Appointment with Death (1988)

Expected more

Best movie ever!

A Masterpiece!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The cast was good: Ustinov, Gielgud, Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, Piper Laurie as the matriarch Boynton. Jenny Seagrove overacts annoyingly and should be counted among the least professional players here. I thought David Soul made a good role as Jefferson, he reminded me of Widmark. And it was heartrending and very unlikely to see Poirot quoting Gide.I believe neither Cannon nor the director had a knack for this kind of puzzle plot, or for the social satire of a bygone foreign world. This wasn't something they could master.The movie seemed to me devoid of excitement. While Gielgud was decorative (as much as he could afford …), the other oldsters have been subverted by the director's silly storytelling. Carrie F. delivers the only convincing performance, and here, as a passionate woman, she looked well in a Mimi Rogers way; usually, in these adaptations, the romance is indigestible, but here the passionate lady was believable.The two breakdown meetings orchestrated by Poirot are undermined by the silly behavior of the suspects, who hug affectionately when reassured, etc., in a carefree joyful atmosphere; the phony confessions are annoying.A mediocre movie, with uninspired direction and uninteresting characters, very unlike the literature it rips off. These strong, thoughtful stories would need equally strong directors, and this is why so many masterpieces of popular literature become mediocre movies. But such movies also give an idea of what most consumers do perceive. The movie makers represent a slice of the audience; many in the audience do not care for what is missing, the movie is faithful to what they understand, this is how much they get, and they are pleased with the movie.It was made in '88 by Cannon.

You thought Piper Laurie was nasty as Carrie's mother? Wait until you meet her character of Emily Boynton, the nastiest of all wicked stepmothers. A former prison warden, she runs her home as the wealthy widow as if it were Riker's Island, keeping tabs on each of her stepchildren to the point that they wish her dead, unaware that it was her manipulations that left them to wait for her death rather than share in the estate of her late father. Determined to keep tabs on them, she "suggests" a European vacation followed by a trip to the Holy Land, and there, some very unholy activities lead to murder, and a most predictable conclusion.Peter Ustinov is back as Hercule Poirot, and if his trips to the Nile and the Adriatic Sea weren't enough to warn people to watch what they say when he's a mile within vicinity, nothing is. Lauren Bacall plays an American widow of a British nobleman who somehow became a member of the British Parliament, with Hayley Mills as an aspiring archaeologist and Jenny Seagrove as a doctor who has several run-ins with the obnoxious Laurie. Her character is a bit hard to take, seemingly directed to overact in every scene she's in. Carrie Fisher, John Gielgud and David Soul are other familiar faces among some relatively unknown actors as the unfortunate step-children. The highlight of the film is Ustinov's revelation of the killer as the culprit watches from afar, their feeling of doom and self-destruction erupting into making you actually feel sorry for them.

The best thing about the early all-star Agatha Christie murder-mysteries ("Murder on the Orient Express" and "Death on the Nile") was their eerie glamor, a shimmering kind of evil which translated tantalizingly into murder. "Appointment With Death" has a disappointing cast, including a rather fatigued Peter Ustinov as detective Hercule Poirot, and a travelogue-styled production which doesn't lend itself well to the intimate setting of a whodunit. It's all too airy and blasé, with a set-up that rarely engages the attention. Former prison wardress Piper Laurie (camping it up) has cheated her step-children out of their late father's money and now has them all greedily at her beck and call; after a cruise from Europe to Palestine however, Big Mama Laurie ends up dead under the sun at an excavation site. Poirot's suspects include each of the disgruntled children (actually grown adults), a boasting Member of Parliament (Lauren Bacall), an archaeologist (Hayley Mills), a conniving lawyer (David Soul), the dowager's cheating daughter-in-law (Carrie Fisher), and a novice female doctor (Jenny Seagrove, who has been instructed to maintain a guilt-ridden look throughout). John Gielgud is utterly wasted as a Colonel, while Ustinov wheezes and grimaces his way along. Michael Winner is responsible for the shapeless direction, which includes halving Poirot's final summation into two separate sequences for no other purpose than to bide some time. *1/2 from ****

Agatha Christie's Appointment With Death is not her best book, but is well crafted and a pleasant read. This adaptation isn't terrible, but it is the weakest of Peter Ustinov's outings as Poirot. Speaking of Ustinov, he is excellent here, I had no problem with him. And Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, Jenny Seagrove and John Gielgud give fine support. The film does have some splendid locations, even if Petra was changed to Jerusalem if I remember rightly, and the music was good too. However, the script isn't that polished, a lot is changed from the book and some of the changes are underdeveloped, the character of Hassan was unnecessary. But my main gripe with the movie was the character of Mrs Boynton. The same applies for the recent David Suchet version(which was more unfaithful but better musically and visually, and the acting was more solid in that one too), the character of Mrs Boynton was never done quite right, despite the wholly hateable portrayal given by Piper Laurie. In the book, she is a bit of a tyrant, in the adaptation, she was portrayed as nasty and cantankerous, but lacked the depth of the character in the book. Overall, not bad, but I did think Death on the Nile and Evil Under The Sun were better. 6/10 Bethany Cox