Death on the Nile
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Movie Reviews of Death on the Nile
Movie Review: The MAID did it!! Or did she??
Summary: 5 Stars
+++++
I watched this 1978 movie of 140 minutes without first reading the 1937 Dame Agatha Christie novel (of the same name) that it was based on. I'm glad I did this! Why? Because it forced me to really watch the movie in order to try and deduce who the murderer was.
As a brief synopsis, the movie begins with "Jacquline ('Jackie') De Bellafort" (Mia Farrow) telling her very wealthy friend "Linnet Ridgeway" (Lois Chiles) about the man "Simon Doyle" (Simon MacCorkindale) she has fallen in love with. Linnet falls for Simon and they eventually marry. Their honeymoon is on a riverboat (technically called a 'paddle steamer') called the "S.S. Karnak" that takes then down the Nile River in Egypt. Aboard the boat, besides the three mentioned above, are "Hercule Poirot" (Sir Peter Ustinov) and his good friend "Colonel Johnny Race" (David Niven). There are other passengers on board who all dislike Linnet.
Linnet is murdered. Eventually two other passengers are also murdered. Poirot has to solve who the killer is. For both Poirot and the viewer, it's obvious that the killer is no "Simple Simon."
Who are these passengers? Besides the five mentioned above, they are as follows:
(1) Louise Bourget, Linnet's Maid (Jane Birkin)
(2) Socialite Marie Van Schayler (Bette Davis)
(3) Miss Bowers (Maggie Smith), Aid to Marie
(4) Marxist James Ferguson (Jon Finch)
(5) Romance Novelist Salome Otterbourne (Angela Lansbury)
(6) Rosalie Otterbourne (Olivia Hussey), Salome's daughter
(7) Lawyer Andrew Pennington (George Kennedy), Linnet's uncle
(8) Dr. Ludwig Bessner (Jack Warden)
(9) Manager of the Karnak (I.S. Johar)
Of the fourteen actors mentioned above, Ustinov's performance stands out. This was his debut performance as Poirot and I feel he does a stellar job being both serious and comical at the same time. Other performances to look for are Mia Farrow as the ex-fiance and Angela Lansbury as the perpetually drunk novelist.
The cinematography of this movie is visually stunning. We especially get to see the Sphinx, the Pyramids, and the ancient ruins of Egypt. The costume design is elegant. The main background music adds to this movie as well.
Listen for gags that run throughout this movie. For example, Poirot is Belgian but is always confused as being French. One of my favorite pieces of dialogue is where a passenger gets angry at the great sleuth:
Van Schayler: You perfectly foul French upstart!
Poirot: Belgian upstart, please madam.
As Poirot attempts to solve the crime, we are shown what might have happened. Unfortunately, there is some unintended humor as Linnet continually gets shot (in the head) as Poirot goes through each possible scenario. I found this somewhat distracting.
Finally, the DVD (which has the movie in widescreen format) has five extras. I found that the only one that was interesting was about the making of this movie. It lasts about 25 minutes.
In conclusion, this is a fun movie, even if you have read the book it's based on!!
+++++
Movie Review: Fun mixture of superficiality and logics
Summary: 5 Stars
Many reviewers have talked about the good cast and their work in this movie, but I didn't find reviewers evaluating the soundness of the movie's argument. Either people did not seem to pay attention to the way the movie's assassinations were solved or they simply took it as it was without complains or contradicting the movie; this is impressive. I've seen several other reviews and Agatha's novel movies are the first products I found without much objections (if any at all). I also like very much all the cast's performances, but I got much more interested in the movie's logic.
Then, I repeated the movie's end and some other scenes a few times to look for incongruence or flawed reasoning, it was fun. Besides I wasn't quite satisfied with the case explanation and I wanted to imagine how another one of the several murder suspects could still have done the crimes. However, the hero's (detective Hercule Poirot) logics to discover the bad guys stood to reason all along. It was rather the Poirot's assumptions about the suspects that were far out. For example, Poirot regarded one man (the Marxist) as a suspect just because he had been dishing out the killed victim. Poirot's basic idea to point anybody as a suspect was that a person could kill at the immediate chance of having a gun and nobody watching. Fortunately, most people don't kill that easily. Just look at a nation with gun rights like USA, which is relatively peaceful; despite so many news on crime this nation, it would be giant cemetery if people behaved as Poirot regards humans.
