Appointment with Death

Did You Know?

• Acorn Media released the movie on DVD and Blu-ray in Region 1 on April 16, 2012.
• It was the final Ustinov Poirot film to be released on the DVD and Blu-ray format.
• The BBC broadcast the film a few years after its release.

Plot

Emily Boynton, stepmother to Lennox, Raymond, and Carol and mother to Ginevra, blackmails family lawyer Jefferson Cope into destroying her late husband's second will that would split his fortune between her and his children. The original will leaves all to Emily, splitting it among the children only upon her death. She takes the stepchildren and Nadine, Lennox's wife who serves as her nurse, on holiday to Europe. In Trieste, detective Hercule Poirot meets old friend Dr. Sarah King, who falls in love with Raymond Boynton, to Emily's disapproval.

Lady Westholme, an American-born British MP, archaeologist Miss Quinton, and lawyer Cope are also traveling to Jerusalem and Qumran. The Boyntons are surprised to see Cope on the ship. The adult stepchildren learn of the second will their father told Lennox about before he died. Emily continues to bully them.

Cope flirts with Nadine, who accepts his courting, and resists Emily's demand to stay away. Emily poisons Cope's wine with her digitalis medication, but the wine is spilled when Nadine's husband strikes Cope after finding an engraved cigarette case Cope gave her. Poirot observes cockroaches drinking from the spill and dying. At the archaeological dig, Cope, Nadine, Lennox, Carol, Raymond, and Dr. King go for a walk; Lennox turns back.

Later, Dr. King finds Emily dead. She identifies the cause as heart failure, but Poirot suspects foul play. Dr. King finds her medical bag disordered with an empty digitalis bottle and a missing syringe. Poirot deduces Emily was injected with a lethal dose of digitalis, and since the family could have injected it without an additional syringe, he suspects an outsider.

Production

Filming took place in Israel, with the denouement at the Springs of Sataf. Lauren Bacall, who was Jewish, agreed to be cast because it gave her the opportunity to visit Israel for the first time. Director Michael Winner, known for violent films, said of this change of pace: "You won't see Lauren Bacall walking around machine-gunning everyone." Portions were shot at the historic American Colony Hotel, founded in 1902 by star Peter Ustinov's grandfather Plato von Ustinov.

Reception

The 1988 film "Appointment with Death" ranked as the seventh lowest-grossing movie of that year. It earned a 42% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, reflecting a mixed critical response. Vincent Canby of the New York Times felt it fell short of earlier all-star Hercule Poirot films, particularly Sidney Lumet's "Murder on the Orient Express," noting that the form's pleasures are not endless and that the production appeared cheap. Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times described it as "unsatisfying, even a little soporific," placing blame on co-writer, producer, and director Michael Winner.

The Chicago Tribune observed that while the cast seemed to enjoy touring the Israeli desert, the resulting movie lacked wit and lifelike performances, quickly becoming as dull as checking a train schedule. Variety reported that Peter Ustinov overacted as Poirot, but neither his performance nor the film's glitz could elevate it beyond a routine whodunit, with Ustinov looking tired in his third big-screen outing as the detective. Critic David Aldridge, writing in Film Review, called it "another loser from Winner," adding that even a more skilled director would struggle to make such formulaic material feel fresh.

He also criticized Cannon Films for skimping on production values despite the exotic location, suggesting the film was fit only for television. Anthony Shaffer summed it up as "dreadful."