Ginevra is escaping her mental torture by sinking into a fantasy world where she’s a kidnapped princess. Boynton’s natural daughter and youngest child. Both Ray and Carol are still strong enough to be terrified of what’s happening to Ginevra, Mrs. Ray is contemplating murder but doesn’t know where to begin. Nadine, his wife, is ready to leave him to save her sanity. Lennox, the oldest stepson, is nearing catatonia from despair. Her four children lost most of their complexity. It emphasized her distance from normality. Not having that bit of humanizing was more effective. Most of that was swept away, turning her - despite Piper Laurie’s best efforts - into a TV movie of the week monster. They all behave much younger than their calendar age they’ve never been let off the leash even to attend school. She’s slowly destroying her four children’s minds. Boynton is one of Agatha’s best villains.
To make sure you know it’s 1937, the movie’s climax includes a coronation ball for George VI as well as an argument about Wallis Simpson. It was jarring to see everyone in period dress, driving period cars, when I’d gotten used to 80s hair and fashion. I accepted it because the date switch was handled well and the films stayed true to the source material. Then, his next three outings leaped forward in time to contemporary 1980s films. When Ustinov began making Poirot films, they were set in the mid-1930s. What made it all stranger (for me) was the equally sudden time leap. These events simply demand a sudden, torrential thunderstorm. Does the weather become psychotropic? Naturally. The movie opens with a reading of the will, where our villainous matriarch (an outstanding Piper Laurie) blackmails her shyster lawyer (David Soul) into burning the true will.
Making faces didn’t help, either.From the opening credits, you know you’re in for an appointment with mediocrity. Smacking doors into your star like some slapstick clown? Why hack screenwriters think they can do better than the mistress of crime is beyond me. It’s the script, not the talent, although the director’s choices didn’t help. He should have gone out on a high note rather than this sour one. Lauren Bacall Lady Westholme), Peter Ustinov (Hercule Poirot) and John Gielgud (Colonel Carbury)This was Peter Ustinov’s last Poirot outing. Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.Īlso, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movies on her podcast. Lethargic, bad music, wasted stars, and plot threads that went nowhere despite the extensive scenery in which they had room to bloom. Quality of movie on its own: 2 poison bottles It’s reasonably close if you ignore that ridiculous chase through the souk, cardboard characters, and Agatha’s prose abandoned in favor of some hack screenwriter’s derivative imagination. Teresa reviews “Appointment with Death” (1988) and finds it a disappointing adaptation.
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