Death on the Nile (1978)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Death on the Nile (1978) – J. Guillerman

I watched the first of the Kenneth Branagh Agatha Christie adaptations and that was enough for me (tell me if I am wrong).  But taking a sickie today, I decided to watch an older Christie adaptation starring Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, with the late ‘70s version of an all-star cast (David Niven, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, George Kennedy, Maggie Smith, Olivia Hussey, Jack Warden, Jon Finch, Jane Birkin). Whether I had seen this back in the day (on TV surely) doesn’t quite matter since I couldn’t remember the plot.  As always, everyone has a motive to kill Linnet Ridgeway (Lois Chiles) and, by the end, Poirot will gather all of them (well the survivors anyway) into one room to announce the actual killer.  This time, the suspects are all on a cruise down the Nile after beginning the film at the Sphinx and the Pyramids (seemingly shot on location).  As directed by John Guillerman, it is by-the-numbers murder mystery fare – and that’s all you need on a sick day.