To mark the release of a restored version of the classic melodrama Now, Voyager, here is the best of Hollywood’s
Queen of mean, from screwball romps to wild-eyed chillers
Bette Davis was on her final stretch in this Agatha Christie vehicle, with a gallery of A-listers phoning in a souped-up version of their existing screen personae. The scene is a 1930s paddle steamer chugging down the Nile, aboard which a wealthy heiress has been shot: Peter Ustinov’s Hercule Poirot investigates and suspicion falls on a querulous
American, Mrs Van Schuyler, played by Davis, who may have wanted to get her gnarled hands on the victim’s pearl necklace.