# 8: Death on the Nile (1978)

Maggie Smith

as Miss Bowers

in

Death on the Nile (1978)

Screentime: 15 minutes and 55 seconds (12.0% of the film)*
* Includes the short flaskback sequences which is repeated footage.

Death on the Nile is the 1930s Agatha Christie mystery focusing on a group of mainly English tourists visiting Egypt. The story mainly focuses on the young English couple Simon and Linnet and the ex-girlfriend Jacqueline. While travelling down the Nile one night, Simon is shot and injured by Jacqueline and Linnet is shot and killed in her bedroom within a matter of minutes. The only problem is Jacqueline has an alibi and couldn’t have killed her and the detective Hercule Poirot starts looking at the other passengers on the steam boat as the possible suspects. As it turns out they all have a significant motive for murdering Linnet.

The film is a lot of fun despite lacking the classiness of Murder on the Orient Express and some of the acting performed by in particular Mia Farrow  and Lois Chiles is a little cringe-worthy and melodramatic. The outcome is incredibly over the top but still entertaining and it is fun to see the all star cast ensemble act their respective parts: Peter Ustinov, Jane Birkin, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury (who is hilarious in her part), David Niven, Jack Warden and others.

FILM:

Maggie Smith plays Miss Bowers, the nurse and “servant” of the American socialite Mrs. Van Schuyler (Bette Davis). Davis and Smith have wonderful chemistry together and the two quarrel and bicker and deliver some hilarious dialogue such as:

Mrs. Van Schuyler: Come, Bowers, it's time to go, this place is beginning to resemble a mortuary.
Miss Bowers: Thank God you'll be in one yourself before too long you bloody old fossil!

You pick up early on that there is such limited character development for about 80% of the characters in Agatha Christie stories, and unfortunately Miss Bowers is no exception. Alot of her screentime accounts for her just sitting on the side of the screen or in the background as well as the extended revelation sequence which she is silently featured. She really only has a handful of short scenes featuring dialogue and one interrogation scene, but as I have said, the is pure Agatha Christie (remember Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for basically one scene and a bunch of reaction shots in Murder on the Orient Express). It was incredibly chic for an actor in the ‘70s to appear in a rather small part in the huge ensemble mysteries or disaster flick. It usually meant an easy good salary and high box office returns. Here Maggie is funny and excels in her part, even if she and many others in the cast were underused.

MAGGIE-METER:

 

"It has been my experience that men are least attracted to women who treat them well."