Death on the Nile **** (1978, Peter Ustinov, Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Maggie Smith, David Niven, Jon Finch, Jack Warden, George Kennedy, Simon MacCorkindale, Harry Andrews, Jane Birkin, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey) – Classic Movie Review 1299

Peter Ustinov’s Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of a selfish heiress (Lois Chiles) on a Nile steamer, where all are suspects, in the 1978 film Death on the Nile. Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Maggie Smith and Jane Birkin head the all-star cast. 

Director John Guillermin’s tasty, glorious-looking 1978 film soufflé of Agatha Christie’s classic whodunit Death on the Nile, published in 1937, is dressed to kill. Anthony Powell won an Oscar and a Bafta film award for Best Costume Design, in some ways the star of the show. John Guillermin won the Best Film award and Peter Ustinov won Best Actor at the Evening Standard British Film Awards.

Peter Ustinov takes over as series star from Albert Finney (who only played it just the once in Murder on the Orient Express in 1974) and makes the part his own in his début as a fussy and thoughtful Hercule Poirot investigating the murder of a selfish heiress, Linnet Ridgeway (Lois Chiles), on a Nile steamer, where the entire clientele of passengers and crew are suspects.

Stylish star turns from a celebrity cast and a sleek 1930s period re-creation are the highlights of a ravishing production with gorgeous Egyptian travelogue backdrops. Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis and Maggie Smith provide wonderfully camp and engaging appearances as, respectively, a drunken romantic writer Mrs Salome Otterbourne, a bossy American matron socialite Mrs Van Schuyler and her mousey, though mannish companion Miss Bowers.

Some of the male co-stars are less appealing, with surprisingly wan and unengaged turns from David Niven as Poirot’s colonel assistant Colonel Race, Jon Finch’s socialist Mr Ferguson and Jack Warden’s doctor Dr Bessner. However, George Kennedy as Andrew Pennington, Simon MacCorkindale as Simon Doyle, Harry Andrews as Barnstaple, I S Johar as the Manager of the Karnak, and Sam Wanamaker as Rockford are worthwhile passengers though.

Anthony Powell’s eye-catching costume designs certainly deserve their Oscar. His shoes with diamond-studded heels for Lois Chiles came from a millionaire’s collection and Bette Davis’s shoes were made from the scales of 26 pythons. Anthony Shaffer carves out a good, solid screenplay from Christie’s novel, Jack Cardiff’s Technicolor cinematography is stunning, giving the film ‘an old-fashioned Thirties look’, and Nino Rota’s score outstanding.

The choreography for the tango scene is by British dancer Wayne Sleep.

Bette Davis said: ‘The only one of us who needs to act is Peter Ustinov.’ And there we have it. She also said dismissively on location: ‘In my day Egypt would have been brought to me.’

Filming was tricky because of the heat and the boat. But Guillermin said: ‘The more experienced people created a very generous atmosphere. They were not impatient at all. I have never worked with Bette Davis before and was told she was professional but not communicative. Well, she was an absolute bastion of support and enthusiasm. During the breaks, the cast would often sit to one side engaged in terrific conversation. There was Ustinov’s great wit and Niven’s dry humour.’

Death on the Nile original UK theatrical release poster.

The cast are Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, Jane Birkin as Louise Bourget, Lois Chiles as Linnet Ridgeway Doyle, Bette Davis as Marie Van Schuyler, Mia Farrow as Jacqueline de Bellefort, Jon Finch as James Ferguson, Olivia Hussey as Rosalie Otterbourne, George Kennedy as Andrew Pennington, Angela Lansbury as Salome Otterbourne, Simon MacCorkindale as Simon Doyle, David Niven as Colonel Race, Maggie Smith as Miss Bowers, Jack Warden as Dr Bessner, I S Johar as Mr Choudhury, Harry Andrews as Barnstaple, Sam Wanamaker as Rockford, Celia Imrie as a maid, and Saeed Jaffrey as Manager on the Karnak, Barbara Hicks, Reg Lye, Andrew Manson and François Guillaume.

The Queen, Prince Philip and Earl Mountbatten attended a Royal Charity Premiere at the ABC Shaftesbury Avenue in London on 23 October 1978. But this British film had already premiered in New York on 29 September 1978 to coincide with the sale of tickets for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, which had excited interest in King Tut. Richard Amsel was commissioned to to design a new poster for the US, including the profile of King Tutankhamun with ceremonial knife (and revolver), surrounded by the cast.

Richard Amsel was asked to design a new poster for the US, including the profile of King Tutankhamun with ceremonial knife (and revolver), surrounded by the cast.

Albert Finney decided not to undergo the heavy make-up required for Poirot in the Egyptian sun, so the producers decided if they could not get Finney they would go in a different direction and picked Peter Ustinov. Producer Richard B Goodwin said: ‘Poirot is a character part if ever there was one, and Peter is a top character actor. Guillermin said: ‘Poirot can be a cold fish, but here we made him more humanistic and warm. Peter Ustinov was able to bring that out.’ Yes, he is not Agatha Christie’s Poirot, any more than Margaret Rutherford is Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, but they perform the same trick of swinging you in by being charming and amusing.

