DEATH ON THE NILE 1978

On the occasion of having completed a collection of Agatha Christie mystery novels gifted to me by my partner at Christmas (in hardback yet!), I’ve taken the opportunity to revisit 1978’s Death on the Nile, the second film in the unofficial Poirot Trilogy from British producers John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin (Murder on the Orient Express -1974, Death on the Nile -1978, Evil Under the Sun - 1982).

Released in the fall of 1978 at the height of America's Tut-Mania born of the 1976-1979 tour of The Treasures of Tutankhamun museum exhibit, Death on the Nile was a less stylish, not quite all-star follow-up to the wildly successful Murder on the Orient Express, and marked the first appearance of Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot. It seems Albert Finney declined the opportunity to reprise his Oscar-nominated performance from that first film after considering the rigors of applying and wearing the extensive Poirot makeup and prosthetics in the triple-degree heat of the Egyptian desert.
Lacking, for my taste anyway, the star quality Finney brought to the role which made him more an equal participant in the proceedings, Ustinov nevertheless brings a character actor’s zest to his interpretation of Poirot, making the character uniquely his own. Ustinov would go on to play Christie’s Belgian sleuth in two more feature films (Evil Under the Sun and the awful-beyond-imagining Appointment With Death) and three contemporized TV-movies.

Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot

Bette Davis as Mrs. Marie Van Schuyler

David Niven as Colonel Race 

Mia Farrow as Jacqueline De Bellefort

Simon MacCorkindale as Simon Doyle

Lois Chiles as Linnet Ridgeway

Jack Warden as Dr. Bessner

Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Salome Otterbourne

George Kennedy as Andrew Pennington

Maggie Smith as Miss Bowers

Jon Finch as Mr. Ferguson

Olivia Hussey as Rosalie Otterbourne

Jane Birkin as Louise Bourget

As a huge fan of Murder on the Orient Express but having missed the opportunity to catch it on the big screen, I made sure to see Death on the Nile the day it opened. I recall the audience as being sparse but appreciative, and I remember enjoying the film a great deal; albeit more for its cast and surprising twists of plot (it’s quite a puzzler of a mystery and hands-down the bloodiest film in the series) than anything particularly noteworthy about its execution.

Murder on the Orient Express was a glamorous, cinema-inspired recreation of an era, purposefully romanticized and steeped in nostalgia. Death on the Nile, under the journeyman, traffic-cop guidance of large-scale logistics director John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno, King Kong), is, on the other hand, a murder mystery well-told, but one devoid of either mood or atmosphere. The claustrophobic tension of a luxury passenger train is traded for the more scenic vistas offered by a majestic paddle steamer cruising down the Nile. Anthony Powell’s dazzling, Academy Award-winning costume designs do most of the heavy-lifting in the glamour department; meanwhile, the visual splendor of the British countryside and sunny, travelogue-worthy scenes of Egyptian landmarks offset the film's otherwise straightforward, TV-movie presentation.
  

Putting the best spin on it possible, Death on the Nile’s competent but indifferent direction and utter lack of visual distinction immediately put to rest any inclination on my part to compare this film to its (again, to my taste) far superior predecessor. Divested of any expectation to duplicate that film’s elegant, diffused-light visual style or compete with its first-class pedigree cast, I was able to better appreciate Death on the Nile on its own modest, nonetheless worthwhile, merits.

Intelligently and wittily adapted by playwright Anthony Schaffer (Sleuth) from Christie’s 1937 novel (which began life as a stage play alternately titled, Moon on the Nile and Murder on the Nile), Death on the Nile finds Poirot (Ustinov) vacationing in Egypt aboard a river vessel jam-packed with potential victims and suspects. The guests include: Poirot’s distinguished friend Colonel Race (Niven), an imperious dowager (Davis) and her mannish nurse (Smith); a dipsomaniacal romance novelist and her soft-spoken daughter (Lansbury and Hussey); a pompous Austrian physician (Warden); a peevish Socialist (Finch); a calculating American lawyer (Kennedy); a rancorous French maid (Birkin); and a too-rich, too-beautiful, too-happy couple on their honeymoon, (Chiles and MacCorkindale). Oh, and there's also a vengeful scorned woman (Farrow), MacCorkindale's former fiance.

