Add the bare upper lip to a physique more suited to Sherlock Holmes than Hercule, an alien laxness on the matters of etiquette and exactitude (in Lord Edgeware Dies, this Poirot is called a Frenchman and makes no effort to correct), and an attitude verging on louche, and it’s just too far from the pattern. It seems egregious, but the lack of a moustache could be forgiven had Austin Trevor (pictured above, left) as the first screen Poirot ticked more of the character’s boxes. Austin Trevor in Alibi (1931), Black Coffee (1931) & Lord Edgeware Dies (1934) ![]() Molina is studiously avoiding caricature and keeping his performance restrained, which is perhaps to his credit, but for the intrinsically theatrical presence of Poirot? Great actor in other roles, but this one’s all wrong. With the lack of grooming (remembering that this is a character who’d walk for miles on sore feet rather than swap his smart patent leather shoes for something more practical) and the modern setting, comes a lack of sprightliness. Molina’s height isn’t the problem – Peter Ustinov added inches to the character’s book size and more than got away with it. What was it about the dapper, petite, shiny coiled spring of a character that inspired the makers of this CBS TV movie to cast six-foot two Alfred Molina, dress him like a crumpled travelling salesman and let him give the role this little energy? At least Tony Randall (see entry above) was aiming for laughs, but Molina drifts around this lacklustre modern-set adaptation of a Christie classic largely without aim at all. Alfred Molina in Murder on the Orient Express (2001) The version of Hercule Poirot he and Tony Randall created for this 1965 send-up looks the part, but acts like a ninny and sounds like he bought his transatlantic accent from a discount store (this Poirot’s “liddle grey cells” are more US drawl than European.) Randall plays Poirot largely as an upper class Brit who strangles a few vowels when he remembers his Belgian heritage, and the film presents him as a joke through and through, from the French accordion music that follows his every move to the comedic set pieces that find him doing yoga in a police cell and riding a horse around a royal park among the groovy chicks of swinging sixties London. The Alphabet Murders is directed by Frank Tashlin, whose trade was in Looney Toons cartoons, and larger-than-life comic performances as found in the Three Stooges and Jerry Lewis flicks he helmed in the 1950s.
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