Brian Eastman Movies

Agatha Christie's fastidious Belgian detective is on the trail of evildoers once again in this made-for-TV mystery. Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) is attending a flower show where a pink rose is to be named after him when he's given a packet of seeds by an older woman. Poirot is later called upon by the same woman, who fearfully claims there's serious trouble at her home. When he arrives, Poirot discovers a murder has been committed, and the woman's Russian housekeeper, thought to be part of a Communist conspiracy, is the prime suspect. Poirot: How Does Your Garden Grow? was produced by the British network Granada Television, and later aired in the United States as part of the PBS series Mystery!. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Hastings is surprised when Poirot (David Suchet) announces his intention to retire and asks Hastings to accompany him on a trip to the seaside. En route, the two make the acquaintance of a young woman who discovers some valuable antiques missing from her possession. Hastings thinks that he's found the thief, but it's only after Poirot comes out of retirement that the case is solved. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Following a jewelry heist, Poirot (David Suchet) is approached by an enigmatic veiled lady who requests his help in thwarting a blackmailer. His investigative tactics place him briefly on the wrong side of the law, and Poirot is thrilled to learn his fame as a detective has reached the criminal classes. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

This four-hour, six-episode British miniseries, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1989 and in America on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre in 1990, provided the basis for Traffic, Steven Soderbergh's 2000 Oscar winner. Though Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan borrowed much of their plot and structure from the original, Traffik focuses on the European drug trade instead of the American one and utilizes England, Germany, and Pakistan as its major settings. One of the three primary plot strands involves Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson), a member of the British Parliament, who discovers that his daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), is a heroin addict despite the fact that he leads the country's Drug Abuse Committee. In a parallel story line, Helen Rosshalde (Lindsay Duncan), the British wife of German drug smuggler Karl Rosshalde (George Kukura), must take over her husband's illegal operations after an associate turns state's evidence and Karl goes on trial. In the third interwoven segment, and the one that diverges the farthest from the plot of the American film, Pakistani poppy farmer Fazel (Jamal Shah) ingratiates himself to drug overlord Tariq Butt (Talat Hussain) in order to support his family after the Pakistani government, at the insistence of Lithgow and other British officials, cracks down on the subsistence-level farmers who supply the heroin trade with its raw materials. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Author Tom Sharpe's outrageous best-seller about the power struggle that emerges when the dean of a Cambridge University dies before naming his successor gets the big screen treatment in director Robert Knights' four-part comedy. Porterhouse College is an institute of higher education steeped in five hundred-years of tradition, so when the Head Master passes away and his reform-minded replacement Sir Godber Evans (Ian Richardson) arrives to take his place the staff is outraged. Head Porter Skullion (David Jason) in particular seems hell-bent on subverting Sir Evans' every decree. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide