Why? (possible spoiler)

As far as I remember Mrs. Rushbridger's death wasn't really explained, only that she "knew too much".
I recommend watching the Episode "Three Act Tragedy" with David Suchet, there everything is much better explained and makes more sense as it is set in England in the 1930's.
Unfortunately this is one of Christie's stories which I haven't read, but in the mentioned episode Mrs. de Rushbridger is actually Charles wife and because she's disabled he can't get a divorce, but he is deeply in love with Egg (though I thought she was played rather boring, compared to this Egg she's much better - fragile as an Egg should be and her nickname is explained) and of course at that time it would have been a scandal to live with her "in sin" so he wants to marry her. In order to be able to do that he has to kill his wife and as his friend the Doctor is the only one who knows about his secreet he has to kill him too.

I was really disappointed by "Murder in Three Acts". His "Death on the Nile" is much better than the version of the "Agatha Christie's Poirot" series with Suchet, but in this case it's the other way round. Though the series episode "Three Act Tragedy" has a few flaws ans some weak performances, on the whole it is much more appealing, makes more sense and I especially liked Martin Shaw's performance as Charles. Tony Curtis was a good actor but Shaw's performance was superior, he played him rather likeable and the finale was very touching and emotional.

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I haven't seen the movie in years (when it first came out) assuming it was the same motive as the book, he basically killed her to throw suspicion off himself...cartwrtight was masquerading as the butler and gave dr. strange a message about mrs. derushbridge arriving at the sanitarium...dr. strange seemed amused at the dinner table in front of everyone and asked the "butler" (cartwrtight) if he got the message right. after dr. strange was killed, cartwright killed the woman (who had never met dr. strange) to make it appear that there was some mystery about her that might pertain to dr. stranges death, to throw emphasis on the message delivered at the dinner table and not on dr. strange's playful mood with the "bulter" which was something under normal circumstances he wouldn't do with a real butler...he basically killed her to divert the police from figuring out his motive for killing dr. strange.

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I was wondering why the murderer killed also the interned patient whose name I can't actually remember.

I think Poirot didn't explain very well the aim of the third homicide, even though it had happened offscreen.

In the book it was spelled out quite plainly by Poirot at the end why she was killed. In this version, a few liberties were taken in the screenplay so that it wasn't at all clear that Mrs. de Rushbridger was strictly a spontaneous red herring to draw attention away from suddenly advancing suspicions about the true "role" of the fake butler.

The entire murder scheme hinged on the (fake butler) "perfect" alibi which would go up in smoke if anyone realized the nature of the alleged party surprise that the host meant to reveal to his guests.

Once the killer had built her up as his red herring, she needed to die before she could speak to anyone and say she knew absolutely nothing at all. As a corpse, she seemed to vaguely support the ongoing police theory about the second murder. This screenplay can be taken as suggesting she was in fact the secret wife or had secret knowledge. It's a bit of a messy adaptation to put it lightly.


Eeek!!! I'm getting dressed.

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