As is to be expected, not a single soul aboard the good ship Karnak is there merely by chance, each life connecting and intersecting in the most intriguing, mysterious ways. The fun to be had in Death on the Nile is seeing these diverse personalities clash. The entertainment is found trying to stay one step ahead as the details of the masterfully intricate mystery at the center of the story come to be revealed.

Bette Davis  looks to be channeling a future Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, while Maggie Smith is putting out a serious Tilda Swinton vibe

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Death on the Nile is one of those movies that plays much better today than when it was released.

When Murder on the Orient Express opened in 1974, its all-star cast and artful recreation of a bygone era rode the crest of the '70s nostalgia craze and the public mania for star-studded disaster films. But by the time Death on the Nile was made, the cultural climate had changed significantly. Thanks to the popularity of the TV miniseries, the guest star face-lift parade that was The Love Boat,  and the last gasps of the disaster film mania (Airport 77, The Swarm, Avalanche): all-star casts no longer meant glamorous...they became synonymous with cheesy.
And while not officially a sequel to Murder on the Orient Express (although conceived as one) Death on the Nile was perceived as a sequel in the minds of the public, and thus also fell victim to the overall cultural disenchantment with the glut of uninspired sequels Hollywood churned out in hopes of duplicating earlier successes: The Godfather Part II, Jaws 2, The French Connection II, The Exorcist: The Heretic.

People seeing Death on the Nile today see the classic stars of All About Eve, My Man Godfrey (David Niven, the 1957 remake), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Rosemary’s Baby, The Manchurian Candidate, Romeo and Juliet, and The Great Gatsby, all appearing in the same film. But back in 1978, the film's biggest stars, Bette Davis and David Niven, were appearing on TV or in low-rent Disney movies, Peter Ustinov was best known as "That old dude in Logan's Run," Mia Farrow had not yet hitched her wagon to Woody Allen, Angela Lansbury was better known on Broadway, and George Kennedy was like the James Franco of the disaster genre: unavoidable and seemingly in everything.

Time has been kind, however, and the biggest treat now is being able to enjoy all these great stars - many of them no longer with us - in a handsomely-mounted old-fashioned film, looking so outrageously young, entertaining us with the kind of marvelous, once-in-a-lifetime talent it was once so easy for us to take for granted.

Swag
If you ain't got elegance you can never, ever carry it off

PERFORMANCES
Just to lodge two main performance complaints from the getgo: 1) Lois Chiles is drop-dead gorgeous, but I've never understood how she landed so many plum roles in high-profile films. When it comes to flat line readings, she really gives Michelle Phillips (Valentino) a run for her money. 2) Simon MacCorkindale's performance would have improved tenfold had he just been given a scene or two sans shirt or in bathing trunks. It certainly did wonders for Nicholas Clay's characterization in Evil Under the Sun.

Dressed to Kill

I love ensemble films, but it's almost impossible to write about individual performances without appearing to intentionally slight those not mentioned. I like the cast assembled for Death on the Nile, the weaker actors benefiting from roles requiring them to play a single note; the stronger ones running with the opportunity and creating memorable, ofttimes hilarious, characterizations. Anyone studying acting should keep their eye on David Niven, his silent reactions—whether exasperation at having to play audience to one of Poirot's frequent self-aggrandizing speeches, or delighting in seeing his friend taken down a peg—are more eloquent than most of the film's dialogue.

As a fan of bitchy dialogue, I find every scene with Bette Davis and Maggie Smith to be pure gold. Their pairing is genuinely inspired. Jack Warden is the master of comical bluster, George Kennedy cleaned up isn't half bad, and I like seeing Mia Farrow and Lois Chiles reunited—they played best friends in 1974s The Great Gatsby—their roles here casting Farrow as a Gatsby-esque character losing her true love to the dazzle of wealth. It helps that Farrow is much more compelling as a woman on the edge than she was as Gatsby's dream girl.

The radiant Olivia Hussey (last seen sliding around on bookcases in Lost Horizon) and the late Jon Finch. Finch, looking thinner here than he did in Macbeth, was diagnosed with diabetes in 1974. 

Even after having read three Hercule Poirot novels, my mental image of the detective is not so defined as to find any fault with Ustinov's portrayal. Although I personally prefer Finney, Ustinov's more sensitive take on the detective (he has a marvelously heartbreaking exchange with Farrow near the end) is quite good.

