Trevor’s portrayal, while pleasant in its own right, differed enough from Christie’s description that the magazine Picturegoer Weekly ran an editorial lambasting it, under the headline “Bad Casting.” The most flagrant change is to the world-famous Belgian’s nationality: This Poirot has been inexplicably made a Parisian. He starred in three adaptations of Poirot’s adventures between 19, of which only the last, “Lord Edgware Dies,” survives today (available on YouTube). As Kenneth Branagh’s “ Death on the Nile” arrives in cinemas, we look back at the most famous and esteemed versions.Īs he was young, tall and (unforgivably) clean-shaven, the dashing leading man Austin Trevor was a conspicuous - some might say egregious - departure from the source material. These are the interpretations that come to mind when most people think of Hercule Poirot, and in their own way, each of these versions seems to some extent definitive. Hugh Laurie once even donned the iconic ’stache for a cameo in “Spice World,” letting Baby Spice (Emma Bunton) get away with murder.īut of the dozens of takes on Poirot over the last century or so, only a handful have truly endured, leaving a permanent mark on the character. By contrast, Alfred Molina, in a made-for-TV version of “Murder on the Orient Express” from 2001, brought a subtler, more muted touch, softening the character’s sometimes cartoonish extravagance.
Tony Randall, in Frank Tashlin’s 1965 mystery-comedy “ The Alphabet Murders,” played it for laughs, exaggerating Poirot’s exotic pomposity with farcical zeal. Many actors have stepped into the role over the years, each trying to give it his own spin, much as a stage actor might take a fresh crack at King Lear.
From his debut in Agatha Christie’s 1920 novel, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” through his final appearance in “Curtain,” published in 1975, the Belgian detective cut a simple, distinctive figure: a “quaint, dandified little man,” as Christie wrote, “hardly more than 5 foot 4 inches,” with a head “exactly the shape of an egg,” a “pink-tipped nose” and, in what is probably the most famous instance of facial hair in the history of English literature, an enormous, “upward-curled mustache” - which Christie later boasted was no less than the finest one in England.Ĭhristie wrote more than 80 novels and short stories about Poirot, and nearly all of them have been adapted for film and television. Hercule Poirot is one of those literary heroes, like James Bond or Sherlock Holmes, whose image blazes brightly in the popular imagination.
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