Claret, Death on the Nile and Linnet Doyle

I reconnected my televison yesterday having had it out of action for a week due to extensive decorating. They had a French wine promotion on at Waitrose and I bought a couple of bottles of claret. Now, usually, other than Champagne and White Burgundy with HMS, Agent Triple P doesn't drink French wine. Partly because it is hideously unreliable, partly because it is over-priced but largely because it is made by the FRENCH! But for some reason I was feeling rather retro so decided to get some.

So I settled down to watch a DVD with one of said bottles of claret and chose the TV version of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. Now, Agatha Christie is not Agent Triple P's usual viewing of choice but I am getting inspiration for my erotic story Les Soeurs Croissant which is set in 1920's Egypt (admittedly slightly earlier than the late thirties setting of the Christie book and subsequent films). I had recently watched the 1978 Peter Ustinov version (star studded and expensive) which was reasonably enjoyable. The reviews of the Suchet version were rather unkind about it's low budget nature but I have to disagree. It was filmed on location in Egypt, there was some convincing CGI to show the Pyramids with appropriate thirties foreground and they filmed on location in the Winter Palace hotel, on a Nile steamer and at Karnak. Indeed, the steamer used and the sets of the cabins were, if anything, rather more opulent than the Ustinov version.

But our main interest today lies with the two actresses playing Linnet Ridgeway, the American heiress who is the first murder victim.

The nineteen seventies version starred Lois Chiles who the following year appeared as the main Bond Girl in Moonraker. Lois had flowing (very unthirties) hair in the film but looked like an heiress at least. Not many pictures of her on the net and when Moonraker came out there were noticeably very few, if any, of the traditional Bond Girl glamour shots.

She has no bust to speak of but good legs and a very beautiful face and is still working today at the age of 60.

This is my favourite shot which I think is quite sexy in a healthy girl sort of way. It also looks rather 1930s. It could be a still from The Great Gatsby, I suppose, which she appeared in before Death on the Nile.

In the TV version Linette was played by Emily Blunt, an actress with whom I was not familiar (although recently she had a hit in The Devil Wears Prada, a girl's film if I ever heard of one).

She had short blonde hair and looked great, in a very skinny way.  She certainly looked appropriately thirties although her American accent was rather wayward (unlike Daisy Donovan's in the same film).

There don't seem to be too many pictures of her on the net yet which is a shame as she is rather lovely but she has a lot of films in production so who knows. Maybe she is a serious actress.

There are a few nude screen captures from her teenage lesbian flick My Summer of Love but none I could download. No doubt Agent DVD, if he reads this, will do better! I like this nice one from the same film. What a lovely looking pear! I mean apple.  All in all the Agent Triple P vote goes to Emily Blunt as the most attractive Linnet. I predict we will hear a lot more about her.

However, if I had to vote for the best girl in both films it would go to the gorgeous Olivia Hussey who at the time had a face (and a bust) to die for (as we can see here in some scenes from Romeo and Juliet).

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