Product Details

• Actors: Peter Ustinov, Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgud, Piper Laurie
• Directors: Michael Winner
• Writers: Michael Winner, Agatha Christie, Anthony Shaffer, Peter Buckman
• Producers: Michael Winner, Mati Raz, Menahem Golan
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: May 4, 1999
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0790741318
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,164 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Agatha Christie and an all-star cast make foul deeds fun when a malevolent matriarch is murdered on a 1930s Holy Land tour. Starring Peter Ustinov (as Hercule Poirot) Lauren Bacall and John Gielgud. Year: 1988 Director: Michael Winner Starring: Peter Ustinov, Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why isn't this movie available on DVD?, July 5, 2006

By 

L. K. Royet (Clayton, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Appointment With Death [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw this movie in the theater when it was released in the late 1980s and love all the Peter Ustinov Hercule Poirot films. Why isn't this on DVD? I don't buy VHS tapes anymore, but if this was released on DVD I would buy it immediately for my Poirot collection. If anyone from the movie studio/distributor reads these reviews, please release this movie on DVD!!!!!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peter Ustinov gives a brilliant final apperance as Poirot,, May 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Appointment With Death [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I really enjoyed this film, whose highlight is Peter Ustinov, as he plays Hercule Poirot for the sixth and final time. It was as enjoyable as Death on the Nile and Piper Laurie gives a brilliant performance as the malevolent stepmother. The film has a very nice soundtrack composed by Pino Donnagio.

Certainly a nice change from thr three made for TV films in which Ustinov stars as Poirot, which are excellent too, namely Thirteen at Dinner and Murder in Three Acts, and Dead Man's Folly, but Ustinov's full potential is really unleashed in the big-screen appearances.

Move over David Suchet! There is only one Hercule Poirot, that is Sir Peter Ustinov.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Murder of a Matronly Matriarch, July 26, 2002

By 

George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Appointment With Death [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The matriarch of a brood of ineffectual children lords it over them and bullies them almost beyond enduring. They put up with their stepmother because their father's will left everything to her (or did it?) and the children are such wimps they cannot support themselves. Did I mention that the matriarch was once a matron in a women's prison? By the time ...gets bumped off, the viewer will be ready to cheer. But every child has a motive (the money), the means (access to mom's medicine for the overdose), and the opportunity (nobody has an alibi). There are even a few bystanders with ample motive. Not to fear, the redoubtable Hercule Poirot is on the scene to untie this whodunnit's Gordian Knot. He eavesdrops on everyone's conversations, rakes everyone over the coals with his scathing interrogations, and handily exposes the killer.

This all happens in the Middle East, as Poirot vacations in the Holy Land. The environs of Jerusalem provide some beautiful background, and the viewer visits the dusty digs at Qumran, the site of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The movie follows the book pretty well, but I was disappointed that the producer moved the scene of the murder from Petra to Qumran. The beautiful architecture of Petra would have made for more satisfying visuals than the excavation holes of Qumran. Remember the fabulous building in the side of the mountain from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?" That's Petra.

Peter Ustinov serves as a passable Poirot, but he's too big and too unkempt to capture the charm of Christie's Poirot. David Suchet, star of the A&E Poirot series, sets the standard against which all other video Poirots must suffer. Lauren Bacall almost stole the show with her rendition of an American-born M.P. who tried to out-English the native born English.