maggie smith

Death on the Nile (1978)

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I really, really wanted to love Death on the Nile. I first acquired a copy of it shortly after the death of the late Angela Lansbury, my love for whom is widely advertised all over this site. Unfortunately, her role in this is one of the smaller ones from among the ensemble, and the overall tone and extended length of this one was a bit of a letdown. It’s not bad; I quite enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. 

As the film opens, we meet Jackie de Bellefort (Mia Farrow), who practically begs her heiress friend Linnet Ridgeway (Lois Chiles) to hire Jackie’s fiance Simon (Simon MacCorkindale) for a position at Ridgeway’s estate. She relents, and then we jump forward a year to find Simon on a honeymoon with his wife, except he hasn’t married Jackie, and is instead now wedded to Linnet. That doesn’t stop Jackie from being a thorn in their side, however, as she shows up at their most recent romantic rendezvous atop a Giza pyramid to recite facts about its dimensions, with Linnet and Simon both expressing frustration that she has appeared at every destination on their post-wedding trip. (As a side note, I loved this; if my best friend stole my betrothed, I would also be so petty that neither of them would know a moment’s peace for the rest of their lives, and there would be no corner of the earth in which I could not find a way to be a nuisance.) They attempt to give her the slip before the next leg of their trip, and appear to have been successful, as they board a steamboat travelling down, as the title would suggest, the Nile River. 

As it turns out, not only are they not alone on this journey, but many of the passengers, like Jackie, are in the vicinity because of their desire to cause trouble for the newlyweds. There’s Linnet’s maidservant, Louise (Jane Birkin), who was promised a dowry for her service to Linnet so that she could marry a man she loves, but which Linnet continues to delay paying, possibly with the intention of completely reneging on their deal. Miss Bowers (Maggie Smith)’s formerly noble family lost their fortune at the machinations of Linnet’s father, forcing her into taking a thankless job as the companion of Marie Van Schuyler (Bette Davis), whose own aristocratic status does not stop her from having kleptomaniacal inclinations, especially with regards to Linnet’s pearls. Linnet has also publicly denounced the practices of Dr. Bessner (Jack Warden), as her friend died under his “care,” which includes treating patients with intravenous armadillo urine, and his career is in the balance. Then there’s Andrew Pennington (George Kennedy), who manages Linnet’s stateside business and who is set on preventing her from finding out that he’s been skimming, while Colonel Race (David Niven) is there surreptitiously acting on behalf of her English lawyers, who want to bring this to her attention. Nebulously, there is a young communist aboard named James (Jon Finch), who bears hatred for Linnet as a representative of class striation, and, last but not least, the ship is also carrying Salome Otterbourne (Lansbury) and her daughter Rosalie (Olivia Hussey); Salome is a romance novelist currently embroiled in a libel lawsuit over one of her recent books, which was partially based on Linnet’s real life and may have insufficiently differentiated the main character from the inspiration. And, of course, Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is there, because someone has to use their little grey cells to figure out who did it when Linnet turns up dead, and the only ironclad alibi is Jackie’s. 

The oddest thing about this adaptation is that it decides to play the story for light comedy; that’s not that strange in and of itself (yours truly was in a Christie parody entitled And Then There Was One in high school—it’s a common way to present her work), but it’s curious how intermittently the comedy works. Where this least was least successful was when the humor went very broad, most notably in regards to Lansbury’s perpetually intoxicated (and horned up) Salome, who is possibly the most obnoxious character in the whole thing. You know that if I’m looking at Lady Angela and having a bad time, then we’re really in trouble. Shortly before a failed attempt on Linnet’s life at the Temple of Karnak, we’re treated to a scene of all of the passengers disembarking the ship and setting out to ride up to the site; I suppose we’re supposed to laugh at the sight gag of George Kennedy struggling to mount a donkey while the others get on camels, but it certainly failed to get a mirthless smile out of me, let alone a chuckle. There’s also an overlong gag when the group first boards the ship and I. S. Johar’s captain character does an extended bit about trying to guess which guest is which, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s possibly racist and at the very least undignified. On the other hand, the biggest laugh I did get was from one of Lansbury’s scenes, in which Salome is recounting how she managed to witness the killer flee from the stateroom, her voiceover explaining that a deckhand was showing her something on the shore, while the flashback itself reveals her buying several large liquor bottles from the man instead. At least I can say that the film got funnier for me as it went along, with more of the jokes landing in the back half than in the front. 

