The first of Peter Ustinov’s takes on Christie’s mustachioed sleuth, Hercule Poirot, was Death On The Nile, which I revisited when the Kenneth Branagh version came out — it turns out Branagh hasn’t improved on the original adaptation.
Since then I’ve sought out the other times Ustinov has done Poirot.
I enjoyed both Evil Under The Sun and Appointment with Death, though the former is more coherent than the latter — Appointment is scrappier and more obvious. That Appointment was produced by famed budget studio Cannon might explain it.
Evil Under The Sun (1982) | Directed by Guy Hamilton | Written by Anthony Shaffer, Barry Sandler, from the novel by Agatha Christie | ▲▲▲△△ | On VOD and Digital
Evil Under The Sun is set on a rocky Adriatic island, where Poirot has been sent to investigate the possibility that an actor, who had an affair with a wealthy businessman, is in possession of a diamond she stole from him. The actor, Arlena (Diana Rigg), has upset pretty much everyone else staying at the island’s hotel — it doesn’t take long to figure out who is likely to get murdered in these movies by how the script sets up several sets of motivations around one likely victim.
Arlena is on the island with her husband, Kenneth (Denis Quilley), who she’s openly cheating on with the handsome Patrick (Nicholas Clay) while she mistreats her stepdaughter, Linda (Emily Hone). Patrick is also married, to Christine (Jane Birkin). Then there’s Daphne (Maggie Smith, RIP), who runs the hotel, sees everything that’s going on and hates Arlena for past run-ins.
Meanwhile, theatre mavens Odell and Myra (James Mason and Sylvia Miles) have taken a financial hit because Arlena didn’t fulfill her contract with them, and biographer Rex (Roddy McDowall) has almost finished a book about Arlena, but she doesn’t want to see it published.
All these people would love to see her dead, so it’s convenient when her body turns up on a beach on the far side of the island.
For awhile it looks like everyone is likely to have done it, but this isn’t Murder On The Orient Express. It doesn’t take Poirot long detect who the culprit is, and in the meantime we get some fine work from Birkin and Smith, especially — both of whom were also on that infamous cruise down the Nile playing different characters than they are here.
Appointment with Death (1988) | Directed by Michael Winner | Written by Winner, Anthony Shaffer and Peter Buckman, from the novel by Agatha Christie | ▲▲▲△△| Region B DVD
“How is you’re always in the right place to hear threats and plots?” someone asks Poirot. It’s more than a reasonable question.
As mentioned, this production feels a lot more low-rent than the previous two cinematic mysteries, though the cast seems to be having fun, and the many Israeli locations provide a lot of production value.
Here the much-loathed lady with a target on her back is Emily Boynton (Piper Laurie), recently widowed. She gets her lawyer (David Soul) to destroy a pesky will that gave more money to her adult step-children (Nicholas Guest, Valerie Richards, and John Terlesky) than she approves of. Once the news breaks, they all go on vacation together, as one does. Trust me when I say that’s only the beginning of the various characters assembling reasons to be murderous, including ones played by Jenny Seagrove, Carrie Fisher, and Lauren Bacall.
This entry seems less concerned with giving the legendary Belgian sleuth a reason to hang about beyond his natural curiosity to solve the case, nor much in the way of wit, though it does give him some assistance from the local British Palestine constabulary in the form of John Gielgud.
These movies need to be lock-tight in their plots and timings in order for the murders to be plausible, but this one is just a little too janky, especially late in the running when one character has to almost be in two places at once in order to commit a murder. Still, how do you not enjoy Piper Laurie and Lauren Bacall going big? We also get an undiscovered Carrie Fisher role — there were too few of those.
Even as this final film of Ustinov’s Poirot is occasionally disappointing, some enterprising lover of physical media would do well to release the three films and TV movies as a Blu-Ray box set, especially given how difficult it is to find them in North America and how unaccountably popular Kenneth Branagh’s movies have been.
