Reeling Back

"Art has to be national to be international,” Peter Ustinov once told a late night chat-show host in Toronto. I heard him say it on this day (November 21) in 1962, and immediately scribbled down the quote, the program’s name (Midnight Zone), and the date. His words struck a chord with my own nascent nationalism and, later, nicely summarized the thinking behind the creation of an annual World Television Day by the United Nations. Marked on November 21 since 1997, it focuses on the broadcast medium’s power to educate, illuminate and promote international understanding. Celebrated as an actor, author, raconteur and humanitarian, the London-born Ustinov was a lifelong internationalist, who promoted his values with insight and wit. Knighted by Her Majesty in 1990, the year he assumed the presidency of the World Federalist Movement, Sir Peter was a welcome presence on stage and screen for some six decades. Today, I’m adding reviews of four of his feature films to my Reeling Back archive (with links to each following the Afterword to this posting), a package that includes Ustinov’s debut as Agatha Christie’s fussy Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, in director John Guillermin’s 1978 feature Death on the Nile.