It was shot on location in Egypt for seven weeks in late 1977. Four weeks were on the steamer Karnak (the historic ship SS Memnon) and at Aswan, Abu Simbel, Luxor, and Cairo. But the ship was mostly smaller boats with the engines off as they disrupted filming. Desert filming meant makeup call at 4 a.m. and shooting at 6 a.m. with a two-hour halt around noon when temperatures were near 54°C.

Murder on the Orient Express was the most successful British film until then at $27.6 million, but the box office for Death on the Nile was a disappointing $14.5 million in the US.

Death on the Nile is directed by John Guillermin, runs 140 minutes, is made by EMI, is released by Paramount, is written by Anthony Shaffer, based on Agatha Christie’s novel, is shot in Technicolor by Jack Cardiff, is produced by John Brabourne, Richard B Goodwin and Norton Knatchbull (associate producer), is scored by Nino Rota, and is designed by Peter Murton, with costumes designed by Anthony Powell.

It was remade for TV with David Suchet as Poirot in 2004. In 2018, a remake is in the works for release on October 9, 2020, following Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express (2017) remake. Branagh is set to star and direct again, with Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer also starring.

That was the plan but, after several delays because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Death on the Nile was finally released in some countries on 9 February 2022, and in the UK and US on 11 February 2022.

The 1978 Death on the Nile is followed by Evil Under the Sun (in 1982 with Peter Ustinov back as Poirot) and The Mirror Crack’d (in 1980 with Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple). After that Ustinov made four further Poirot films: Thirteen at Dinner, Dead Man’s Folly, Murder in Three Acts, and Appointment with Death (1988).

British film-maker John Guillermin, director of The Towering Inferno, the 1976 King Kong, Death on the Nile, The Blue Max, and The Bridge at Remagen died on 28 September 2015, aged 89. He was best known for his big-budget action films, also including El Condor, Shaft in Africa, Sheena and the Kong sequel King Kong Lives.

Jane Birkin died at her home in Paris on 16 July 2023, at the age of 76 after having a stroke in 2021. London-born Birkin began her career in minor roles in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup (1966), and in Kaleidoscope (1966). She appeared in the controversial film Je t’aime moi non plus (1976) under Serge Gainsbourg’s direction and found international acting fame with the Agatha Christie films Death on the Nile (1978), and Evil Under the Sun (1982), and is especially remembered for Daddy Nostalgie (1990).

Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury DBE died in her sleep at her home in Los Angeles on 11 October 2022, aged 96.

What can you say? She was great, as a performer and a person. She was incredibly nice and supported the good stuff, especially in America in the dark days of the Eighties.

Angela Lansbury was a supporter of the Democratic Party in the US, describing herself as a ‘Democrat from the ground up’ and of the Labour Party in her native UK. She supported a variety of charities, particularly those that helped Abused Wives in Crisis and combated domestic abuse, and charities that worked to rehabilitate drug users. In the Eighties, she supported engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Angela Lansbury’s friend and Sweeney Todd stage co-star Len Cariou said in 2012: ‘Ange is classy and elegant, warm and generous, but she’s also tough and expects everyone around her to give their all. As far as she is concerned, there is no challenge that can’t be at least partially met with a “cuppa” very strong Yorkshire Gold. Working on the stage keeps her vibrant. A healthy regimen keeps her beautiful. What keeps her ageless is her immense curiosity, her exuberance for life, and her tremendous gift for holding on to joy.’

Angela Lansbury said she was ‘very proud of the fact’ that she was a gay icon, attributing her popularity among the LGBT community to her performance in Jerry Herman’s stage show Mame (1966).

Lansbury was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but never won. She never won an Emmy Award despite 18 nominations over 33 years. She held the record for the most unsuccessful Emmy nominations by a performer.

Her 2013 honorary Oscar statue is inscribed: ‘To Angela Lansbury, an icon who has created some of cinema’s most memorable characters, inspiring generations of actors’.

She acted in such classic films as Gaslight (1944), National Velvet (1944), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), The Harvey Girls (1946), State of the Union (1948), The Court Jester (1956), The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Blue Hawaii (1961) The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), and Death on the Nile (1978), as well as contributing to The Last Unicorn (1982), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Anastasia (1997), Fantasia 2000 (2000), Nanny McPhee (2005), The Grinch (2018) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

On a personal note, I saw Angela Lansbury on the Broadway stage in Sweeney Todd. Both she and the show were fantastic! I got to meet the gracious Dame Angela afterwards. She chatted so sweetly, nicely and personally, and for so long, even though she must have been longing to get home after an exhausting show. It was a most memorable moment for me.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1299

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Bette Davis and Maggie Smith as a bossy socialite and her mousey, mannish companion in Death on the Nile.