Review of Death on the Nile (1978) by Paul Z — 11 Jul 2011

Death on the Nile is a cunning, sharp, perfectly told, stunningly produced and superbly acted screen version of Dame Agatha Christie's whodunit. Like its predecessor, it's traditional formalized amusement with a full-size cast and opulent locales. The difference is that here, there is more than mere stylistic commemoration of a time, place and tradition. It's actually an intensely realized story on screen. Director John Guillermin maximizes the interesting settings and employs a cyclical flashback method to build likely disparities on how the crime happened. The reenactments in this movie are almost surprisingly unnerving and the cast is very compelling.

Sleuth playwright Anthony Shaffer's adaptation doesn't have a single fallacy. When Ustinov finally exposes the culprit in the ultimate drawing room scenes it comes as an absolute revelation. Each of the dozen characters hovering down the Nile is a suspect. Every one on the ship could have and might have bumped off Lois Chiles, the condescending millionairess who has thieved her best friend's fiancà (C)e.

Shaffer has also rendered several knowingly overstated characters to harmonize Peter Ustinov, the fourth actor to play Belgian consulting detective Hercule Poirot. There's Angela Lansbury's inebriated depiction of a romance novelist. Bette Davis as an oppressive and pompous Washington lace curtain and Maggie Smith as her resentful company. Jack Warden as a frantic Swiss doctor. I.S. Johar in a richly offbeat performance as the caretaker of the ship on which the homicides transpire. David Niven as Poirot's associate Colonel Race. Jon Finch as a Marxist radical. Nevertheless the star is Ustinov and the piercing wits of our stuck-up hero.