1980 Week: The Mirror Crack’d

          The Agatha Christie vogue that began with Murder on the Orient Express (1974) fizzled quickly, but not before several big-budget mediocrities were unleashed on the public. Of these lesser Christie adaptations, the British-made The Mirror Crack’d is interesting because it doubles as a catty story about Hollywood, complete with performances by several iconic American actors. The Mirror Crack’d doesn’t work for a lot of reasons, ranging from an inconsistent tone to the way the main detective is sidelined throughout most of the action. Viewed as glossy camp, however, The Mirror Crack’d offers minor distractions. Set in England during the 1950s, the story revolves around a group of Hollywood professionals visiting Great Britain for a movie shoot. Christie’s matronly detective Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury) happens upon the shoot at the same time a series of murders begins, so, naturally, it falls to Marple and her intrepid nephew, Inspector Craddox (Edward Fox), to identify the killer. In classic Christie fashion, the investigation reveals years of secrets and lies, all of which Marple explains in a lengthy final scene.

          The murder-mystery stuff is fine, if a bit perfunctory, so what really connects is the showbiz satire. Kim Novak and Elizabeth Taylor play aging screen queens who trade nasty barbs, while Tony Curtis plays the sleazy agent/husband of Novak’s character and Rock Hudson plays the director/husband of Taylor’s character. Naturally, there’s a mistress in the mix, as well. Made without any pretense to sophistication, the film is enlivened by bitchery. Looking in a mirror, Taylor’s character coos, “Bags, bags, go away, come back again on Doris Day.” Another gem: “I could eat a can of Kodak and puke a better movie.” You get the idea. Lansbury is great fun whenever she’s onscreen, and in retrospect her performance seems like an audition for the long-running TV series Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996). Yet for much of the movie, she’s absent, with Fox doing the heavy investigative lifting. As for the big names, Curtis, Hudson, and Taylor are cartoonish but appealing, while Novak is embarrassingly bad.

The Mirror Crack’d: FUNKY

Death on the Nile (1978)

          The all-star period mystery film Murder on the Orient Express (1974) was such a commercial and critical success that another big-budget Agatha Christie adaptation was sure to follow. And while Death on the Nile is far less posh than its predecessor, it’s still quite enjoyable—more so, perhaps, than the stolid Orient Express. Clever and intricate though they may be, Christine’s books are not high art, and the makers of Death on the Nile treat the source material as pulp, whereas director Sidney Lumet and his Orient Express collaborators took the dubious path of treating Christie as literature. In any event, Death on the Nile plays out like a quasi-sequel to the earlier film, since both pictures feature Christie’s beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Albert Finney played Poirot in Orient Express, but Peter Ustinov assumes the role in Death on the Nile, marking the first of six films in which he essayed the character.

          As per the usual Christie formula, the narrative follows a large number of interconnected characters, all of whom eventually land in the same place—a steamer churning down the Nile River in Egypt—for a long voyage filled with intrigue and murder. The picture begins in England, where penniless Jacqueline (Mia Farrow) begs her rich friend, Linnet (Lois Chiles), to provide employment for Jacqueline’s fiancée, Simon (Simon MacCorkindale). Linnet steals Simon from her friend, marries him, and embarks on a honeymoon trip through Egypt. Yet Jacqueline chases after them, taunting the newlyweds with threats of revenge. Eventually, Linnet and Simon encounter the vacationing Poirot, requesting his assistance in dispatching the nettlesome Jacqueline. Various other characters enter the mix, and before long it becomes clear that everyone except Simon and the neutral Poirit has a grudge against Linnet.

          It’s giving nothing away to say that she dies about an hour into the 140-minute film—after all, the story can’t be called Death on the Nile without a corpse—so the fun stems from Poirot’s ensuing investigation. The pithy detective performs a thorough review of all the possible suspects, even as more people are killed, finally unraveling the true killer’s identity during a Christie staple—the final scene of Poirot gathering all the suspects in a room and then explaining, with the help of elaborate flashbacks, how he connected clues. It’s all quite far-fetched and formulaic, but there’s a good reason why Christie is considered the queen of the whodunit genre. It also helps that Anthony Shaffer, the playwright/screenwriter behind the intricate mystery film Sleuth (1972), did the script, and that director John Guillermin provides a brisk pace and a sleek look.

          As for the performances from the huge cast, they’re erratic. On the plus side, Ustinov is droll as Poirot, David Niven is urbane as his sidekick, and the best supporting players (Jane Birkin, Jon Finch, Olivia Hussey, I.S. Johar, Maggie Smith) provide the varied textures asked of them. However, some players are badly miscast (Jack Warden as a German?), and some deliver performances that are too clumsy for this sort of material (Chiles, Farrow, George Kennedy). That leaves Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury, both of whom treat their parts like high camp; neither tethers her characterization to human reality, but both fill the screen with palpable energy.

          By the end of the picture, one does feel the absence of Lumet’s sure hand, since he did a smoother job of unifying his Orient Express cast members than Guillermin does here. Nonetheless, in the most important respects, Death on the Nile delivers Christie as pure silly escapism, which seems about right.

Death on the Nile: GROOVY

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

 

          The praise lavished on this bloated Agatha Christie adaptation (including six Oscar nominations and one win) has always mystified me, because while Murder on the Orient Express is a handsomely made film with an intelligent script and an amazing cast, it’s still just a contrived and methodical whodunit. It appears that much of the picture’s novelty derived from the fact that it was a throwback not only to a beloved Hollywood genre, but also to a more sophisticated time in terms of diction, fashion, and manners; somewhat like the aesthetically pleasing accoutrements of the same year’s Chinatown, this film’s glamorous production values and swellegant ’30s costumes were a change of pace from the gritty realism that dominated early ’70s cinema. Furthermore, Murder on the Orient Express is that rare all-star jamboree in which each actor has something interesting to do, with several performers receiving impressive showcase scenes, and even elaborate subplots, during the course of the movie’s lumbering 128 minutes. One could never accuse Murder on the Orient Express of shortchanging the audience.

          As for the story, which screenwriter Paul Dehn adapted from Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel, it’s ingenious but not necessarily persuasive, and the lack of any real emotional heft means the experience of watching Murder on the Orient Express is all about luxuriating in production-design eye candy, piecing together clues, and savoring star power. Set in 1935, the movie finds Christie’s urbane detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) riding the famous train mentioned in the title. Poirot becomes enmeshed with a group of people including wealthy American Samuel Ratchett (Richard Widmark), so when Ratchett gets stabbed to death early in the journey, Poirot and Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam), an executive with the company that owns the train, join forces to determine which passenger was responsible for the crime. The gimmick, as per the Christie formula, is that everyone in a confined space is a suspect, so the closer the investigation gets to the truth, the greater the danger becomes for everyone involved. Despite the film’s posh trappings, this is not highbrow stuff.

          Worse, Murder on the Orient Express is tedious, at least from my perspective, and director Sidney Lumet’s overly respectful treatment is part of the problem. Treating Christie like Shakespeare is as absurd as, say, treating John Grisham the same way. There’s simply no reason for this empty spectacle to sprawl over such a long running time. Giving credit where it’s due, however, Murder on the Orient Express is a visual feast. The clothes, linens, and table settings make the titular train seem like a rolling four-star hotel, and cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth uses his signature haze filters to make everything look painterly—to a fault, because sometimes it’s hard to distinguish details. But the biggest selling point, of course, is the high-wattage cast. Beyond those mentioned, players include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman (who won an unexpected late-career Oscar for her work), Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Michael York.

Murder on the Orient Express: FUNKY