Death on the Nile 2020 Movie Review, Film, Novel, Cast, Release Date, Trailer and Storyline

Posted on Sep 30, 2020

Death on the Nile (original title: Death on the Nile) is a detective novel by Agatha Christie published 1st November 1937 in the United Kingdom at Collins Crime Club, staging one of the most famous investigations of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

Wiki/Info
Original title	Death on the Nile
Release date	December 18, 2020
Realized by	Kenneth Branagh
Main Cast	Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer
Scriptwriter (s)	Michael green
Year of production	2020
Country of production	United States
Kind	Detective movie
Format	Color

It was published the following year in the United States, and eight years later, in 1945, in France. Among the 40 investigations of Hercule Poirot published by Agatha Christie between 1920 and 1975, Death on the Nile is one of the most famous, with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and The Crime of the Orient Express (1934). The book has undergone adaptations for theatre, radio, television and cinema. The film directed by John Guillermin in 1978 was a great public success, with Peter Ustinov in the role of Poirot.

Death on the Nile Movie Storyline

The rich and beautiful American heiress Linnet Ridgeway falls in love with Simon Doyle, the fiancé of her best friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort, whom the latter has just introduced to her, and marries her without delay. The newlyweds go on their honeymoon, but they are pursued, step by step, by the neglected young woman, who seeks to make their life impossible. In the hotel where they are staying in Aswan, Egypt, they meet Hercule Poirot.

Solicited by Linett, who seeks support to put an end to this untenable situation, Poirot can only see Linett's anger and fear, as well as the despair and determination of Jacqueline de Bellefort, determined to take her revenge. He senses the possibility of a tragedy. Soon, Poirot, the newlyweds - who hope to have escaped Jacqueline by embarking without announcing it -, as well as various characters, met at the hotel, who will all turn out to have intertwined interests, come together to take a cruise.

On the Nile aboard the S.S. Karnak. The unexpected presence of Jacqueline on the boat further escalates the tension. Soon Linnet is found murdered in her cabin. The most likely suspect, Jacqueline, is one of the few people with an unassailable alibi. Little by little, Poirot's investigation, assisted by his friend Colonel Race, will lift the veil on the small and big secrets of each character, undermine all the alibis and finally reveal a diabolical scheme. Love, jealousy and betrayal, as well as greed, are the mainsprings of the novel.

Death on the Nile Film Trailer

Characters of the Film/Novel

Hercule Poirot *

Colonel Johny Race *, Crown agent on a mission, friend of Poirot

Linnet Ridgeway *, a young and rich American heiress

Lord Windlesham, Linnet suitor

Jacqueline de Bellefort *, a childhood friend of Linnet

Simon Doyle *, fiancé of Jacqueline, then-husband of Linnet

Louise Bourget *, Linnet maid

Barnstaple, Linnet Butler

Joanna Southwood, Linnet's friend

Tim Allerton *, cousin of Joanna Southwood

Mrs Allerton *, mother of Tim Allerton

Miss Marie Van Schuyler *, rich old American lady

Cornélia Robson *, niece of Mrs Van Schuyler

Mrs Bowers *, nurse of Miss Van Schuyler

Mrs Salomé Otterbourne *, novelist

Rosalie Otterbourne *, daughter of Salomé Otterbourne

James Ferguson *, young man with Marxist beliefs

William Carmichael, English Linnet lawyer

James Lechdale Fanthorp *, nephew and employee of Carmichael

Andrew Pennington *, authorized representative and uncle of Linnet

Sterndale Rockford, Pennington Partner •

Dr Ludwig Bessner *, German doctor, clinical director

Mr. Sharburi *, captain of the Karnak

Signor Richetti *, an Italian archaeologist

Fleetwood *, Karnak machinist

Development of Novel

Writing

Agatha Christie combined in Death on the Nile - which takes place mostly on a ship going up the river - memories of the first stay in Egypt with her mother, and those of other trips made with her husband, Max Mallowan, in which archaeology and archaeologists, her husband's professional environment, played an important role. Agatha Christie and her husband took a cruise on the Nile in 1934 aboard the SS Sudan, a ship on which the television film Death on the Nile with David Suchet will be shot 70 years later, in 2004. Sudan is still in service on the Nile.

Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile in 1937 during an extended stay at the famous Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan.

The construction of Death on the Nile is following the narrative technique which has made the immense and lasting success of Agatha Christie's novels: an opening with the progressive establishment of the springs of the story and that of the main characters, the appearance of Poirot at the moment when the intrigue is tied, the drama in an enclosed place, the investigation with the testimonies of each of the characters, the progressive undermining of all the alibis by Poirot.

Then the scene of the denouement, under the classic form of a final explanation in front of all the protagonists of the "impossible crime", or, in this case, in front of some of them. Death on the Nile, takes place in Upper Egypt, in an exceptionally rich setting (Aswan, Abu Simbel, the landscapes of the Nile): the novel, however, leaves very little room for decor and local color. On the other hand, as always with Agatha Christie, the secondary characters are all endowed with a real personality, which makes the novel very alive.

References to other works

There is another work by Agatha Christie with the same title: Death on the Nile is the eleventh short story of the collection Mr. Parker Pyne where a murder takes place on a boat sailing on the Nile where our professor of happiness is also located, normally in vacation.

The reduced number of suspects and the sagacity of Parker Pyne make that the assassin will be unmasked much more quickly than in the novel, which is much more complicated.

Editions

Death on the Nile, London, Collins Crime Club,1^st November 1937, 288 p.
Death on the Nile, New York, Dodd, Mead and Company,1938, 326 p.
Death on the Nile, Paris, Librairie des Champs-Élysées, coll. "The Mask" (no 329),1945, 255 p. (BnF notice no FRBNF31945431)
Death on the Nile in: L'Intégrale: Agatha Christie (pref. Jacques Baudou), t. 5: The years 1936-1937, Paris, Librairie des Champs-Élysées, coll. "The Integrals of the Mask",1992, 1344 p. (ISBN 2-7024-2152-0, notice BnF no FRBNF35535366)

Audiobooks

Death on the Nile, read by Guillaume Gallienne, Paris, Éditions Thélème, 2004, 3 CD (ISBN 2-87862-285-5) (notice BnF no FRBNF39287492).

Adaptations

At the theatre

1944: Death on the Nile ( Hidden Horizons or Murder on the Nile ), play by Agatha Christie. She decides to replace the character of Hercule Poirot with that of Canon Ambrose Pennefather, thinking that Poirot's character, risking all the public's attention, was unsuitable for the theatre.

At the cinema

1978: Death on the Nile ( Death on the Nile ), a British film by John Guillermin, with Peter Ustinov in the role of Poirot. Many stars (David Niven, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, Jane Birkin...) took part in this film, shot in Egypt, on board the steamer Memnon.

The release of a new version of Death on the Nile directed and played by Kenneth Branagh as Poirot, slated for 2019, has been postponed until the end of 2020. These are the strong North American box office results of the version of Murder on the Orient Express carried by Branagh in 2017 that prompted the Fox and Branagh tackle a new version of Death on the Nile.

On television

1950: Murder on the Nile, television drama series Kraft Television Theater (in) (episode 3.43);

2004: Death on the Nile, a TV movie of the British series Poirot for ITV (episode 9, season 3), with David Suchet in the role of Poirot. The series broadcast by ITV between 1989 and 2013 had 70 episodes.

On the radio

1997: Death on the Nile, radio soap in five episodes of BBC Radio 4, with John Moffatt giving his voice to Poirot.

In comic strip

1996: Mort Sur le Nil, French comic strip by François Rivière (screenplay) and Solidor (drawing) published in the Agatha Christie collection. A British version was published in July 2007 under the title Death on the Nile.