One of the better Christie adaptations. Enjoyable but still getting noticeably tired.
The performances are fine. Ustinov's Hercule Poirot is the equal of both David Suchet and Albert Finney, fine Poirots in their own right. Roddy MacDowell plays a snoopy gay journalist to just the right level -- see him perching on the steps with his hips cocked to one side, his elbow extended and his hand resting on his waist, a cigarette held so daintily in the other hand. At the top, but not over it. ("This may not be cherchez la femme but it is definitely cherchez la fruit," says Maggie Smith offering him up as a suspect.)
Ditto for Diana Rigg as the bitchy actress entering the decline of her career. The most amusing part of the movie is when Rigg exchanges catty insults with Maggie Smith as the prim proprietor of the hotel. "We all admired you when you were in the chorus line and kicked your legs up higher than anyone else -- and wider." Poor Rigg's husband stands between the two as they diss one another, a slightly puzzled look on his face because -- well, let's face facts -- women are so much better at this sort of thing than men. Rigg, nota bene, has one powerful knockout of a figure. Whew. Her male counterpart, Nicholas Clay, swaggers smugly around in a pair of tight black drawers that threaten to reveal his shortcomings at any moment, ready to mate and pass on his genes. If he were a penguin it would be called an ecstatic display. But it's just not the same as Diana Rigg and those endlessly long suntanned legs. Sylvia Miles is outrageous as a garishly made-up obstreperous American lady, croaking out vulgarisms like, "They had to stash her away in the BOOBY HATCH." And James Mason (underused) has a splendid scene in which he is queried by Poirot and delights in explaining why he has no alibi. "No, not like the detective novels. No one saw me. No caretaker coming along, gallantly touching his forelock in greeting." For a few moments the dialog seemed to come out of Vladimir Nabokov. The lines were good, but I guess the fact that Mason had once been a splendid Humbert Humbert had something to do with the impression.
I suppose the exclusive use of Cole Porter's music (splashy, fully orchestrated, fully blown, with 1930ish arrangements) was supposed to add some additional interest to the story but I'm not sure it was much of an improvement over the original scores for "Murder on the Orient Express" and Nino Rota's "Death on the Nile."
Okay, "Get Out of Town" and "I've Got My Eye on You" were apt enough titles but the music seemed self conscious, as if the score meant to draw attention to its own wit.
The wardrobe in both of the recent earlier Poirots was good. Sometimes, as in the case of Angela Lansbury in "Death on the Nile," it was great! Here, the period is the 1930s rather than the 1920s, and the wardrobe, like the score, seems to be trying too hard. The costumes are flashy without being at all attractive. The garb looks like exploded cupcakes. Did women have those broad built-in shoulders like Arnold Schwarzenegger back then? Or hats like paellerias with feathers? It all seems overdone. Of course I'm no expert on women's clothing, having no experience with it, aside from my closet full of frothy petticoats.
The plot is good Christie and the locations, while not exactly majestic, are attractive and used to their fullest extent.
Yet this doesn't quite measure up to the preceding two Poirots. It reminds me of the slow deflation in Universal's Sherlock Holmes series, the ones with Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. There's an increased sense of going through the motions. Subsequent episodes with Ustinov were to become cheaper and more slapdash.
I don't mean to say that it's a crummy movie, because it's not. It's pretty good, especially if you haven't seen the earlier entries. An interesting, genteel Whodunit, with not a drop of blood to be seen.
The performances are fine. Ustinov's Hercule Poirot is the equal of both David Suchet and Albert Finney, fine Poirots in their own right. Roddy MacDowell plays a snoopy gay journalist to just the right level -- see him perching on the steps with his hips cocked to one side, his elbow extended and his hand resting on his waist, a cigarette held so daintily in the other hand. At the top, but not over it. ("This may not be cherchez la femme but it is definitely cherchez la fruit," says Maggie Smith offering him up as a suspect.)
Ditto for Diana Rigg as the bitchy actress entering the decline of her career. The most amusing part of the movie is when Rigg exchanges catty insults with Maggie Smith as the prim proprietor of the hotel. "We all admired you when you were in the chorus line and kicked your legs up higher than anyone else -- and wider." Poor Rigg's husband stands between the two as they diss one another, a slightly puzzled look on his face because -- well, let's face facts -- women are so much better at this sort of thing than men. Rigg, nota bene, has one powerful knockout of a figure. Whew. Her male counterpart, Nicholas Clay, swaggers smugly around in a pair of tight black drawers that threaten to reveal his shortcomings at any moment, ready to mate and pass on his genes. If he were a penguin it would be called an ecstatic display. But it's just not the same as Diana Rigg and those endlessly long suntanned legs. Sylvia Miles is outrageous as a garishly made-up obstreperous American lady, croaking out vulgarisms like, "They had to stash her away in the BOOBY HATCH." And James Mason (underused) has a splendid scene in which he is queried by Poirot and delights in explaining why he has no alibi. "No, not like the detective novels. No one saw me. No caretaker coming along, gallantly touching his forelock in greeting." For a few moments the dialog seemed to come out of Vladimir Nabokov. The lines were good, but I guess the fact that Mason had once been a splendid Humbert Humbert had something to do with the impression.
I suppose the exclusive use of Cole Porter's music (splashy, fully orchestrated, fully blown, with 1930ish arrangements) was supposed to add some additional interest to the story but I'm not sure it was much of an improvement over the original scores for "Murder on the Orient Express" and Nino Rota's "Death on the Nile."
Okay, "Get Out of Town" and "I've Got My Eye on You" were apt enough titles but the music seemed self conscious, as if the score meant to draw attention to its own wit.
The wardrobe in both of the recent earlier Poirots was good. Sometimes, as in the case of Angela Lansbury in "Death on the Nile," it was great! Here, the period is the 1930s rather than the 1920s, and the wardrobe, like the score, seems to be trying too hard. The costumes are flashy without being at all attractive. The garb looks like exploded cupcakes. Did women have those broad built-in shoulders like Arnold Schwarzenegger back then? Or hats like paellerias with feathers? It all seems overdone. Of course I'm no expert on women's clothing, having no experience with it, aside from my closet full of frothy petticoats.
The plot is good Christie and the locations, while not exactly majestic, are attractive and used to their fullest extent.
Yet this doesn't quite measure up to the preceding two Poirots. It reminds me of the slow deflation in Universal's Sherlock Holmes series, the ones with Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. There's an increased sense of going through the motions. Subsequent episodes with Ustinov were to become cheaper and more slapdash.
I don't mean to say that it's a crummy movie, because it's not. It's pretty good, especially if you haven't seen the earlier entries. An interesting, genteel Whodunit, with not a drop of blood to be seen.