Appointment With Death

It's not too long ago from the point of when I wrote this post that I did a post on a Lauren Bacall movie. It's even slightly more recent that I did a post on a movie based on an Agatha Christie novel. Today brings a post on another of those all-star Agatha Christie movies, this one a book I didn't know much about before seeing the move show up on TCM during Lauren Bacall's term as TCM's Star of the Month: Appointment With Death.

The movie opens in 1937 in New Jersey. Emily Boynton (Piper Laurie) is the widow of a wealthy businessman who has one daughter of her own by her late husband, Ginevra, and three step-children from her late husband's first marriage. The Boynton lawyer, Jefferson Cope (David Soul) is discussing the will with Emily. Well, actually, two wills. Apparently it was Dad's original intention that Mom be the head of the trust, judiciously using that money to keep the four children taken care of until Emily dies. This, even though the three step-children are adults by now, one with a wife of his own. Two days before Mr. Boynton died, he wrote out a new will that split the estate among the four children and the widow equally. Emily for fairly obvious reasons doesn't like this, and blackmails Cope into destroying the updated will in the fireplace.

The kids are, for equally obvious reasons, not happy about this and suspect that there was in fact a second will out there but cannot yet provie it. Lennox (Nicholas Guest) is married to a nurse, Nadine (Carrie Fisher); Raymond (John Terlesky) is the youngest; seemingly afraid to do anything to cross his stepmother; and daughter Carol rounds out the family. As a way of getting over the grief of the passing of the family patriarch, Emily suggests that a transatlantic cruise to England followed by a Mediterranean trip to the Holy Land would be just what the doctor ordered. It's also a good way to get away from Cope, since Emily knows what secret he holds over her head.

On the way to Europe, they meet some intersting characters. Lady Westholme (Lauren Bacall) is one of those beautiful Americans looking for a man with class and finding one in the late Lord Westholme who was looking for money which his wife's family had. Miss Quinton (Hayley Mills) is an archaeologist looking to do some digging in Mandatory Palestine, and Dr. King (Jenny Seagrove) is fresh out of medica school. Finally, when the boat docks in Trieste, the lot meet Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov), who claims to be on vacation.

Now, we know that Poirot isn't going to get that nice vacation he was hoping for. Everybody makes their way to Jerusalem and then to Qumran, which was one of the big archaeologic sited back in the late 1930s. And it's there that Emily finally gets what's coming to her. But who did it? If you've been watching the movie carefully -- or even not so carefully since this is an Agatha Christie story and you know the formula -- you'll know that most of the other main characters in the piece minus of course Poirot are suspects. Col. Carbury (John Gielgud) is part of the British administration, and he lets Poirot do an investigation as an official investigation might cause some problems since Lady Westholme is a sitting member of Parliament. In the end, Poirot will solve the case....

Appointment With Death follows a formula, but it looks like one of those movies where everybody was getting up there in years and the steam was running out of the formula. As a result, there are some nice locations, although the story and the acting aren't the greatest of the series. (From what I've read, Agatha Christie fans don't consider this one of her best books, never mind the changes made for the screen.) Still, it's an Agatha Christie movie with an all-star -- or mostly-star -- cast, so it will wind up being entertaining enough even if not up to the standard of some of the earlier movies.