On a purely visual level, the film is much more notable. As a period piece, all of the clothing is gorgeous; the only Academy Award for which it was nominated was Best Costume Design, and it won that Oscar as well as the BAFTA in the same category. Special attention should be drawn to Smith’s outfitting as Miss Bowers. Throughout the film, she’s consistently dressed in tightly tailored men’s tuxedos and other formalwear, and she looks great in every one of them. Her silhouette is stunning, and she works the slightly transgressive look quite well. I was also struck by the various gowns in which Farrow is costumed. When most people think about her, I assume that they all have the same first mental image that I do, which is of her emaciated, shaven-headed prisoner in a nightgown in Rosemary’s Baby. Everything else I’ve ever seen her in was during (or after) her marriage to Woody Allen, during which time she was, to put it lightly, not doing well. I don’t think that I ever realized before that she’s a beautiful woman, and getting to see her slink about in dresses that won costuming awards on both sides of the Atlantic was a thrill. I loved her angry, vengeful energy, and she ended up being one of the movie’s highlights. 

This is somewhat condensed from the 1937 novel on which it was based, as usually must be done when making a Christie adaptation. Characters are removed, motives are swapped around or condensed, and you’re still likely to end up creating something that’s over two hours long, with this particular film clocking in at 134 minutes (Kenneth Branagh’s 2022 version was 127 minutes long, and I can’t imagine how the David Suchet adaptation manages to get the plot resolved in 97 minutes). That’s a decent time for a good mystery, but it errs quite long for a comedy, so it ends up succeeding more as one than the other. It’s not bad, but it almost feels like it would work better broken up into two parts for Masterpiece Theatre. And, frankly, I didn’t enjoy seeing Angela Lansbury take a bullet during these trying times. Embark (or don’t) with that in mind. 

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond

Cast List Power Rankings: A Room with a View (1985)

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It’s not something you’ll detect as quickly as my love for horror or sci-fi, but I’m an easy sucker for costume dramas.  Other genre fans are organized & mobilized enough to throw their own conventions where oceans of nerds line up to have Elvira sign their bald spots, but there isn’t really an equivalent for the costume drama (unless there are Ren Faire booths I don’t know about; please report back, if so).  And yet, if you’ve ever found yourself sipping Pinot Grigio at an opening-weekend screening of a Downton Abbey movie, you know the fandom for costume dramas can be just as electric. One buffoonish misstep from Mr. Molelsey at a stuffy dinner party and the crowd goes wild.  In that insular, quietly fired-up subculture, the names Merchant Ivory invoke rock star adulation the same way names like Romero, Carpenter, and Cronenberg get horror nerds’ brains whirring.  Somehow, I had never seen an Merchant-produed, Ivory-directed movie myself, though, despite the phrase “Merchant Ivory” being a recognizable adjective for a type of buttoned-up, award winning costume drama that I very much enjoy.  I recently filled in that knowledge gap with the producer-director duo’s breakout hit A Room with a View, which earned them three Oscars, four BAFTAs, and decades’ worth of household name recognition. 

Predictably, I had a wonderful time with it.  For all its Awards Circuit prestige, A Room with a View is a small, sweet romcom of manners that recalls the heightened social-maneuvers humor I love in Jane Austen comedies (please do not lecture me about the century’s difference between the Regency & Edwardian eras; I assure you I do not care).  What really floored me is how stacked the cast is with genre giants of the costume drama, all working in delicious harmony like spoonfuls of honey stirred into afternoon tea.  And since there would be no practical use for fully reviewing this genre-standard award magnet that hit American shores the year I was born, I’d mostly just like to discuss each member of the main cast individually.  Here’s a quick listing of the central players in A Room with a View, ranked from most to least essential.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis as Cecil Vyse – DDL plays the ultimate dipshit fop, an uptight misogynist dandy whose wealth & status make him look like great marriage material on paper . . . until you spend ten seconds in his slimy presence.  It’s incredible how easily he steals the show, considering that he doesn’t appear on-screen for at least the first third of the runtime.  Once he crashes the party, though, he delivers a sublimely hateworthy comedic performance that the movie would be hollow without.

2. Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch – HBC is even more of a costume drama heavy-hitter than DDL, and I have to assume this early role was what landed her all that steady work in the unsteady past (unless there’s a huge Lady Jane fan club out there that I’m unaware of).  She’s a perfectly furious, frustrated teen as the film’s lead, stuck between the rich idiot she should want (DDL) and the hot idiot she does want (TBA).  Her furrowed brow while concentrating on complex piano pieces conveys a rich inner life in contrast to the sheltered social one she’s allowed to live outside her head, which makes her a great audience surrogate for young costume drama nerds who can’t wait to move out of their parents’ house.  She’s also got gloriously thick, extravagant curls of hair that are enviable at any age.

3. Maggie Smith as Charlotte Bartlett – Speaking of Downton, Dame Margaret Natalie Smith brings long-established stage & screen prestige to the proceedings, even if she’s not allowed to cut as loose as she does with her withering quips as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham.  She’s in the same uptight chaperone role here as she plays in The Secret Garden, except her stiffness makes her the butt of her sister’s jokes instead of inspiring fear & good behavior in the teen she’s supposed to be keeping in check (HBC).  I’m sure it’s just a stock character Smith plucked out of her 60+ years & 80+ IMDb credits worth of experience acting on camera, but she does it well, and the punchlines at her expense are always solid (often to the refrain of “Poor, poor Charlotte”).

4. Denholm Elliott as Mr. Emerson – More of a That Guy character actor than the legendary Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott is nonetheless equally matched as her doddering comic foil.  He’s cast as a sweetheart eccentric, one whose “tactless”, “indelicate” boisterousness constantly pulls the rug out from under the rules-obsessed chaperone.  He also gets to ramble at length about the inane gender politics of who should get to have “a room with a view” at the opening hotel setting, a scene that feels like a contemporary SNL sketch written by a comedian who’s only seen the trailer, not the movie proper.

5. Fabia Drake & Joan Henley as the Misses Alan – The perpetually traveling spinster “sisters” are the closest thing the movie offers as aspirational objects of envy, especially if you read them as covert lesbians in a Boston marriage that everyone else just has to tolerate.

6. Judi Dench as Eleanor Lavish – You’d think Dame Judith Olivia Dench would rank as worthier competition to Dame Maggie Smith here, but her trash-novelist side character isn’t afforded much momentum to make a dent on-screen.  She does push Smith’s uptight nerd into her biggest fuck-ups, though (including spilling the beans on her young cousin/ward’s scandalous, unchaperoned kiss, published for all to read under a half-hearted pseudonym), which makes for some great comedy at her expense.  Poor, poor Charlotte.

7. Simon Callow as The Reverend Mr. Beebe – There are plenty of misbehaving vicars out there in cinemaland, but not many get to hang dong while roughhousing with their flock in the local swimming pond.  You’d expect it to be the bigger shock that HBC runs into her naked crush or her naked brother when she stumbles across said roughhousing on an afternoon stroll, but the naked vicar earns the biggest laugh.

8. Rupert Graves as Freddy Honeychurch – HBC’s younger, rowdier brother is exactly who you’d expect to stumble across in the throes of flagrant public nudity.  He doesn’t have much effect on the film’s tone or plot, but he is a playful, delightful source of chaos that makes HBC reluctant to graduate from childish japes to sincere adult emotions & romance.

9. Rosemary Leach as Mrs. Honeychurch – The siblings’ mother might get in a few great laughs with her passive aggressive jabs at “Poor, poor Charlotte,” but she doesn’t make much impact outside that mockery of her sister.  I also couldn’t tell if the actor looked at all familiar, or if she just had a vague resemblance to Kathy Bates.

10. Julian Sands as George Emerson – Has Julian Sands ever delivered a good performance in anything?  He’s at least laughably bad in films like Boxing Helena & Argento’s Phantom of the Opera.  I foolishly assumed he landed those jobs because he was impressive in the Merchant Ivory costume dramas that predate them, but holy shit, his overly mannered performances don’t even feel at home in the overly mannered past.  It’s a testament to DDL’s movie-making performance as the ridiculous cad Cecil Vyse that George Emerson comes across as HBC’s best option for love & marriage.  You could replace Sands with a cardboard cutout of a romance-novel cover model and the movie would be exactly the same.  He’s reliably useless.

-Brandon Ledet