Thus that was the characteristic off in the movie, people are assumed to behave in more violent ways than they really do and the real bad guys' plans are way too far out. Nonetheless, this same characteristic makes the movie even more interesting to watch, because everybody could be a waco over there but logics stands still and help solve the case.
By the way, although most people have enjoyed this movie some stated that the former Agatha's movie (Murder in the Orient Express) was better. They didn't say quite clear why such preference but I guess it simply because two of the movie's characters (Poirot and the Doctor) spoke too many words in their mother tongues, French and German. I suggest you not to pay attention to those picky details, this movie was better than the Orient Express. This movie had fair jokes, much more light, several pretty and interesting scenarios in Egypt, a boat and England; the characters were less creepy and Poirot was able to prove his theory. The other movie (Orient's) is totally the opposite, everything takes place in dark scenarios within only a train (it was a saddening scenario despite being all luxury) and Poirot's case resolution was more awesome than at Nile's but could not provide real evidences. Yes, this movie was better. Just consider that virtually nobody is paying attention to the movie's logics (as they do in the other one) but rather to the scenario and cast.
Movie Review: "Belgian! Belgian eavesdropper!"
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1978, theater audiences were treated to another wonderful film adaptation of the novel "Death on the Nile", which was written by famed murder-mystery author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) and was first published in 1937. In the story, Agatha Christie's famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot (played by the brilliant actor Peter Ustinov, 1921-2004), is vacationing in Egypt. As part of his vacation, Poirot rides a steamer named the Karnak down the Nile River and visits a number of ancient Egyptian sites along with an assortment of other guests on board. Played by an all-star cast, the other guests include the elderly & wealthy Marie Van Schuyler (the incomparable Bette Davis, 1908-1989), her nurse/assistant Miss Bowers (Maggie Smith), the very wealthy Linnet Ridgeway Doyle (Lois Chiles), her newly-wedded husband Simon Doyle (Simon MacCorkindale), her maid Louise Bourget (Jane Birkin), Simon's ex-girlfriend Jacqueline De Bellefort (Mia Farrow), the noted romance author Salome Otterbourne (Angela Lansbury, who has often played one of Agatha Christie's other memorable detectives Miss Jane Marple in the 1980 film "The Mirror Crack'd"), her daughter Rosalie Otterbourne (Olivia Hussey), boyfriend James Ferguson (Jon Finch), businessman Andrew Pennington (George Kennedy), Colonel Johnny Race (David Niven, 1910-1983), Doctor Ludwig Bessner (Jack Warden) and the Manager of The Karnak (I.S. Johar, 1920-1984). The mysterious murder of Linnet on board the steamer begins an investigation by Poirot, who is assisted by Colonel Race, and leads to many interesting possible motives by many of the guests. Can Poirot solve the mystery before anyone else might be murdered? You'll just have to watch this compelling film to find out.
Filmed in Egypt, the views of Egypt along the Nile are breathtakingly beautiful as the mysterious story in the film unfolds. The film won its only Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design (Anthony Powell). It was also nominated for several BAFTA awards, including Best Actor (for Peter Ustinov) and two separate nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury and Maggie Smith). Anthony Powell again won the BAFTA for Best Costume Design. Memorable scenes in the film include the visit to Temple of Karnak, the visit to the four statues of Ramses II, the discovery of the murder, Poirot's questioning of various guests and the final scenes of the film.
Overall, I rate "Death on the Nile" with 5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it to any mystery film aficionado. Peter Ustinov was always brilliant in any role he played and is sorely missed. It is also probably the best film that John Guillermin ever directed.
