moonspinner55
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 ****
Ken McMurtrie
An avid fan of Agatha Christie, I enjoyed this film greatly. Particularly because of the quality of the cast and their impressive portrayal of the characters. Although David Suchet, in his series and films makes a very impressive Hercule Poirot, Peter Ustinov creates a far more real character and is a superb actor. Lauren Bacall, as always, impresses. Carrie Fisher excels and moves on from the Starwars era, to her advantage. Am I the only viewer to "fall in love with" Amber Bezer? Hayley Mills is also excellent, but I continually find it a bit difficult to not keep remembering her as Pollyanna and her other early successful parts. As usual in Christie movies, the reproduction of the period seems to be perfect, from the vehicles, the dress, realistic and appropriate sites and scenery, to the actor's portrayals is, in my opinion, superb.
elshikh4
I've read some of her novels plus watching a lot of movies based on her work, so nearly every time I have this problem : discovering the killer refers to a clue which never speaks to the audience's intelligence however refers back to a plot that all the audience know totally nothing about !! That's not cleverness inasmuch as a claim of cleverness from the big famous writer ! So her mysterious novels/movies are "surprising" us with the nonexistence of any suspension around the actual killer in the first place all along. From my point of view that's –with repeating it many times - such an insult for the audience's intelligence. Expressly this tactic of (Christie) manages to not challenge the capacity of any viewer's mind but to play the silly game of having unseen part all the time like playing chess and having an extra hidden king already !! Here the littleness of the attractive elements (except Pino Donaggio's music) allowed that to be more than visible and too perceptible than ever. The irony became so weak when the writer made you not to doubt about the foolish alleged (Lauren Bacall), but it would be stronger to put her into the list of the doubtful people and make her history questionable to be refused by the ordinary viewer then take that viewer unawares by unmasking that she did it, I think that would've been better than showing its character outside the frame then bringing her as the killer by a clue which's out of the frame too ! As if the rule in (Christie)'s works is : it's not the last one you'll think of, it's the last one you'll never think of ! True that I respect every artistic technique and the freedom of any writer to select the one to use but still that "technique" is the problem with (Christie), or maybe her secret of success ?
bkoganbing
Appointment with Death was the last theatrical release of that series of Hercule Poirot mysteries. I'm sure Peter Ustinov probably could have done others. I wouldn't be surprised if in fact the BBC Poirot series starring David Suchet which we in America saw for many years may have killed the more expensive budgeted big screen Poirot that Ustinov did so well.This particular mystery finds Hercule Poirot on holiday and in the company both on ship and later in British mandated Palestine in the mid Thirties of an American family headed by a tyrannical stepmother played by Piper Laurie. She has one grown daughter and three stepchildren one of whom is married. All live with her and the terms of her late husband's will give her complete control of the family fortune. The power of the purse keeps the whole family under her thumb. Laurie's come a long way since she was a matron in a women's prison.Another woman along on the trip who's come along way is a character based on Lady Nancy Astor, an American born woman who married a title and now has a seat in Parliament played by Lauren Bacall. She's traveling with a companion played by Hailey Mills. Also along on the trip is David Soul, Laurie's family attorney and Jenny Seagrove as a young doctor. On an excursion out in the desert Laurie turns up dead and the mystery is afoot. Of course Poirot through careful questioning and a gathering of the suspects eventually finds out who the real murderer is.The film has of course an impressive cast which also includes John Gielgud as the local police inspector in Jerusalem. A young Arab boy also dies during the film, killed because he witnessed the murder and can identify the culprit. That particular act robs us of any sympathy we might have had for the perpetrator.Appointment with Death also benefits from good photography, shot on location in both Israel and Italy with interiors done in London. All the Peter Ustinov Poirot films are of excellent quality and are a great introduction to the work Agatha Christie.
AD
