Appointment with Death *** (1988, Peter Ustinov, Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, Piper Laurie, David Soul, John Gielgud, Hayley Mills, Jenny Seagrove) – Classic Movie Review 3662

Director Michael Winner goes to Israel to film Agatha Christie’s escapist vintage mystery thriller novel Appointment with Death in 1988 and the delightful Peter Ustinov amusingly impersonates the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot for the sixth and last time.

This time Poirot uses his leetle grey cells to investigate the murder of rapacious widow Emily Boynton (Piper Laurie), step-mother to the three Boynton children and mother to Ginevra (Amber Bezer), who has (of course) a vast roster of enemies in Thirties Palestine.

Director Winner revives the tried-and-trusted formula of filming on exotic locations and has assembled the customary all-star cast roster of acting luminaries, who turn in entertainingly camp performances, including Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgud, Hayley Mills, David Soul, Jenny Seagrove, Michael Craig and Mike Sarne.

And, in his last filmed screenplay, Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth, Death on the Nile) is just the right man to adapt Agatha Christie’s novel, along with Winner and Peter Buckman.

It is entertaining and alluring enough but this Golan-Globus Cannon Films production does not quite have the lavishness and lustre of the John Brabourne and Richard B Goodwin-produced Poirot films (Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun).

It was a surprise box office flop, though getting audiences back in cinemas after Ustinov’s three TV Poirot films might always have been a challenge. Costing $6 million, it took only $960,040 at the box office, adding to Cannon Films’ problems.

The cast are Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, Lauren Bacall as Lady Westholme, Carrie Fisher as Nadine Boynton, John Gielgud as Colonel Carbury, Piper Laurie as Emily Boynton, Hayley Mills as Miss Quinton, Jenny Seagrove as Dr Sarah King, David Soul as Jefferson Cope, Nicholas Guest as Lennox Boynton, Valerie Richards as Carol Boynton, John Terlesky as Raymond Boynton, Amber Bezer as Ginevra Boynton, Douglas Sheldon as Captain Rogers, Mike Sarne as Healey and Michael Craig as Lord Peel.

The novel, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 May 1938, was set in Petra, Jordan, but this film was set in Jerusalem, Israel. Golan-Globus was an Israeli company. Winner said the filming in Israel occurred without political problems. It was shot partly at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, which was founded by Ustinov’s grandfather in 1902. Qumran in the Dead Sea of Israel where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered is one of the major locations.

Ustinov played Poirot in three theatrical films – Death On the Nile (1978), Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment With Death – and in three TV movies – Thirteen at Dinner, Murder in Three Acts and Dead Man’s Folly.

Appointment with Death was remade for TV with David Suchet as Poirot in 2008.

Gielgud and Bacall also starred in another big-screen Poirot adaptation, 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express.

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3662

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