Lord Edgware Dies ** (2000, David Suchet, Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson, Pauline Moran, Helen Grace, John Castle, Fiona Allen, Dominic Guard, Christopher Guard) – Classic Movie Review 12,871

Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition.

The 2000 murder mystery film Lord Edgware Dies is based on the 1933 novel by Agatha Christie, with a screenplay by Anthony Horowitz, and stars David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.

Director Brian Farnham’s 2000 murder mystery film Lord Edgware Dies is based on the 1933 novel by Agatha Christie, with a screenplay by Anthony Horowitz, and stars David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.

Lord Edgware (John Castle) is found dead after a party the night before. His wife Lady Edgware (Fiona Allen) is the lady upon whom the blame is put – but the Belgian detective sets out to find the truth.

David Suchet is very welcome back in his TV role as Agatha Christie’s Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot, in a good mystery respectfully handled and well done on a fairly lavish TV budget. Philip Jackson is also on hand as Inspector Japp and Hugh Fraser effectively reprises his role as Poirot’s confidant, Captain Hastings.

Suchet played Japp in the earlier Lord Edgware Dies adaptation for TV, under the novel’s American version title Thirteen at Dinner (1983), with Peter Ustinov in one of his six appearances as Hercule Poirot.

This second TV adaptation of Lord Edgware Dies was produced by Carnival Films and released as an episode for the series Agatha Christie’s Poirot on 19 February 2000. Though faithful to most of the plot of the novel, it features a number of changes.

It was the series seven finale, following The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The show ran for 13 series and 70 episodes on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. By the time it finished with Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case, every major Christie work by that featured the title character had been adapted.

The 1933 novel by Agatha Christie was first filmed with Austin Trevor as Poirot in the 1934 film Lord Edgware Dies.

Lord Edgware Dies was published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1933 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of Thirteen at Dinner.

The cast are David Suchet, Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson, Pauline Moran, Helen Grace, John Castle, Fiona Allen, Dominic Guard, Christopher Guard, Lesley Nightingale, Deborah Cornelius, Hannah Yelland, Tim Steed, Iain Fraser, Tom Beard, Virginia Denham, John Quentin, and Janet Hargreaves.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,871

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