Although I read somewhere that the actress feels she went a little over the top in the theatricality of her performance, I absolutely adore Angela Lansbury in this. Light years away from Murder She Wrote's Jessica Fletcher or her Miss Marple in 1980's lamentable The Mirror Crack'd (but with a hint of Sweeney Todd's Mrs. Lovett) Lansbury's tipsy romance novelist:  "Snow on the Sphinx's Face", "Passion Under the Persimmon Tree" - is the comic highlight of the film for me.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Death on the Nile's only Oscar win is also its only Academy nod. Anthony Powell won Best Costume Design for his eye-popping period creations; costumes that indelibly establish the identities of each member of the sizable cast with style, wit, and considerable theatrical panache. Although I'm surprised to learn his equally astonishing designs for Evil Under the Sun failed to get a nomination, as a six-time nominee and three-time winner (Travels With My Aunt, Tess, Death on the Nile), I don't suppose Powell is losing any sleep over it.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

There's a sense of one having one's cake and eating it too when I think of how I only recently came to read the works of Agatha Christie so many years after first seeing the film adaptations. I was able to enjoy the mystery and suspense of the films as intended, with no foreknowledge of their outcome or the identity of the killer, but reading the books after the fact has the pleasant effect of filling in some of the narrative blanks and backstory impossible to include in a film.

What I liked so much about the film version of Murder on the Orient Express is that in addition to a crackling murder mystery, it offered, by way of subtext, a poignant illustration of the manner in which a single act of violence can have a rippling effect resulting in the harm done to one ultimately wounding a great many others. The film version of Death on the Nile I’ve always felt suffered from being too much of a tale told expediently. It’s a great mystery with interesting characters and many surprises, but I never felt it had anything larger to express. Certainly, nothing to justify that aforementioned choke in Poirot’s throat at the end of the film.

Poirot and Colonel Race call the attention of the ship's manager (I.S. Johar) to a matter not at all pleasant

Happily, the novel (which, short of a few excised characters, has been faithfully adapted for the screen) expounds upon the larger thematic threads connecting the characters and their actions. Themes relating to secrets kept, risks taken, and fatal sacrifices made in the name of protecting those we're afraid are incapable of taking care of themselves.
And while I feel fairly safe in stating that little to none of these themes factor in John Guillermin's film adaptation, keeping it in the back of my mind as I rewatched Death on the Nile did wonders for my reappraisal of it.

BONUS MATERIAL
Because so many fans of Death on the Nile have expressed feeling shortchanged by Simon MacCorkindale remaining fully-clothed throughout, by way of compensation I offer this screencap of Mr. Mac from the 1987 straight-to-video film: Shades of Love: Sincerely, Violet. A least that director knew man cannot live by Sphinx alone.

Simon Says: Eat your heart out

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 -2015

LOST HORIZON 1973

It’s not my intention to turn this blog into a celebration of the worst that cinema has to offer (although there are those who would say I already have), but the recent DVD release of the notorious 1973 mega-flop Lost Horizon, is an event of considerable note. A cause for celebration, if you will, for both lovers of entertainingly bad cinema (yours truly), and those who love the movie unashamedly, regarding it as an underappreciated classic or sentimental favorite.   

Lost Horizon, James Hilton’s paean to peace and spiritual life everlasting in a magical land called Shangri-La, was first adapted to film by Frank Capra in 1937. Thirty-five years later, MOR pop sensations Burt Bacharach and Hal David were hired by producer Ross Hunter to score this big-budget, semi-all-star, musical remake. Alas, Lost Horizon fell prey to the prevailing twisted logic of the day which held that what modern musicals needed most was dramatic talent, so, Columbia Pictures, not having learned its lesson from Camelot (whose revamped set serves a Shangri-La’s lamasery), populated Lost Horizon with a cast of dramatic actors who could neither sing nor dance.

 Really? This is 35 years of film progress?: Above, Shangri-La envisioned as a Streamline Moderne paradise in the 1937 film; below, Shangri-La as a Las Vegas theme hotel.

To promote Lost Horizon, Ross Hunter—the comb-overed, leisure-suited, closeted-gay producer (his 40-years lifetime partner was frequent co-producer Jacque Mapes) responsible for the Tammy films, Douglas Sirk, and those Rock Hudson/Doris Day comedies—appeared in a flurry of self-congratulatory, back-slapping, print and television publicity declaring how proud he was of Lost Horizon, and how (in a subtle slap in the face to the new permissiveness in films) his musical was to be a return to the wholesome family films of yesteryear.

