The Alphabet Murders [The ABC Murders] * (1965, Tony Randall, Robert Morley, Anita Ekberg) – Classic Movie Review 9029

Agatha Christie’s A1 vintage thriller novel The ABC Murders about a murderer apparently bumping people off alphabetically is infuriatingly played for broad and easy laughs by a miscast Tony Randall as Eurotec Hercule Poirot, and encouraged to silliness by comedy director Frank Tashlin, in the 1965 British detective caper The Alphabet Murders [The ABC Murders].

Both Randall and Tashlin are equally to blame for murdering Christie’s ingenious whodunit in a film that should have been as easy as ABC to make successfully. Robert Morley and Maurice Denham play Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp, who aid and abet M Poirot.

Desmond Dickinson’s black and white photography is as striking as it is unexpected – black and white in 1965?

Margaret Rutherford has a joke cameo as Agatha Christie’s other detective Miss Marple, with her husband Stringer Davis as her friend Mr Stringer, after their series of four MGM films as the characters between 1961 and 1964.

Austin Trevor, a one-time Hercule Poirot himself in Alibi, Black Coffee and Lord Edgware Dies, also appears as Judson.

In the UK the film was not released until July 1966 as the bottom half of a double bill with The Glass Bottom Boat (1966).

Also in the cast are Anita Ekberg as Amanda, Guy Rolfe as Duncan Doncaster, James Villiers as Franklin, Clive Morton as ‘X’, Sheila Allen as Lady Diane, Julian Glover as Don Fortune, Grazina Frame as Betty Barnard, Cyril Luckham as Sir Carmichael Clarke, Richard Wattis as Wolf, with David Lodge as Sergeant, Patrick Newell as Cracknell, Windsor Davies as Dragbot, Drewe Henley as Bowling Alley Attendant and Sheila Reid as Mrs Fortune.

Zero Mostel was set to star but the film was delayed because Agatha Christie objected to the screenplay, including its addition of a Poirot bedroom scene. Mrs Christie might well have objected. The film varies greatly from the novel and emphasises idiot comedy at the expense of mystery, with Poirot a buffoon but supposedly still brilliant.

The Alphabet Murders [The ABC Murders] is directed by Frank Tashlin, runs 90 minutes, is made by Lawrence P Bachmann Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios, is released by MGM, is written by David Pursall and Jack Seddon, based on Agatha Christie’s novel The ABC Murders, is shot in black and white by Desmond Dickinson, is produced by Ben Arbeid and is scored by Ron Goodwin.

The ABC Murders was first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 January 1936 at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). It features Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp, battling a serial killer known as ABC.

In 1992, the novel was adapted for TV as part of ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot, aired in the UK on 5 January 1992 and starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.

On TV in 2018 John Malkovich played Hercule Poirot in The ABC Murders, filmed for the BBC and aired as a three-part miniseries over three consecutive days from 26 December 2018.

The dust jacket illustration of the first UK edition.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9029

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