it usually changes the atmosphere of the movie. But here I rarely noticed it (except for the very beginning of the film), so it's not a big defect.So, I give the movie 10 stars out of 10.

bkoganbing Agatha Christie's ageless Hercule Poirot once again stylishly portrayed by Peter Ustinov makes his television debut in Thirteen for Dinner. The famous Belgian sleuth is a guest on the David Frost Show with a pair of celebrities, Lee Horsley and Faye Dunaway who will shortly figure prominently in his next case.Although Ustinov is flawless as ever, the updating of the story from the time of Stanley Baldwin to the time of Margaret Thatcher makes the plot rather silly. Without giving anything away, let me say that what would have made sense for a motive in 1935 looks kind of ridiculous in 1985 given changing mores.The presence of David Suchet who played Hercule Poirot on the BBC in many adaptations of Agatha Christie as Inspector Japp in this film also gives it some interest. The scenes with Poirot and Suchet are good and Suchet is so good an actor you barely recognize him.Some Christie stories can be successfully updated. But sad to say Thirteen at Dinner is not one of them.

teegeyoung Let me preface this by saying that I love all things Poirot. I love the books, I love the movies, I love the TV series, and I even love the video games. Peter Ustinov is my second favorite Poirot (Suchet is numero uno) but Ustinov was my first love. "Death on the Nile" is easily one of my top 10 favorite movies and so I thought I would at least like, if not love, this film....... OK now onto this movie. Right of the bat I have a problem with this film and that is that it's set in 1985. Let me repeat this because it's a HUGE issue. The producers decided to film this movie as though it were current day (1985 is when it was shot). While to new fans of Poirot this won't be an issue, to the rest of us it doesn't make any sense. Peter Ustinov played Poirot in "Death on the Evil" when it was set in 1937 now we're supposed to just go along with the same character not only being alive in 1985 but essentially being only 10 years or so older?? OK... even if you can get over the time period issue, you can not get over the acting and overall feel on this film. Ustinov's Poirot in this film is a far cry from the earlier films and seems as though he just sort of coasted through the performance. The rest of the cast (Dunaway and others) seem as though they are just there collecting a check so I never became involved with the whole "whodunit" part of the story.If you really love Poirot and are interested in this story, be sure to track down David Suchet's TV version of this with "Lord Edgeware Dies"... you can me later for the recommendation.PS: David Suchet as Japp was awkward and yet fun.

andy blundell Nice adaptation of a typical Agatha Christie novel complete with hatfuls of obscure clues, red herrings, guilty secrets, and suspects with enough motives to kill the poor victim a dozen times over. The original novel, by the way, was called 'Lord Edgeware Dies' I'm not sure why the name change was needed. It's not an improvement.The updating to a modern setting worked well up to a point - the opening talk show scene was an amusing addition, but the period setting is for me part of the charm, and the cosy relationship with the police that Poirot enjoys seemed less believable than it would have in it's original time.The trouble with screen adaptations of characters like Poirot is that they are never quite how you imagined them. For me, neither Peter Ustinov as Poirot nor Jonathan Cecil as Hastings were at all right for the part. It is ironic that David Suchet who later established himself as the ultimate Poirot played Inspector Japp.