Death on the Nile
It was undeniably a situation of their own making, penniless but handsome Simon Doyle having been introduced to heiress Linnet Ridgeway by his fiancé Jacqueline de Bellefort in hopes Linnet would find Simon a position on her estate; instead he abandoned her and married Linnet, and now following them on every step of their honeymoon Jackie has made it her mission to pursue and harass them with justified fury.
Nor, as paddle steamer Karnak makes its way past the sights of Egypt, are any of the other passengers better disposed towards Linnet who reneged on the cash promised maid Louise for her own wedding, in litigation with scandalous author Salome Otterbourne, Miss Bowers, the companion of elderly Marie van Schuyler, having lost her fortune to Linnet’s father, and her lawyer, Andrew Pennington, hotfooting through finances to cover his indiscretions, while Hercule Poirot enjoys the sun and hospitality, observing all.
Unlike the conspiracy of snowbound silence of the Murder on the Orient Express, the grudges and resentments of the multiple suspects of Death on the Nile are all paraded in plain view on the first days of the cruise, released in 1978 and directed by King Kong’s John Guillermin from an adaptation by Anthony Shaffer of Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel of the same name, with Peter Ustinov for the first time taking the role which would define the later part of his career, all of course shot on a series of iconic locations.
Boasting an astonishing cast, with David Niven as Poirot’s friend Colonel Race, Bette Davis and Maggie Smith as scheming Van Schuyler and the acidic Miss Bowers, Jane Birkin as timid Louise and Simon MacCorkindale as Doyle, eyes catching on a potential upgrade from Mia Farrow as bitter and flighty Jackie in the opening moments, as Linnet future Bond girl Lois Chiles practically finds sport in making enemies, flaunting her power and wealth.
Angela Lansbury refusing to curb herself and attempt to blend in as Salome, even with a boatload of eccentrics and gunplay in the dining room she is determined to draw attention to herself in a plot which relies on medical assistance to take a conspicuously long time to arrive from a nearby cabin and for the passengers to not notice what is going on around them in the confined space of the Karnak.
Restored in 4K as part of StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics range, the new edition of Death on the Nile is supported by an audio commentary, a “making of” featurette, a video essay by David Cairns and a set of interviews with Ustinov, Lansbury, Birkin, costume designer Anthony Powell and producer Richard Goodwin, along with the original trailer and behind-the-scenes and costume galleries, the latter having won the Academy Award for Powell.
Death on the Nile will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from StudioCanal from Monday 24th November alongside Murder on the Orient Express, The Mirror Crack’d and Evil Under the Sun and a box set containing all four films, The Agatha Christie Collection
