It takes a lot to interest a contemporary film audience in something as inherently old fashioned as an Agatha Christie murder mystery. Her whodunnits are equal parts delightful and ludicrous, packed with red herrings and slender clues that bring the inimitable Hercule Poirot to a precise conclusion about who did what to whom and why.
This one does well for a couple of reasons. One is the grandeur of the settings, which take in the Giza pyramids and a re-created Temple of Ramses ll that was real enough to make you want to visit, as well as the Art Deco splendour of the Old Cataract Hotel at Aswan, where Christie stayed to write the book.
