Death on the Nile
Director: John Guillermin
Year: 1978
Rating: 6.0
If you thought getting Legionnaire's Disease was
risky on a cruise, you should go on a river tour with Hercule Poirot. As
one character says while leaving the ship, "This place is beginning to resemble
a mortuary". Having just finished the novel by Agatha Christie I thought
I would watch this old film (a new version with Kenneth Branagh is set for
release next year) and just see how much they changed it around. Surprisingly
little. The film got rid of a few characters and some sub-plots to slim it
down - though still not enough. I may have read too many of Christie's novels,
but I figured out who the murderer was before the murder even took place.
Just using my little grey cells. The film makes it slightly more difficult
and of course you have less time to think.
Coming in at 2:14 minutes it is a bit ponderous and elephantine with Poirot
imagining how each person on the ship could have killed the victim. I was
surprised he didn't see the possibility of the dog picking up the gun and
shooting it. That seemed pointless and a little interminable. It wasn't as
if they needed to fill time. The Murder on the Orient Express had come out
four years before with Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot but the role of the
French - oops I mean Belgian - detective passes on to Peter Ustinov who was
to hold on to it with a firm grasp making five more of them (3 for TV) over
the next 10 years. Until the TV series came along with David Suchet, Ustinov
was Poirot to most people. I am not sure I am entirely comfortable with his
portrayal but it is certainly better than Finney's was.
As with the Orient Express, this has a stellar cast though the names may
not resonate as much 40 years later. Besides Ustinov, there is David Niven,
Bette Davis, Mia Farrow (doing an awful hit and miss British accent), George
Kennedy, Jack Warden, Angela Lansbury (overplaying her part like a drunken
sailor on a binge in a whore house), Olivia Hussey, Jon Finch, Maggie Smith,
Jane Birkin (married to composer John Barry and a famous affair with Serge
Gainsbourg), Simon McCorkindale and Lois Childs (Holly Goodhead in Moonraker).
All of them get a decent amount of screen time. The chemistry between Davis
and Smith is a highlight in the film.
So someone is killed on a tour of the Great Nile and pretty much everyone
has a motive for doing so. Poirot shifts through the clues and figures it
out. After a few more dead bodies. Director John Guillermin (King Kong, The
Towering Inferno, Sheena and King Kong Lives which I have never heard of
but have to track down as it sounds just awful) moves everything at a snail's
pace, but it looks great thanks to legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff
and sounds beautiful thanks to a score from Nino Rota. One element that is
added to the book which is now horribly dated is an Indian Manager (I.S.
Johar) going around saying things like "Goody goody gumdrops). Atrocious
and embarrassing caricature.
