Death On The Nile and Evil Under The Sun

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by bigbadwoppet

It is. I actually think Lumet's film, or more precisely Paul Dehn's script, improves on the novel. It was not that well regarded on original release (probably due to its popularity) and I think it's become one of those rare cases on which time has proven the masses to be right.

I've come to appreciate Finney's performance as Poirot as I can now see how he took overacting to a level of perfection beyond any other actor in the history of cinema. Still, Suchet is perfect. For any actor to reach the same level with Bond, we'd need the books to become public domain and be adapted as period pieces. Those who think Craig's take on Bond is too brutal should read the books. Bond is mean as hell.

Finney's performance is totally right for the film. The whole piece is heavily stylized, it's not meant to be realistic. I think Lumet talks about that a bit in the documentary on the disc, it's very much a "movie," yet still feels grounded, with stakes and recognizable emotions - a huge accomplishment. It's been years since I read the book, so I can't remember the differences from the novel, but I think they were pretty slight.

The recent film, on the other hand, made many huge, incomprehensibly awful diversions from the novel. I'm not usually one to judge a film against a book and complain about changes, I recognize they're different beasts, but it took one of the greatest and most acclaimed mystery narratives of all time, which is engineered like a Swiss watch, and completely disassembled it, then put it back together with parts in the wrong place and parts from other watches jammed into it too. It completely missed the subtle humor, the menace and the clear, intelligent unfolding of clues that Lumet/Dehn's film handled so brilliantly, substituting camp and comic book action for most of them. I knew when the equivalent of the Michael York character basically did Kung Fu in the opening scenes that I had to give up all hope. Sigh.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

The recent film, on the other hand, made many huge, incomprehensibly awful diversions from the novel. I'm not usually one to judge a film against a book and complain about changes, I recognize they're different beasts, but it took one of the greatest and most acclaimed mystery narratives of all time, which is engineered like a Swiss watch, and completely disassembled it, then put it back together with parts in the wrong place and parts from other watches jammed into it too. It completely missed the subtle humor, the menace and the clear, intelligent unfolding of clues that Lumet/Dehn's film handled so brilliantly, substituting camp and comic book action for most of them. I knew when the equivalent of the Michael York character basically did Kung Fu in the opening scenes that I had to give up all hope. Sigh.

That's exactly how I felt about it too. It just seemed so rushed and skims over the intricate details of the plot that made the whole thing so rewarding. I watched the remake with my wife and kids and I thought it was a shame that this is their introduction to this story.

[The Star of Astaroth]

I'd love to hear the commentaries on these, but I'm not willing to double-dip after getting the Studio Canal versions...

[startrekkin58]

So these transfers are expected to be much better than the Italian box set from several years ago, I assume? I wouldn’t mind upgrading.

[50strat54]

I love the original Murder On The Orient Express and own the DVD and was so happy to buy the HD digital on iTunes when it came down to $4.99.

When I saw this in high school I thought wow Albert Finney character is really strange but because it was so weird his performance has always stuck with me, memorable.

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by startrekkin58

So these transfers are expected to be much better than the Italian box set from several years ago, I assume? I wouldn’t mind upgrading.

Is that the boxset from Universal? You can see those transfers compared with the newer Studio Canal restorations here, they blow them out of the water:
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&...109367&i=3&l=0

[robert kaplan]

Ralphdude….thanks for the info. Unfortunately Germany will not ship to my address.

[bigbadwoppet]

Once I was having tea with my sister who's a literature teacher, and one of her colleagues who's our mutual friend and she commented she was looking forward to watch the new version. I turned around and asked her why she was so keen when there was already an excellent version available. She didn't know what to say. It only made me confirm a suspicion I have that literature teachers are very superficial in terms of cinema taste, probably because they consider cinema inferior.

After Suchet's pitch perfect portrayal, you'd have thought filmmakers would leave the property alone for a while in order for people to forget it before attempting another adaptation but it's been the opposite. Both Branagh's and Malkovich's Poirots are as far apart from the original as possible. Branagh's moustache is absolutely ridiculous. He also feels younger than Finney's portrayal, even though he isn't. Also taller and fitter. Talk about retooling Poirot for a generation that doesn't care about Poirot, trying to make him into an action hero of sorts. Branagh can be a good actor under another director's orders but he is beyond insufferable when he directs himself. He's also not a particularly good director, either.

The 1974 film was written by Paul Dehn, who also did Goldfinger, The Deadly Affair and The Night of theGenerals among others. The remake is by a writer whose best credential is Alien Covenant. As cinema becomes ever more technically perfected, I find that where modern movies are at their most lacking is in terms of screenwriting and there's a simple explanation for that: modern writers don't read (that counts for novelists, too). They think they're so clever that they're incapable of leaving a good plot alone. They have to spin it beyond recognition. An excellent example of this is A Perfect Murder, the atrocious remake of Dial M for Murder. It takes a near perfect whodunnit and expands it unnecessarily in order to add surprises for the ten guys in the cinema who may have seen the original film. If a film's plot contains serious spoilers, it shouldn't be remade ever (Psycho).

