Review By: Threemoviebuffs
Thanks to the success of those all-star disaster movies it became common in 1970’s Hollywood for producers to make big budget epics, set them in exotic locales, and fill them with as many famous movie stars of a certain age as possible. In 1974 John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin teamed up to produce a screen adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, with Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot leading an all-star cast. It was a surprise hit, grossing a then impressive 25 million dollars at the domestic box office.
Naturally enough they re-teamed four years later for another go. This time they picked Christie’s popular 1937 novel Death on the Nile (which they originally planned to call Murder on the Nile to more closely tie it in with the previous movie). When Finney declined the offer to reprise his role as Poirot, Peter Ustinov was chosen instead. He would go on to play the famous Belgian detective in five later movies during the 1980s.
The plot follows Agatha Christie’s tried and true formula. Arrange to have an interesting and disparate group of near-strangers gather together in an isolated setting. In this case a paddle-steamer traveling down the Nile River in Egypt. A murder takes place. Everyone aboard has a motive for committing said murder. Hercule Poirot puts his “little gray cells” to solving the crime. The body count starts to climb. Finally, the detective gathers all the remaining suspects in one room and tells them, step by step, how and why each of the murders were committed and by whom.
Shot on location in Egypt, Death on the Nile includes some breathtaking shots of such ancient landmarks as the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, and temples at Abu Simbel and Karnak. There are also many fantastic shots of the Nile and its surrounding landscape. Shooting was begun at 6 am as it had to be shut down for two hours during the heat of the day when temperatures could reach as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Bette Davis famously observed, “In the older days, they’d have built the Nile for you. Nowadays, films have become travelogues and actors stuntmen.”
Death on the Nile was a hit, although not quite as big of one as its predecessor had been. It still grossed a respectable 14 million domestic. It won Anthony Powell an Oscar for Best Costume Design, thanks mostly to the clothes worn by the three above mentioned female legends. I remember when it premiered on HBO when I was a kid. Watching it today, I must say it holds up quite nicely. It’s a bit slow to be honest but once the first murder occurs it remains engrossing right up to the final scene. The amazing cast in this remarkable setting combine to make it a memorable motion picture.
