Very well executed

Powerful

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

When you start out with an Agatha Christie plot, you have the start of your movie plot. Sure, there could be issues with characters or Poirot could reach the conclusion in implausible ways, but you have the barebones. Luckily, I saw the David Suchet version a number of years ago so I recall this mystery, because after just watching this version, I wouldn't really have been able to tell you what the outcome was. The fact that *spoiler alert* ___ not all murder victims are equal ___ *spoiler alert end* really was kind of thrown in, not a major point.There were a number of weird decisions taken. First off, murder mysteries shouldn't really be grounds for a comedy. If you're going for farce, great, do it all the way. This one tried to be serious, while still having weird things happen. There were also a number of changes that were made for filmability. They main antagonist was a schizophrenic blonde, whose entire point was to inflame something on Poirot that weren't his little grey cells. They added a diving clown.It just seems like felt they needed to punch up a murder mystery, because why would someone watch a Poirot movie for a mystery? Just adding to the randomness, Miss Marple also makes an appearance for some pointless reason.I also need to mention, Tony Randall is not Hercule Poirot. He wasn't even close to playing a fastidious Belgian. I may have nostalgia with the David Suchet version, but Randall wasn't even close Ustinov or Finney.The movie was flawed from the get go, because it chose a poor direction to go. Film the book. You don't need to make it more than it is. Hercule Poirot is not a comedic player and this movie chose to emphasis comedy over thinking.

I don't know why the producers purchased the book rights; other than a few character names, there is NO resemblance to Agatha Christie's taut suspense story. Hercule Poirot, famous for exercising only his little grey cells, leaps about and crawls under barriers. His faithful sidekick Hastings has become an inept security agent, from whom Poirot continually escapes. Poirot actually meets the intended victims except for the first one. Tony Randall does a rather good job playing this miserable excuse for Poirot, which isn't necessarily a compliment. The story and resolution are completely changed, and not for the better. If you're an Agatha Christie fan, pass this one by.

I'm quirky about Christie mysteries, so take this comment with caution. Most viewers seem to think this a failed comedy, a poor "Pink Panther," and I liked it.First, the form of the thing: in key plot elements, it is a rather close adaptation of a Christie book where a murderer "tells a story" in his murders in order to throw the police off. So it begins by being a story about fooling the detective inside another story (the movie) about trying to fool us as detectives.The clue is about words. As a mystery, it is one of the clever explorations that Agatha had, looking at every way she could legally twist the convention of the form.The tone of the thing is what is at issue. Peter Sellers had just had a hit with "Pink Panther" as a bumbling French detective and Poirot inherits some of this. Christie intended for him to be comic in a pompous way, and to varying degrees played with the tension between his genteel buffoonery and his sharp mechanical mind. It was not a simple joke, because her goal in part was to both describe and comment on how such an interesting mind would work.She explored this indirectly by describing his manner, his minor superstitions, his attention to domestic ritual, the vanity of the perfect phrase, whether as a thought or a courtesy. She couldn't do that with Marple, who was as sharp but whose mind and manner was crass and impolite.So part of the game for me in watching film versions is in how the adapter treats the relationship with the viewer so far as the mystery proper. There are all sorts of narrative mechanics that are involved there than aren't worth mentioning now. The other part is in how the mind of the detective is portrayed, and since we can only see the mind through the story (as I just said) and in the person's manner, that manner is key.I think I liked this Poirot better than any of the others. They're all comic in one way or another, and this one seems further in tone from what was written. It is, but it may be closer in intent even though its in a context of Jerry Lewis slapstick.Consider this: in mystery your mind and the detective's are supposed to parallel each other in important ways. In creating a version of the story -- the truth -- despite attempts to force it others wise, you both do this. So in fact, you create the world itself in a way. Some of the basic mechanics are frozen in life as in the genre, but others are completely open for you both to make: matters of how clever fate is, how comic are the wheels of nature, how inevitable is justice, what justice means, how conscience and consequence matter.If the filmmaker can harmonize the tone of what you as viewer see and create in your own mind of the world, with what your surrogate the detective does, then he has succeeded and you can enter the movie whole.This movie seems trivial. I think it is all but impossible to see. But it succeeds with its Poirot where no other attempt does.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Being one of the more elusive films this side of the pond, The Alphabet Murders delivers no more or less than expected (hence the 5/10). But I think you have to ask yourself why your watching it before you condemn it. Christie purists are up in arms, Randall fans defend him, yadda yadda yadda. Personally, I got it for the all too brief Dame Margaret. That said, there's little else to say about it.Tony Randal is an acquired taste as Poirot, almost getting up your nose with an abysmal accent and acting as if he's the only one with grey cells, and overdoing that. The constant referring of him as a 'short' Belgian is the biggest mystery, as he's taller than most in the film. Poor Robert Morley tries his best, but the tedium of the film mainly comes from the rather repetitive score. Plotwise it doesn't really test the viewer, but enough is happening to keep you guessing. 30 seconds of Margaret Rutherford and spouse puts a much needed grin on the face, but it's not enough by far. Certainly one to add to the collection, but don't rush for it at the garage sale. Overall, a huge waste of talent. Pity.Oh, and a reviewer thinks Finney's Poirot was a masterpiece? Yeah. Right.