DEATH ON THE NILE - Interview With Dame Angela Lansbury

john gilman i met of course when we were going to do death on the nile and that was an interesting proposition i did not know him i knew of him and certainly he uh he certainly knew his subject very well and uh being he was also obviously a fan of christie so yeah that was easy it it was an extraordinarily rare opportunity to shoot in a unique and very special environment i mean working in egypt in those days well in what is the expression uh we were billeted in a hotel in the middle of the nile to get to it we had to get on a boat and we traveled across water and we all lived in this luxury hotel in the middle of the nile in egypt and that was a special and wonderful experience i must say i mean you couldn't have been more comfortable and you know the swimming pools wonderful food everything you could possibly want and then we would get up at four or maybe three in the morning because of the heat at that time in egypt we had to do the shooting before noon otherwise we could not shoot afternoon it was too too too hot so we were dealing with that and also with an old riverboat that we were working on which was you know troubling its way down the nile pulled by uh by little boats at times and sometimes under its own steam but the motors made so much noise that they usually just dragged it along with little boats the connect was a very compact little river boat and uh we were we were kind of the only dressing room we had on the boat was down below in in the bottom of the boat and it was like a a four um a four bed uh cabin and there was a bed up and a bed down and a bed up and a bed down so the fitting had to take place between the two bunks sets of bunks and uh i remember betty was would would lie down on one bunk and uh maggie smith was on the other and i was on the third and uh we would take turns being fitted in the well in the middle it was one of those extraordinary circumstances where we were forced to you know not not be the stars that we were supposed to be but nevertheless everybody was a good good mind and we we managed to bring it off what time is it there's a clock use your eyes didn't your mother ever tell you as far as servants are concerned there is a vast difference between amiable eccentricity and downright rooted my mother was a lady in a disposition she failed to pass on to you it's your bedtime she was a very fascinating woman and uh i got to know her quite well on that occasion and she had been a great great warner brothers star and i had been a fan of hers as a child you know she was a great year older than me and i remembered her in all her great great roles dark victory and things like that and uh you know i'm talking about movies that young people today have never have no idea about but some of the people of my age they would remember those movies and they were quite wonderful she was a very special um unique actress wonderfully unique looking and sounding and i was was delighted to meet her and to work with her peter ostinoff was my brother-in-law uh my ex-brother-in-law actually so we were we were good friends and uh great fun to work with him uh on that occasion and my role was such an interesting uh farcical character in many ways and uh there was so much comedy involved david niven and peter ostenaugh and myself and my husband and i we were all great friends and we knew each other from other uh other uh times so uh it was a very interesting uh location shall we say for actors don't forgive me for butting in but i've had a bet with my daughter here that your hercules porridge the famous french sleuth not quite i'm here the famous belgium salute i told you rosalie there's only one monsieur puerto in the world he's unmistakable as indeed i realize i am myself anthony powell is a superb costumer and our costume my costumes on that film i thought were absolutely extraordinary and quite original and marvelous really marvelous and they were built in new york city by my friend barbara matera and he worked with her and we all worked together and we came up with this extraordinary look but anthony was at the root of it all he was he is quite the best directors are ilk unto themselves and sometimes it's hard to be able to converse and to they have so much responsibility you know this is the thing people don't realize but they have to be the final word on how everything is done and therefore gilman under those circumstances i think did a terrific job it's a marvelous cast photograph of everybody that was in that film i hope that it's available because it shows absolutely every single person sitting all among themselves and it's an amazing group of actors and actresses and i think the general public would be would enjoy seeing that

Channel: StudiocanalUK

Views: 8,047

Rating: 4.9496856 out of 5

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Id: 6vmY6_WMbeU

Length: 6min 31sec (391 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020