Portrayals Poirot

sometime in the early-to-mid ‘80s), I spent MurderontheOrientExpress. It was time; and I had to watch it straight the character of Hercule Poirot, Christie’s wanted to be like him. I just knew that someday I, too, whodunnit. Poirot was that kind of character; of which there are, blessedly, many.

She drew her inspiration from other popular method of sniffing about for clues, preferring instead introduces him this way: four inches, but carried himself it a little on one side. His incredible. I believe a speck of dust would man who, I was sorry to see, now Belgian police. As a detective, his flair most baffling cases of the day.

Poirot would go on to appear in a total of thirty-three novels, over fifty short stories, and even two plays. His literary presence spans fifty-five years, and he is to date the only literary character to receive an obituary on the front page of the New York Times (below the fold, but front page, nonetheless). While Christie was known for her fiendishly clever plots, the quality of her novels varies widely. Her later novels, particularly those featuring Poirot, often show only glimmers of the brilliance of her early years, although we know now that these novels offer compelling evidence that Christie may have been in cognitive decline, possibly due to Alzheimer’s disease.

The portrayals of Poirot in film and television also vary widely in quality, but not for such poignant reasons. Some Poirots are brilliant, and some...well, not so much. The essence of the character always manages to come through, though, whether shining brightly through the right actor in the role or glowing faintly through the clouds of strange choices and miscasting.

What follows is an incredibly subjective, yet wholly correct, ranking of some of these portrayals. I say “some,” because a truly exhaustive ranking is next to impossible. Christie has been adapted in countries all over the world and for the odd film or television episode that has been lost to the ages. So this is essentially a ranking of the UK or US portrayals of Poirot that I’ve actually seen. If you don’t care for it, write your own list.

Alfred Molina

MurderontheOrientExpress, 2001* (made-for-TV)

Watch it here:

This adaptation of MurderontheOrientExpress is one of three we’ll see in this list; and the biggest problem with it is that it pales in comparison with every other adaptation of MurderontheOrientExpress, and in every conceivable way. Everything just feels off, even the frequently great Alfred Molina as Hercule Poirot. One misstep is that the action is set in the 2000s, rather than the 1930s; and it’s full of such specific oh-so-contemporary references that it feels instantly dated. (In fact, one significant clue is the dropped stylus from a Blackberry. Remember those?)

The star power, so often a highlight of a Christie film, is also suspiciously low here, with only Leslie Caron, Meredith Baxter-Birney, and Peter Strauss around to liven up a cast of unknowns. And in the middle of it all is Alfred Molina’s Poirot, with floppy hair and a tone-on-tone shirt-tie combo, looking about as imposing as some guy trying to find a nice wine in a grocery store. It’s only in the interrogations that you see fleeting glimpses of the “little grey cells” at work, and you wonder what Molina could have done in a better version of this story.

*Triggerwarning:It's2001,sothereisaLOTofbeige.

Austin Trevor

Alibi, 1931, now believed lost

LordEdgwareDies, 1934 9.

Black Coffee, 1931, also believed lost

Watch it here:

Trevor’s Poirot is clean-shaven and looks nothing like Christie’s description. Trevor himself believed he got the role merely because he could do a decent French accent, which may be true. But Poirot’s essence comes through, if only in brief flashes. Granted, those flashes are mainly due to Christie’s characterization and plot construction, and not so much to Trevor’s performance. Nevertheless, the existing film is stylish and set in the right time period; and it’s diverting in the way that cheapies of the 1930s often are. You could do worse. (See #10.)

Watch a clip:

In this case, Coco doesn’t play Poirot, exactly. MurderbyDeath, written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Benton, parodies the tropes of classic murder mysteries. A group of famous detectives are summoned to a secluded mansion to solve an impossible crime. None of it makes any sense, and much of it is wildly inappropriate by today’s standards; but if you know the sources being spoofed and take it for what it is, it’s fun stuff, kind of like Clue before there was Clue.

Coco plays Milo Perrier, a thinly veiled send-up of Poirot who’s depicted as a closeted fop constantly gorging himself on chocolate. Not very Poirot-like, but in his dapper formal wear, with his vain little mustache, Coco does look the part. You know at an instant who he’s meant to be. It’s broadly comic turn full of brilliant moments, such as Perrier’s refutation that the dinner wine has been poisoned. The whole thing is a goof; but here and there, Coco, who was a much-lauded character actor in his own right, shows us what an interesting Poirot he might have been, had he been given the chance.

*Triggerwarning:Ifyoudon’twanttoseePeterSellersinyellowfacelampooning CharlieChanandDr.FuManchu,youmightwanttoskipthisone.