Book Movie And TV Review Agatha Christie The ABC Murders

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1933 (Novel) Spoiler alerts. This is my favourite of all the many Agatha Christie novels, and there are three distinct filmed versions of it too, one made for the cinema and two made for TV. The book features Christie’s best known detective, Hercule Poirot, solving a case in which victims are killed in alphabetical order, by name and by location, i.e., Alice Asher is murdered in Andover. The detective is taunted with letters and the chief suspect appears to be an epileptic traveling salesman, but he is being framed. The story seems to move away from the traditional whodunit with a known limited range of suspects, to the hunt for a serial killer, or does it? Poirot is assisted by regular recurring companions Hastings and Inspector Japp, with some input by a brash new policeman called Crome. The story moves at a frantic pace to one of the best conclusions Christie ever devised. In 1965, the first film version came out, (retitled The Alphabet Murders) with Tony Randall (from The Odd Couple TV series) playing Poirot. It was played out for laughs, with the first victim being a circus clown murdered mid-act with a poison dart. The only really memorable moment in the film is Poirot walking past Christie’s other famous hero, Miss Marple in the street, played by Margaret Rutherford, (who played her in several movies) but who sadly plays no other part in this story. It is the only time the characters have ever met. It never happens in the books. The 1992 TV version with David Suchet as Poirot (the definitive performance in the role) is very faithful to the novel. The 2018 version starring John Malkovitch takes a very different and darker turn, though it retains the original murder plot and perpetrator. Its change of direction comes with Poirot himself, a gloomier, more depressed figure. Hastings does not appear and Japp dies (of natural causes early in the story). Poirot clashes with Crome who find that there is no record of Poirot’s long-claimed history of policing in pre-First World War Belgium. Christie does convey a few of Poirot’s dark secrets in the last few novels, but this adaptation has him as a former priest, shaken from his faith after failing to stop a village massacre by the Germans. He arrives in Britain as a refugee with his police alias prepared. It is a daring reconstruction, bravely creating a fresh mystery for those like me who think they know the story inside out. Malkovitch is great as a Poirot who makes Batman look happy and carefree by comparison. It also never detracts from the ingenuity of the pursuit of the actual ABC murderer too. Arthur Chappell