And then there's the PC element, which makes it impossible for me to suspend disbelief: Sean Connery's character is given to a black actor for the sake of "diversity". At the time in which the story takes place, such character would not have been allowed on a first class carriage; even if he had, he would've been completely ignored by the rest of the passengers, as well as by the employees; and there's no way he would've been having an interracial affair. You'd think that in an era in which filmmakers choose to willingly ignore touchy facts of life about the past, they would be less keen on making period pieces.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by bigbadwoppet

After Suchet's pitch perfect portrayal, you'd have thought filmmakers would leave the property alone for a while in order for people to forget it before attempting another adaptation but it's been the opposite.

I know Suchet's Poirot is beloved, but my understanding is that his version of MotOE is actually not that faithful to the novel, especially because Suchet was so powerful by the time they made it, very late in his run as Poirot, that he ordered the famous ending altered somewhat because elements of it offended his personal Christian faith. I have to admit I only saw the first twenty minutes or so once and wasn't impressed.

[Raphdude]

Originally Posted by robert kaplan

Ralphdude….thanks for the info. Unfortunately Germany will not ship to my address.

Checkout this link:

Poirot: Rendezvous mit einer Leiche https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HSJK14V

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

The Lumet film was WAY too scary for me as a kid, I had nightmares the time I saw it on TV around age 10, it took me years to be able to rewatch it and appreciate it as the best Christie adaptation on film.

Yes, it remains the best film adaptation, and is very dark for a PG rated film. The Suchet TV movie is even worse when it comes to that scene.

[Show spoiler]In that version the victim is drugged so that he remains conscious, but paralysed through the murder. We see the terror in his eyes as he can feel what's happening to him but do nothing about it. That's some nasty shit!

[Aclea]

To be fair to the Branagh film, many of the changes were mandated by the Christie estate, who were one of the companies that produced the film. With the end of the Suchet adaptations and a noticeable decline in her stories being optioned, in 2015 after the estate regained the screen rights her grandson, Matthew Prichard, announced that with only 32 years left on the clock before copyright ran out they wanted to sex up and make adaptations more in line with contemporary movie and TV trends - their specific template for Tommy and Tuppence, for example, was The Avengers (as in Steed and Peel) meet Indiana Jones. They wanted an interconnected movie and TV universe that was action packed, modern and multicultural (the original Poirot film series died because they almost exclusively appealed to an ageing white middle class audience that rarely saw films on the big screen) while keeping the 'unique Christie DNA.'. As with the Bond films, the new elements created specifically for new screen adaptations could be copyrighted even after the novels fell into public domain (which is one reason why recent BBC TV adaptations have different endings to their source novels).

In this case it's the author's estate rather than the filmmakers driving the changes.

[bigbadwoppet]

By, as you mention, shoehorning a monologue to explain the elephant in the room, they make it impossible to ignore.

I agree with you. In theatre it would've not bothered me, as you expect a level of artificiality. The actors are in the same room as you, you cannot pretend that you're witnessing reality when a group of people enact a story set a good 90 years before our time.

But cinema is about selling the perfect illusion and these concesions kill it for me. I understand you, I don't consider your comment racist but the reason we have to defend our point on this subject is because some people will indeed label us such.

We cannot change the past. By ignoring it we only make ourselves feel better, we don't make the future any better. I also think that, if I were myself black, I'd feel insulted by white people rewriting my history but apparently they don't.

I recently saw Mike Leigh's period drama Peterloo, set in 1819 and it was nice, for a change, not to see any of these concesions. It proves that filmmakers approve these changes because they want to, not because they're forced (Guy Ritchie's King Arthur does, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood doesn't).

One example I can think of that's the opposite is I am Legend. I went to see it with some apprehension because I feared it'd be turned into too much of an action film. It's one of my fave novels and I was pleasantly surprised at what they did with it (especially in comparison to the incredibly cheesy Charlton Heston version). The fact that the protagonist was cast black did not present an issue, as it's set in the near future. Had they tried to do a more faithful retro-sci fi version, it'd probably have felt fake/forced.

