Candleshoe (1977)

There's some dated gender stereotyping and at least one cringeworthy allusion to race, but Disney's Candleshoe is a classic family adventure in which a young Jodie Foster, a year on from her standout Taxi Driver performance, stars as a streetwise kid who inveigles her way into a family mansion by pretending to be a long-lost heir because she wants to get her hands on a hidden treasure.

★★★☆☆

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Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile (1978)

Agatha Christie wrote Death On The Nile while staying in Aswan, Egypt at the Old Cataract Hotel overlooking the Nile, in the 30s, so watching this film version of her book with its rich period detail - cream linen suits, cloche hats, pearls, pith helmets, cravats, stockings, against the dust and dry of Egyptian ruins or in the colonial opulence of saloon bars and cigar lounges - it is easy to imagine Christie is in it or that the film depicts a moment in her life, and beneath the stiff social propriety of the British characters aboard The Karnak, a river paddle boat to Cairo, runs a terrific thread of suspense as someone kills off several of those aboard; it is up to Peter Ustinov's Hercule Poirot to determine who the murderer is among characters played by the likes of Mia Farrow, David Niven, Bette Davis, Maggie Smith and Angela Lansbury.

★★★★☆

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Murder By Death (1976)

Mystery buffs will love the tangle of traditional mystery elements woven into this 1976 Neil Simon comedy thriller which sees the famous detectives of the world gather in a remote mansion to compete in a sinister challenge put to them by a sinister Truman Capote!

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS