On Thursday night, John and I sat down to watch a documentary reviewed recently in the New York Times. The Atomic Café (1982) promised to be a documentary comprised of archival footage about the early Cold War era. The New York Times further told me that I could watch this film for free on Tubi. This was a lie. There was no sign of this film anywhere on Tubi. (I am aware that this film is available to rent on various streaming services. I hate paying to view individual films. I don’t have a real reason, other than the fact that we seem to subscribe to most of the streaming services already and I feel like I shouldn’t have to pay more to people that I already give money to. It’s probably not rational but there we are. I feel how I feel.) My heartache was somewhat assuaged by the discovery of several Agatha Christie adaptations available on the streaming service. I was particularly excited to see that we could watch Appointment with Death, starring Peter Ustinov. I was surprised to see the movie listed there, not recalling the existence of this particular film. I really thought that I would have watched it already. This probably should have served as a warning, but it did not. We heedlessly dove in to the film.
Appointment with Death is my favorite Hercule Poirot mystery. It’s really Agatha at the top of her form. Even a re-read is a delight because you can see her laying down the clues fair and square but also how you were completely misdirected. Queen of Crime indeed. I don’t want to give too much away, in part because mysteries are easily spoiled and also because I have a strong personal preference to going in cold to reading books. I really just want to know a general vibe and not any specifics at all. Too often a description of a book gives away some key element that isn’t revealed until a third of the way through the book. As a reader, I am then distracted, waiting for this shoe to drop. I’ve learned to just get a general feel for what kind of book it is and then make my decision to read or not to read from there. If you haven’t read an Agatha Christie before, Appointment with Death is an excellent place to start. If you have read other books by Agatha, then you already know the general vibe.
Back to the movie. Although Peter Ustinov (best known in my household as the voice of Prince John in Disney’s Robin Hood) made six Hercule Poirot films, only three were released in theaters. This was the last of the six and, oddly, the last of the three released in theaters. It had the poorest box office reception of those three and I am not surprised. (We have also watched Dinner for Thirteen with Mr. Ustinov and wowza was that bad. One can see why made for TV movies had a bad reputation for awhile there.) To begin with, they cut a character. I know that sometimes they have to cut things when adapting books to film due to limited time, but I do not understand why on earth they cut characters or change plots in Agatha Christie’s books specifically. She is the best-selling fiction author in the world. (Her books are outsold by The Bible and the works of Shakespeare.) Obviously, people like her books and are able to follow the plots just fine. Why are you messing with things?!
Because they cut a character, the romance subplot also had to be altered. The romance subplot here is a little much at the very end, so I wasn’t very sad about that. They also tried to create more tension in another romantic subplot, which was just weird. It didn’t fit with the plot or the vibe. If you are trying to have sexy time with your mystery, then maybe don’t read Agatha Christie. There’s no sexy time in Agatha Christie. That’s not what we’re doing here.
One of the reasons that I love this story is that the murdered woman is AWFUL. I mean, just terrible. The reader is very glad that she is the victim when the murder comes around because if Agatha hadn’t killed her off, the reader would happily have done so. However, in this adaptation they really toned her down. She wasn’t nearly awful enough and the other characters didn’t respond properly. They should be cowed by years of being under her thumb. Everyone just sort of comes off as wishy washy and mid.
Because this was a theatrical release, there are some big-name stars in this film including Carrie Fisher, Lauren Bacall, Piper Laurie, Sir John Gielgud, Hayley Mills, and the guy who played Hutch in Starsky and Hutch. The character played by Hayley Mills is supposed to be an upper middle-class lady on a tour of the Middle East. For some reason, however, they made her an archeologist. Fine. Give her a career. That’s fine. However, this lady is supposed to be dumb and easily manipulated. The Hayley Mills character is not, except in the one point that touches on the solution to the murder. And there’s all this weird stuff with her riding off on a camel with sheiks that really made no sense.
As I was looking up information on the film, I discovered that, despite the theatrical release and the big names, this was the only Peter Ustinov Poirot film that had NOT been released on DVD. (Which is why I had not previously seen it.) Viewed by itself, I guess I can kind of see why. It’s not a good movie. However, there are A LOT of bad movies on DVD, including some of the other Peter Ustinov Poirot adaptations. So, I’m not really sure what happened there. Maybe a rights issue?
I wish that I could recommend a different adaptation of Appointment with Death, but the David Suchet adaptation (usually a solid choice) swung really far in the other direction. The victim in that version is EVEN MORE terrible than in the book and flashbacks of her awful actions are honestly hard to watch. That version does bring back the missing character, albeit with many changes, but gets rid of the Hayley Mills character and adds in a weird companion for the victim. Stick with the book on this one, folks.
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