SPOILERS. Another one of those somewhat claustrophobic Agatha Christie suspensers but a very well-done example of same. Wouldn't we all like to take a trip down the Nile on a paddle-wheeler? (The Egyptian kids run alongside on the river bank, waving and shouting at the boat, making Bette Davis smile -- until they pull down their pants and moon her.)

She's quite good, Bette Davis. So is everyone else. They seem to fit into their parts almost as well as the characters in "The Maltese Falcon." Lois Childes isn't much of an actress, true. She has an accent that is straight out of the San Fernando Valley. ("I don't like being compared to a ba-bewn." That last vowel, if it were in German, would demand an umlaut.) But she is positively juicy looking. What a sinuous back!

The usual unsavory or suspicious characters are aboard, all of them done very well. The best, perhaps, is Angela Lansbury. She is absolutely outstanding as a sex-crazed novelist, caressing the stone rams along the road, lauding "their ruttish nature." Her wardrobe deserves some kind of prize for its outrageousness -- she wears fuzzy turbans, her eyes are circled with black like a lemur's, and she wears what appears to be a long ton of beads which droop in festoons down to her belly button. And her acting is priceless. Half drunk all the time and all drunk half the time, she bats those awning-sized eyelashes, rolls her eyes at the overhead, practically swoons with self-love, and is utterly magnetic. She comes on like a woman out of Aubrey Beardsley, a treat to watch and to listen to. Everyone else seems human by comparison.

The mystery makes sense. The plot is easy to follow. The characters are supposed to be quirky -- and they are. Excellent use is made of locations, mainly the ruins at Luxor, south of Cairo.

There is a stunning scene of Childs and her husband racing across the desert on two Arabian horses that can't be beaten, not even by Ben Johnson in a Ford western. Nino Rota has written one of those orchestral scores called "epic," and for this scene he slyly quotes from Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."

The film has no ambition to be anything other than what it is, Gott sei dank. Watch it if you have the chance.

Up front I should say that I am not an Agatha Christie fan. Now it isn't like I have anything against her--I just am not particularly a mystery fan--so keep this in mind when you read the review. Perhaps it's because of this that I found the plot so incredibly contrived. Think about it--there is a boat traveling down the Nile and a woman is murdered...and practically everyone on board hated this lady and would loved to have killed her! This isn't like "Murder on the Orient Express" where a huge group of people who hated a man deliberately conspired to ALL be there to murder someone. We are expected, instead, to believe that it was all just a coincidence that almost all the passengers EXCEPT Poirot hated this particular woman! This strains credibility WAAAY past the breaking point and even Charlie Chan never faced coincidences like this! Plus, while different, it's enough like "Murder on the Orient Express" to make you wonder why this plot was explored. I know that many Agatha Christie fans out there cannot accept that I am not 100% in awe of her story, but this isn't meant as just an insult--she was a great author--but the plot does have problems. And the problems, unfortunately, don't stop there. At one point, Angela Lansbury is about to tell everyone who the killer is--and is conveniently shot in the head at that exact moment! Doesn't this seem rather...once again...contrived? It's all a shame, actually, as the plot did NOT need to have so many people on board who wanted to kill her--the actual murder and how it was constructed was really interesting. Plus, the final scene with the murderers was fantastic!

Despite these problems, though, the film is quite entertaining. The multi-star cast is very good and I liked Peter Ustinov as Poirot as he looked less like a wax dummy than how Albert Finney (though "Murder on the Orient Express" was still a better film). Likewise, it was nice to see old favorites like Bette Davis, David Niven, George Kennedy and Maggie Smith. My only reservation about the cast was the odd decision to cast Jack Warden as a German doctor!! Why didn't they pick someone who was German or at least could be more convincing in this role? Overall, very watchable...but I'd advise you first to see "Murder on the Orient Express".

Death on the Nile is a long and complicated book, and this does the book justice in my opinion, despite one or two misjudgements. I have seen all 6 of the Ustinov movies, and will say that the weakest is Appointment with Death. The film looks absolutely gorgeous, and the music score was just perfect. The script was excellent, and if you haven't read the book, you wouldn't have guessed the final solution in a million years. Peter Ustinov clearly enjoys himself as Hercule Poirot, sure he mayn't look like the Poirot in the book, but his performance more than compensates. People say that this film is too long and drags. At nearly 3 hours, I think the film needed to be long to capture the essence of the book, though I do agree that it drags in the middle. The supporting actors were in general very good, especially the delicious overplaying by Angela Lansbury and Maggie Smith. I also liked Mia Farrow as Jaqueline and Simon McCorkindale as Simon. Bette Davis was very good as Mrs Van Schuyler, David Niven was excellent in an otherwise thankless role, Olivia Hussey was lovely though underused and George Kennedy was good but has been better. In fact, the only actress I wasn't too keen on was Lois Chiles as Linnette. Linnette in the book is blond and bitchy, but Lois Chiles looked as though she had mousy hair and she didn't quite have the bitchiness of the character right. That said, this is a beautiful looking film, that is fairly faithful to the book. All in all, 8/10. Bethany Cox.