Made by Golan-Globus Productions, the film is an adaptation of the 1938 Agatha Christie novel Appointment with Death featuring the detective Hercule Poirot.

The screenplay was co-written by Winner, Peter Buckman, and Anthony Shaffer, the latter writing the script ten years earlier.

[3] The film stars Peter Ustinov as Poirot, along with Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgud, Piper Laurie, Hayley Mills, Jenny Seagrove and David Soul.

He asks Dr King to check her medical bag and she finds it disordered, with an empty bottle of digitalis and a syringe missing.

Poirot deduces that Mrs. Boynton was injected with a lethal dose of digitalis, corresponding to a medicine she took that was usually administered orally by Nadine, in order that her death appear to be by natural causes.

Having suggested that all the step-children lied about seeing their step-mother alive when she was dead (thinking one of them may have done it and wishing to delay or protect them against discovery), Poirot clears them of suspicion.

To keep her quiet and maintain her status, Lady Westholme injected Mrs. Boynton with digitalis from Dr. King's bag and silenced the witness.

Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times that the film "is not up to the stylish standard of the earlier all-star, Hercule Poirot mysteries, especially Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express.

It must have been fun, but the movie they brought back is not....Director Winner appears to be trying for something droll and sophisticated, but there's no wit in the characters or life in the performances, and the picture quickly becomes about as exciting as searching for discrepancies in a train schedule.

"[9] The film was also blasted in Variety: "Peter Ustinov hams his way through 'Appointment with Death' one more time as ace Belgian detective 'Hercuool Pwarow,' but neither he nor glitz can lift the pic from an impression of little more than a routine whodunit.

Director Michael Winner has some fine Israeli locations to play with, but his helming is only lackluster, the script and characterizations bland, and there simply are not enough murders to sustain the interest of even the most avid Agatha Christie fan.

Appointment with Death is the only one of the six films in which Peter Ustinov portrayed Hercule Poirot that has not been released on Region 1 DVD for U.S. and Canadian home video.