Death on the Nile (1978)
This gets off to a soap-tastic start: heiress Holly Harwood, whose servants include Tom Carrington and Miss Babs from
Acorn Antiques, elopes with best friend Alison McKenzie's fiancee Greg Reardon, much to the disapproval of her crooked lawyer, Carter McKay -- and that's all in the first ten minutes! The honeymooners then take a boat down the Nile, surrounded by a dizzying array of Hollywood stars. Murder, mayhem and a fascinating collision of different acting styles ensue. Peter Ustinov and David Niven are both charm personified while Angela Lansbury is so horribly over the top, she makes Bette Davis and Maggie Smith seem like masters of minimalism in comparison. The starriness of the cast sometimes threatens to overpower the story, but once the mechanics of Agatha Christie's plot kicks in (which takes about an hour), it's a very satisfying ride. Best of all, I guessed whodunnit!
I'm now looking forward to watching John Malkovich's apparently very different take on Poirot in the BBC's
ABC Murders before it disappears off of the iPlayer. All of Sarah Phelps's Christie adaptations so far have been brill.