Speaking of the entries made for television, they were released in the mid-1980s. I also tracked them down on DVD at no small expense…
…and immediately regretted it. The first TV adventure isn’t anywhere near the standard of the cinematic editions, despite the class Ustinov brings to the lead.
The immediate change you’ll notice is a concession to budget. These versions are set in the present day when they were made, 1984/85, yet Hercule Poirot is still fond of his linens and three piece suits of the 1930s. In Dead Man’s Folly he meets Jean Stapleton in the Harrods food department — she’s playing a writer of murder mysteries. She invites him to be part of a weekend “Murder Hunt” at a massive estate owned by a knighted fellow played by Tim Pigott-Smith. Also on the scene is Jonathan Cecil, who as Arthur Hastings serves as another of Poirot’s Watsons, Constance Cummings, and a badly dubbed Nicollette Sheridan.
It turns out the woman who’s supposed to play the corpse in the Hunt turns up dead, and she’s soon joined by others. Once the picture bites into the meat of the mystery, things improve, and Ustinov gets a few good lines, but not even Poirot can solve the tacky sets, costumes, make-up, and dodgy acting. It’s here that his mystery solving abilities become nearly supernatural as he intuits what happened at times where he wasn’t present. At one moment in Poirot’s final revelation of the murderer we also get unprompted subtitles. Suddenly his Belgian accent is too thick?
Murder In Three Acts is a whole lot more fun. Set in Acapulco, it includes establishing shots from the air — this time they splurged on a helicopter. Poirot has flown into the Mexican resort town for a house party with his English buddy, Hastings, at the fantastic clifftop home of a retired playboy movie star played by Tony Curtis — perfect casting. His new, much-younger love interest is played by Dynasty‘s Emma Samms, while his fellow thesp and ex-lover is played by single-season Star Trek: The Next Generation doctor, Diana Muldaur.
Also gathered is a crowd of semi-recognizable character actors, including Dana Elcar, Lisa Eichhorn, and Nicholas Pryor. When someone dies in the middle of the party, Poirot insists it isn’t murder and runs off to Los Angeles to work on his memoir, but at another Acapulco party we get another murder, so Poirot flies back to solve the mystery. Though the second half of this one drags, what works better this time out is plenty of humour in the script.
Sure, it’s all cheap and cheery, but with a lot more enthusiasm in the plotting, performances, and the location cinematography. We even get Poirot and Hastings exploring secret passages in one of the mansion locales — it’s almost an action sequence.
The third entry, Thirteen At Dinner, is the strangest of the three, though plenty entertaining. We’re back in none-more-’80s London, with Poirot a guest on a chat show hosted by an uncredited David Frost. On the same show is an American actor played by Matt Houston himself, Lee Horsley — he’s in London making a movie where he plays a hero detective. Also on the scene is an American actor played by Faye Dunaway, who’s married into British upper class but for some reason wants Poirot’s help getting a divorce. She’s got a doppelgänger, as one does — their uncanny resemblance (Dunaway plays both characters) isn’t explained, but it does make alibis more complex when Dunaway’s crusty British husband is murdered.
What makes this version so peculiar is the juxtaposition of the Belgian sleuth, unmoored in time, against the high-ceilinged, well-appointed rooms of the British blue bloods, the world of London haute-couture, and behind the scenes of movie productions. The elements of the mystery, however, are much less compelling — all the murders take place offscreen without the single, restrictive location keeping the suspects cheek by jowl. Characters give accounts of events we never get to see until the denouement, so there’s no chance of audience delight from Poirot noticing things we don’t.
Still, the incidental pleasures are many: the return of the continually befuddled sidekick Jonathan Cecil, a supporting role for a young Bill Nighy, the frequently charming Amanda Pays, and future TV Poirot David Suchet as a Cockney inspector from Scotland Yard.
A number sterling London locations make for a good time — including Shad Thames, Butler’s Wharf, Little Venice, and zip-lining through the Albert Hall. It’s also shot in winter, which means the costume department makes sure everyone sports an excellent coat.