The fact that anachronisms such as these used to appear only in parodies (Blazing Saddles) and now have become a fixture of "serious" movies only shows how stupid and brainwashed audiences have become by the PC agenda.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Aclea

To be fair to the Branagh film, many of the changes were mandated by the Christie estate, who were one of the companies that produced the film. With the end of the Suchet adaptations and a noticeable decline in her stories being optioned, in 2015 after the estate regained the screen rights her grandson, Matthew Prichard, announced that with only 32 years left on the clock before copyright ran out they wanted to sex up and make adaptations more in line with contemporary movie and TV trends - their specific template for Tommy and Tuppence, for example, was The Avengers (as in Steed and Peel) meet Indiana Jones. They wanted an interconnected movie and TV universe that was action packed, modern and multicultural (the original Poirot film series died because they almost exclusively appealed to an ageing white middle class audience that rarely saw films on the big screen) while keeping the 'unique Christie DNA.'. As with the Bond films, the new elements created specifically for new screen adaptations could be copyrighted even after the novels fell into public domain (which is one reason why recent BBC TV adaptations have different endings to their source novels).

In this case it's the author's estate rather than the filmmakers driving the changes.

Either way, it's depressing to witness these classics being turned into Marvel movies.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Either way, it's depressing to witness these classics being turned into Marvel movies.

Is it really any more depressing than seeing Miss Marple turned into a loveable eccentric in a series of 60s comedies bearing little relation to their source or nominal character? Christie's fans have often bemoaned the movies for their infidelity in pursuit of profit - including the 1974 film.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Is it really any more depressing than seeing Miss Marple turned into a loveable eccentric in a series of 60s comedies bearing little relation to their source or nominal character? Christie's fans have often bemoaned the movies for their infidelity in pursuit of profit - including the 1974 film.

I enjoyed the 70s/80s movies most as a kid, and I read a bunch of the books at the time. Films like Lumet's MotOE, Death on the Nile, The Mirror Crack'd, Evil Under the Sun and Appointment with Death felt largely respectful of the source material, with only mild changes.

Obviously the Suchet series is probably the most accurate, tonally, but even there the plots often diverged.

[Aclea]

Yet still Christie fans bemoaned the 70-80s Brabourne-Goodwin films at the time as increasingly camp comedies (Evil most of all) while audiences stayed away from Angela Lansbury's more faithfully prickly Miss Marple.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by bigbadwoppet

And then there's the PC element, which makes it impossible for me to suspend disbelief: Sean Connery's character is given to a black actor for the sake of "diversity".

The character is a composite of both Connery and George Coulouris' characters.

At the time in which the story takes place, such character would not have been allowed on a first class carriage;

It's extremely doubtful that someone in his social position would have had any difficulty occupying a first class carriage in Europe could they afford it: there was no US-style back of the bus segregation. In fact, the very route it took guaranteed multi-cultural passengers.

and there's no way he would've been having an interracial affair.

Sorry to bring up touchy facts about the past, but, not least as a consequence of having empires and colonies, interracial marriages and relationships in Europe were not uncommon, even among the aristocracy:

https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/3/2/21/htm

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by bigbadwoppet

Once I was having tea with my sister who's a literature teacher, and one of her colleagues who's our mutual friend and she commented she was looking forward to watch the new version. I turned around and asked her why she was so keen when there was already an excellent version available. She didn't know what to say. It only made me confirm a suspicion I have that literature teachers are very superficial in terms of cinema taste, probably because they consider cinema inferior.

You don’t think it’s a tad hypocritical to chastise your friend and make spurious claims about people in her profession for simply expressing a desire to see a film that you yourself have seen? Many people on this site saw the excellent version that was already available and also looked forward to seeing the remake, do you call that being superficial in terms of cinema taste, or simply having an open mind? I’m not surprised she didn’t know what to say, I’d be taken aback too if someone responded to me like that.

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by Aclea

To be fair to the Branagh film, many of the changes were mandated by the Christie estate, who were one of the companies that produced the film. With the end of the Suchet adaptations and a noticeable decline in her stories being optioned, in 2015 after the estate regained the screen rights her grandson, Matthew Prichard, announced that with only 32 years left on the clock before copyright ran out they wanted to sex up and make adaptations more in line with contemporary movie and TV trends - their specific template for Tommy and Tuppence, for example, was The Avengers (as in Steed and Peel) meet Indiana Jones. They wanted an interconnected movie and TV universe that was action packed, modern and multicultural (the original Poirot film series died because they almost exclusively appealed to an ageing white middle class audience that rarely saw films on the big screen) while keeping the 'unique Christie DNA.'. As with the Bond films, the new elements created specifically for new screen adaptations could be copyrighted even after the novels fell into public domain (which is one reason why recent BBC TV adaptations have different endings to their source novels).

In this case it's the author's estate rather than the filmmakers driving the changes.

Maybe that helps explain why they're all a bit shit.

Originally Posted by Aclea

Is it really any more depressing than seeing Miss Marple turned into a loveable eccentric in a series of 60s comedies bearing little relation to their source or nominal character?

Infinitely.