Hunter, who had reason to crow, coming as he did off of the staggering blockbuster success of Airport (1970), was about to get a none-too-subtle dose of hubris when critics and audiences nationwide met the release of Lost Horizon with a conjoined hostility that effectively ended his 20-plus years as a feature film producer. Had Hunter been a little less "proud" of Lost Horizon, he may have emerged from the fiasco reasonably unscathed. Unfortunately (but rather helpfully), Ross Hunter chose to plaster his name in large type above the film's title in any and all publicity, making it easy for everyone to know just where and with whom to place the blame.

These aren't the same guy?
Disaster film producer Irwin Allen (l.), producer of disasters of a different sort, Ross Hunter (r.)

Following much advance hoopla, when ultimately released, Lost Horizon (which provided Norwegian art-house sensation, Liv Ullmann, her ignominious American film debut) had the dubious distinction of being one of the most heavily-promoted, yet widely-reviled films of the '70s. A title it may well have held in perpetuity had it not been for the twin-missile launch of two equally high-profile musical bombs later in the decade: At Long Last Love (1975) and The Blue Bird (1976).

Even with the excision of several laugh-inducing musical numbers, Lost Horizon limped along at theaters before disappearing completely within weeks of opening. Soundtrack albums and truckloads of Lost Horizon merchandising items (comic books, paper dolls, etc.) filled the remainder bins. Denied a VHS release and airing on cable TV only in its severely edited-down form, Lost Horizon, a film otherwise destined for obscurity, has over the years risen to must-see status primarily due to its long-standing unavailability and a lingering public curiosity surrounding it actually being as awful as its reputation attested.

Now, for the first time since that calamitous opening week in 1973, the curious and devout alike can witness Lost Horizon in all its fully restored, digitally enhanced, wide-screen splendor, with all but one of its five deleted musical numbers reinstated (a brief Sally Kellerman/George Kennedy reprise of "Living Together, Growing Together" is still MIA). Sure, the recovery of lost footage from Lost Horizon is a bit like a Bizarro World reenactment of the restorations of Stroheim's Greed or Lang's Metropolis; but it’s rare for a studio to treat one of its money-losing embarrassments with such respect.

Peter Finch, most likely thinking of his paycheck.

Liv Ullmann, adopts the universal "Who knows?" pose when asked why she agreed to appear in this film

Sally Kellerman, upon hearing that her big solo number, "Reflections" is to take place atop a big ol' rock

Michael York, Shangri-La's snappiest dresser

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Although I am very fond of Lost Horizon and have seen it many times, I don't number myself among those who actually think it’s a good film. I like it because of the nostalgia it invokes (the pro-Lost Horizon cult is comprised chiefly of individuals who saw it as children. Bless their undiscerning little hearts); my love of Burt Bacharach; and because I have a decided taste for cheese. Lost Horizon is a banquet of tacky aesthetics, risible dialog, awkward performances, wince-inducing lyrics, and moldy choreography. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Movies this wrong-headed are just too much fun.

Bobby Van and George Kennedy model the latest in caftan finery from the 1973 Ah Men catalog: The Allan Carr/Fire Island collection

As with many bad films that provide hours of unintentional entertainment, Lost Horizon’s cluelessness is one of its primary charms. It's just so darn earnest! Fairly dripping with good intentions, EST seminar philosophizing, and Me Generation navel-gazing; Lost Horizon intends to be moving and inspirational, but in never adequately landing on a way of dramatizing its themes, the film talks about them instead (ad nauseum) and in turn feels needlessly preachy. For example: Lost Horizon never makes Shangri-La look particularly appealing. It's actually like a well-appointed rest home. Seriously, the state of peace and enlightenment HAS to be livelier and more fun than this. With all those monks somnambulistically gliding about and everybody looking so gloomily content, the idea of an eternity spent here sounds less like a dream and more like one of those ironic twist endings from a Twilight Zone episode.

Trying to read smutty subtext into schoolteacher Liv Ullmann offering Peter Finch a taste of her melon is about as exciting as things get in Shangri-La

PERFORMANCES

If there’s such a thing as the opposite of “The Midas Touch,” then the late Ross Hunter certainly had it when it came to natural beauty. In Airport, Hunter’s old-fashioned notion of glamour turned 32-year-old stunner, Jean Seberg, into a well-preserved matron. And in Lost Horizon he works the same reverse alchemy on the luminous Liv Ullmann. The stiff, desexed, schoolmarm Lost Horizon fashions her into bears no resemblance to the lovely, earthy actress in all those Ingmar Bergman films.

