The Spider's Web (1960) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Karina Oliveira

  “I’d never realized how much explaining there was to be done in a murder!”

  An English country manor with a mysterious past. A secret recess. An eccentric gardener. A precocious preteen with a penchant for witchcraft and a menagerie of pet lizards. The obligatory butler. Attempted blackmail. A terribly inconvenient corpse. Cops with zero concept of securing a crime scene . . .

  Of course an adaptation of an Agatha Christie play counts for Spooky Season! Even a markedly second(or third)-tier one with possibly the worst color palette and soundtrack I can recall in my amateur cinephile career. I’m a musical illiterate, but it honestly sounds like something pilfered from a mediocre 70s sitcom. In fact, the film (a second…

• Review by Scott Huston ★★★

  This October 5th 2023 is Glynis Johns’ 100th birthday , and she currently lives in California.

  When an intruder is killed in her house, the comfortable life of Clarissa Hailsham-Browne (Glynis Johns) is turned upside-down.

  So this is an Agatha Christie mystery, with a comic flair. Lots of people running from one room to another as they try to discover just who is the murderer.
  Not terrible, just not interesting.

• Review by Fint ★★ 4

  A very bizarre experience. What would be a bland version of a mediocre Agatha Christie play is transformed into something trippy by the most ill-fitting soundtrack I think I have ever heard. Instead of attempting to inject some atmosphere into a murder mystery, the composer Tony Crombie underlays the dialogue with the type of jokey scoring that would become endemic in 1970s sitcoms. It sabotages any dramatic potential, though, to be fair, the wooden theatricality of the script possesses hardly any.

  Poor Glynis Johns is stuck in an am-dram whodunnit that barely tries to hide the fact that it is in effect a filmed play. She is so very much better than this material. Nobody takes an Agatha Christie play…

• Review by RKO_Chester ★★★

  The Mousetrap is Agatha Christie's #1 play.
  The Spider's Web(a comedic mystery) is #2

  And this filmed version is enjoyable thanks to Glynis Johns

  Glynis Johns reminded me a bit of Goldie Hawn in this play (purposely written for Margaret Lockwood who starred in it for its 744 performances on the stage). I watched the 1982 remake of this film after watching this and despite the remake having the talented comedian Penelope Keith only the 1960 Glynis Johns version has spirit & verve and Johns makes it delightful to watch (albeit after a bit slow beginning). In contrast, the 1982 version (ranked ridiculously high on IMbd) has almost no liveliness and comedic heart.

  Deliciously supporting Glynis Johns in this is Jack Hulbert (playing her uncle/guardian) and Cicely Courtneidge (playing her gardener!)

  6.75 (Delightful simple fun, but performed with such heart)

  Other BRITISH films that are, in my book, of respectable quality.

• Review by Luke Thorne ★★★

  Godfrey Grayson’s British mystery drama. When an intruder is murdered in her home, the contented life of Clarissa Hailsham-Browne (Glynis Johns) is turned the wrong way up.

  Adapted from the play of the same name by Agatha Christie, which was written six years earlier, the story concerns an ambassador’s wife who is forced to conceal the cadaver of her stepdaughter's unlikeable stepfather from her husband, who is bringing significant visitors to their country house.

  Glynis Johns gives a good performance in her role as the woman whose comfortable life is going to take a turn for the worst, while John Justin is respectable as Clarissa’s husband Henry Hailsham-Browne.

  Elsewhere, Jack Hulbert as Sir Rowland Delahaye, Cicely Courtneidge as Miss Peake,…

• Review by Nathaniel Thompson ★★

  One of Agatha Christie's lesser known plays get the big screen treatment here with director Godfrey Grayson sabotaging the whole thing with a complete indifference to things like camera placement, lighting, and pacing. Even by the standards of the cheapest British programmers, it's amazing how slipshod this thing looks -- and the "funny" music score slams the final nail in the coffin. At least Glynis Johns and some of the other cast members are game enough to keep this mildly interesting if you pretend you're just watching a stage play instead, but there's no getting around the fact that this is just talk talk talk talk talk with a really lousy soundtrack.

• Review by RKO_Chester ★★½

  Agatha Christie play dramatized for the big screen. Only if you are a big Glynis Johns fan would I suggest giving this a watch. The background music seemingly never stops. I didn't notice that so much watching this the first time several years ago, but on this rewatch I found it increasingly annoying.

  The 'mystery' isn't that interesting, either, but it was nice to see Jack Hulbert in a large supporting role --- what a talent he was.

  5.75

• Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★

  Tonally kind of strange, and maybe worth looking at as a curiosity; it's based on an Agatha Christie stage-play, with all the coziness intact, that's trying for a black-comedy effect that's just a little beyond its reach. The baby-goth girl in the cast of characters reminded me of After Many A Summer Dies The Swan, but that's not relevant to anything.

• Review by BrianNaas ★★★½

  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…

• Review by Paul D ★★

  Clarissa Hailsham-Brown discovers the body of her step-daughter's mother's new husband (got that?), in her drawing room. With the impending return of her diplomat husband with an important foreign dignitary imminent, she calls upon three family friends to help her hide the inconvenient corpse, only for the police to turn up unannounced.

  This adaptation of an Agatha Christie play is a bit of a peculiar beast. I imagine the play is played straight, while this version seems to be going for something more comedic, although to be fair, there is the farcical elements of the corpse which keeps disappearing. First off there are the actors, Glynis Johns plays the slightly ditzy lead, there are Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge, he…

• Review by Cate ★★★

  Darling, your natural talent for crime leaves me speechless.

  Glynis and her gay dads hide a body.

• Review by Phillip Parche ★★★½

  the magnificent glynis johns! lovely mystery film with funny elements. had me baffled in the end.