Movie Review: Plays well as mystery and as comedy
Summary: 5 Stars
The video tape of <Death on the Nile> has long been available, although the widescreen edition was hard to find except on such channels as AMC and TCM. Now I am delighted to find that star-studded film on DVD with the Anchor Bay label. As has been pointed out by many, this plot fits the Agatha Christie pattern in which an isolated group of people (on an island, a train, a boat) experience murder and the guilty party must be one of themselves. In one of them, they ALL did it. In two of them, the detective did it. In one of them the only two who could not have possibly done it did it. In the slim case you do not know the solution to "Death on the Nile," I will say no more.As with "Murder on the Orient Express," the period décor is just about perfect and each one of the Big Names in the cast gets at least two good scenes in which to do their thing. Possibly Maggie Smith can be singled out as giving us the most subtly comical character in many a film. Angela Lansbury, on the other hand, pulls out all the stops as the forever tipsy author of sex novels. And indeed the entire project has an obvious blend of comedy that helps make this (perhaps) a bit more watchable than was the far more serious "Orient Express" that had preceded it. (How seriously can you take a film in which the manager of the cruise ship exclaims "Goody goody gumdrops" when they dredge up the murder weapon?) (And how did the villain acquire a live cobra aboard the ship?)
There is no point in comparing Ustinov's Poirot with Finney's in the "Orient Express" film, since they both are very good in their own ways and neither had David Suchet with whom to contend. What is a good example of missed opportunity is one of the DVD's bonus features that gives us an interview in Spanish with Ustinov in which he is not really being asked the right questions to elicit any really interesting answers. A similar interview with Jane Birkin proves even less enlightening.
Among the DVD extras is a not-bad 24 minute "Making Of" short, the original trailer, and some short but detailed printed bios of the cast, included Harry Andrews, who shows up for only a few moments at the film's start.
All in all, this is a DVD I know I will view many times in the future, as I have done with the full screen tape edition, but with far greater satisfaction.
As a footnote, I should mention that Audio Partners has released a reading of the complete novel with David Suchet as narrator and the entire cast. It always makes a fascinating game to see what changes the film has to make to simplify things.
Movie Review: Traveling Up the Nile with an All-Star Cast
Summary: 5 Stars
Beginning with a stirring overture (composed by Nino Rota) and incorporating stunning location shots of Egypt and the English countryside, John Guillermin's DEATH ON THE NILE (1978) boasts a star-studded cast. Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Lois Chiles, Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, Simon MacCorkindale, Angela Lansbury, Olivia Hussey...The only other movie version of an Agatha Christie mystery that rivals this one for the glamour of its cast is Sidney Lumet's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974). And just as that movie was enriched by the likes of Martin Balsam and Richard Widmark, this one has such great character actors as Maggie Smith and Jack Warden in supporting roles. The story, based on Christie's own favorite of her novels, concerns a love triangle that is not quite what it appears to be. All three members of the triangle, along with famed Belgian (not French!) detective Hercule Poirot (Ustinov), his friend Colonel Race (Niven), and a host of others, end up in Egypt, and then on a ship traveling up the Nile. This is where the beautiful, wealthy, and unscrupulous Linnet Ridgeway Doyle (Chiles) is murdered. The problem Poirot faces is that nearly all of the passengers had motives for Linnet's murder, and the most likely suspect - her wronged friend Jacqueline (Farrow) - had a water-tight alibi.
Though Ustinov is not my favorite Poirot - that would be David Suchet - he was a wonderful actor and I LIKE his Poirot better than Albert Finney's (in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS). He is full of savoir-faire, and egotistical but never obnoxious. He can also be deadly serious, as when warning Jacqueline not to allow "evil" into her heart. Niven's urbane appearance and dry wit (Race to Poirot: "Yes, I'd forgotten your opinion about yourself"); Lansbury's deliciously over-the-top acting as Salome Otterbourne, writer of "trashy" romantic novels; Hussey's winsome vulnerability as her neglected daughter, Rosalie; Davis' likeable prickliness as Mrs. Van Schuyler, a rich dowager with a penchant for pearls; Warden's remarkable accent and manner as the German Dr. Bessner; and Chiles' flawless beauty are among the other memorable things in the movie. Under Guillermin's direction, the action flows to its shocking and tragic conclusion. With a script by playwright Anthony Shaffer (SLEUTH), this DEATH ON THE NILE was the perfect follow-up to the rightly acclaimed MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.