Along with an unflattering wardrobe, Liv Ullmann is saddled with a terrible dubbed singing voice in Lost Horizon (the voice is actually lovely, it's just that it sounds absolutely nothing like Ullmann). To hear what her real singing voice is like (metered shouting, actually), check out this clip of Ullmann performing in the 1979 Broadway musical I Remember Mama

Sally Kellerman, though ill-served by the terrible script and a few too many giggle-worthy dance moments, is my personal favorite in Lost Horizon. Perhaps it's the character arc that takes her from pill-popping neurotic to loose-limbed free spirit, or the fact that when she sings she at least sounds like herself (the soulless, antiseptic singing voices given to Finch and Ullman could have come out of a machine). Mostly it's because there's a naturalness to her that I've always found very appealing. Unlike some of her costars who look only embarrassed, one senses that Kellerman liked her role, enjoys singing, and perhaps envisioned herself appearing in a better musical than the one she's actually in.

Sally Kellerman and a very pregnant Olivia Hussey agree to disagree in "The Things I Will Not Miss" number. A song one perceptive online critic described as a New-Age version of the "Green Acres" theme.
Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye tried their hand at it Here.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

The Holy Grail of lost footage for those with an affinity for the awful has been the infamous "fertility dance" sequence of the "Living Together, Growing Together" number. Legend has it that this sequence, highlighting greased-up male dancers in loincloths, caused so much audience laughter that it was removed from the film during its opening week. The choreography in this number is hilarious, to be sure, but some of that laughter HAD to have been homosexual panic. After all, there have been hundreds of films with equally atrocious harem-girl dance sequences shoehorned into the plot for the sole purpose of displaying a little female pulchritude. But I guess a big screen filled with gyrating, muscular, semi-nude male dancers was just too much to ask of audiences in 1973. Both confounding and fascinating, it stands alone as the sole moment of an asserted homosexual sensibility in a strenuously heterosexual "family" entertainment created by a coterie of gay men (the aforementioned Hunter and co-producer Mapes; 63-year-old choreographer Hermes Pan; and screenwriter Larry Kramer).

Stop! In the name of good taste

Too many rings around Rosie

If they only wore skates, this would look like an "Ice Vanities" number from The Donny & Marie Show

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

When it comes to Lost Horizon, I think American audiences betrayed Ross Hunter by acting like they expected something other than vulgar schlock from him (after all, he had been feeding them just that for 20 years). But I also think Hunter betrayed American audiences by falling prey to that great Hollywood sickness: mistaking success for talent.

The following year,, Finch & Ullmann reteamed in the film The Abdication

Airport was a wildly popular film, but, no offense to fans, just add a few Bacharach songs and lead-footed dances and it's every bit as awful as Lost Horizon. But since it was the biggest grosser of the year and garnered Ross Hunter his first and only Academy Award® nomination, it was inevitable that he wouldn't just see this as a case of giving the public what they wanted (like a fast-food burger), but evidence of his talent. The thing that sinks Lost Horizon is that it just takes itself too seriously and tries too hard to be an important film. When Hunter was content to make glossy, easily-digestible, escapist fluff, he was perhaps at the top of his craft. When he actually started to see himself as a messenger of spiritual uplift...well, delusion crept in, held the door open for pretension, and they both kicked Hunter in the pants.

East Meets West
James Shigeta & John Gielgud portray residents of Shangri-La

We film fans are susceptible to our own variation of this sickness. If we like a film, we flatter ourselves by thinking it's because it is an unequivocally good film. If we don't like a film, it obviously has to be because the movie is bad. Closer to the truth is that we each like what we like, then we try to attach objective value judgments to our subjective opinions, This kind of thinking ignores the very real fact that some truly marvelous films are just not to our taste, and some real stinkers are dear to our hearts. Such is Lost Horizon to me. It's not a good film, but boy, was I excited when I learned that it was coming out on DVD!

Sally Kellerman refuses to let a dangerous trek through the Himalayan Mountains interfere with her fashion sense; that fur hat MUST be cocked to the side!

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES
Below are autographs collected from Michael York and Ross Hunter in 1980. They were patrons at a bookstore I used to work at on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles.

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2011