The 1978 Death on the Nile starring Peter Ustinov is available on Freevee, which is the new name for IMDb TV. So, sure, that’s with commercials, but since watching movies with commercials is a longstanding tradition for any good Gen-Xer, that’s not too bad. This is one of three adaptations of the story. Only one of them, the 2004 with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, can’t be said to have an all-star cast. It’s got David Soul, but Emily Blunt, the only other name in the cast, wasn’t a name in 2004. We all know about the famously damned cast of the recent version, but the 1978 has Bette Davis and Mia Farrow and Angela Lansbury and all kinds of people.

The all-star cast goes back decades. One of the most famous early examples is Grand Hotel of 1932, with Greta Garbo and John Barrymore and Joan Crawford. Now, sometimes, the casts age poorly—it’s not just Death on the Nile wherein half the cast was looked down on before the movie was even released. It’s movies where they’re clearly intended to be all-star casts but you can’t remember half of them even five years later. It’s a risk. Still, it must be extremely tempting to cast that way when you’re looking at an ensemble cast.

Now, the appeal of an ensemble cast can be that they’re cheaper—the draw of ten or fifteen minor actors can be equal to one star, I’d imagine. But if you really have money, you can cast David Niven, George Kennedy, and Dame Maggie Smith. It’s all a matter of choice. It’s clear that Knives Out draws on that tradition; Rian Johnson would likely be the first to agree with you on that, since one of the movies he references as an inspiration is Murder By Death, which has some performers in common with Death on the Nile. You draw Jamie Lee Curtis and Chris Evans and Christopher Plummer if you can; why not?

It’s interesting to consider if the all-star cast movies that don’t come to mind when all-star cast movies are considered are the ones where the stars have faded. It’s entirely possible. After all, why should you think of them? When you’ve got fifteen people who were the hottest box office draw of 1962 and you can’t think of anything any of them have done more recently than that, it’s hard to put them into the all-star cast category. For a Gen-Xer, it’s not impossible to think of 1991’s Mobsters in that. It’s very clearly trying, and it’s not the movie’s fault that Costas Mandylor and Richard Grieco have rather faded from the public consciousness.

All movies are risks, of course. Ask the fine people at Sony, these days, after they’ve fallen for the internet memes and thought that they might actually make a success at releasing Morbius a second time, only to have it gross about $80 a theatre over the weekend;. But there’s something to be said for the peculiar risk of the all-star cast for all that. Especially if you’ve waited for the casts to prove their acting chops before casting them; assemble a dozen or so Oscar- and BAFTA-winners on a boat and see what you get. Even if it’s ridiculously hammy, it’s still worthwhile.

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