GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #14

HERCULE POIROT

Created by Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot is one of the most celebrated detectives in English crime fiction.  Poirot is a Belgian who was forced to flee to England after the German invasion of his homeland in 1914.  He had served as a policeman with honor and distinction before retiring in 1904.  After the war he remained in England and became a private inquiry agent (what we call a private detective in the US).  He shared a home with his old friend Captain Hastings at 14 Farraway Street in London.  The not-too-bright Hastings acts as Poirot's "Watson" and chronicles his early adventures.  When Hastings married and moved to Argentina in the 1930s Poirot moved to Whitehaven Mansions, a modern block of flats whose geometrical appearance and proportions indulged his passion for method and order.  His needs were served by his faithful manservant Georges and his efficient secretary Miss Lemon.  He grew to the age of 80 and became semi-retired but was known to investigate the occasional murder case brought to him by his friend Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, a rather scatterbrained lady detective novelist.

Monsieur Poirot is short - only 5 feet 4 inches - but his ego is enormous.  His egg-shaped head is slightly bent to the left, and his hair seems suspiciously dark for one of his age.  When he is excited his eyes appear to be green.  His pride and joy is his luxuriant mustache, which is waxed and twirled into points at the ends.  He wears small black patent leather shoes and has carried a cane for many years because of a leg injury he received during WWI.  He smokes fancy cigarettes and is an immaculate dresser.  His use of the English language leaves much to be desired and, during his early years in England, he constantly used French phrases.  Although Poirot seems to be a comic figure, his reasoning power is immense and he proudly boasts of his "little grey cells".  He has been known to make an occasional mistake - whereupon he says, "I am a triple imbecile" - but his energy and supreme belief in his own ability oblige him to state that he is the only detective in the world who could possibly solve whatever case he is currently investigating.  By 1930 Agatha Christie had tired of Poirot and reportedly found him to be "insufferable".  In 1960 she stated that he was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep".  But the public loved him.  He was the subject of 33 novels, 2 plays, and over 50 short stories.  He died in "Curtain" the last Poirot novel which was written in 1940 but remained unpublished until 1975.  His death resulted in a front page obituary in the New York Times.

  Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was one of the greatest and most popular detective story writers of the 20th Century and with her creation of Poirot in 1920 began what has come to be known as "the Golden Age" of detective fiction.  She was born in Torquay in Devon County, the daughter of an American father from New York who died when she was young.  She was raised by her English mother who encouraged the child to write.  In 1912 Agatha became engaged to Colonel Archibald Christie of the Royal Flying Corps.  Right after the start of WWI the couple was married.  With her husband away in France, Mrs. Christie worked in the dispensary of the local volunteer hospital.  She was too busy during the war to write but she made plans to write a detective story.  She had read many works in the field and believed that they were an excellent means of distraction from worry.  She wrote much of "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", her first novel - and the first to feature Poirot - at odd moments while at work and finished it during a two-week vacation on Dartmoor.

The manuscript was rejected by several publishers, and another publisher had it for a year before finally accepting it.  The pay ($125) was small but enough to encourage Mrs. Christie, and after completing six novels she really felt that she was a writer.  During this period she had a daughter, Rosalind. The death of Mrs. Christie's mother and the impending breakup of her marriage caused her to suffer from amnesia.  Her highly publicized disappearance in 1926, the result of that amnesia (that was her story and she stuck to it) increased sales of her books, but brought notoriety and unpleasantness to Agatha.  After divorcing Col. Christie in 1928 she met and married Max Mallowan, an archaeologist, in 1930.  Her novels became bestsellers and were serialized in magazines and translated into more than 100 foreign languages.  One of her publishers claimed that sales of her mysteries had exceeded 400 million copies.  Well into her eighties she still produced what her publisher called "a Christie for Christmas" every year.  She was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1956 and the title of Dame was bestowed in 1971.  Christie died January 12, 1976.  Her royalties were earning her $10,000 a week - more money than she knew what to do with.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (1920) concerns the investigation of the murder of a rich, elderly lady in a country house and is one of the best first mystery novels ever written.  The still controversial "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" (1926) is Dame Christie's most famous novel and one of her best.  The murder of a doctor in a small English village causes Poirot to abandon his retirement plans.  Although Christie's solution plays fair with the reader - the clues are there to be found - many readers and critics felt otherwise.  "The A.B.C. Murders" (1936) is about a serial killer who announces his apparently unmotivated killings in advance to Poirot.  The only clue is a railway guide left at the scene of each crime.  In the opinion of many critics this was one of her greatest detective novels.  "Cards on the Table" (1936) is about a bizarre character who "collects" killers who have not been brought to justice.  He is murdered while hosting a card party and Poirot discovers the murderer by observing the suspect's methods of playing bridge.  "Murder in Retrospect" (1942) concerns the efforts of Poirot to solve a 16-year-old crime by having the suspects write down their accounts of the crime.  In "The Labors of Hercules" (1947) Poirot emulates his legendary namesake in 12 modern day detective problems.

In this listing of novels I have also included the serialization in popular magazines & newspapers.

1920 "The Mysterious Affair at Styles";  1923 "Murder on the Links";  1924 "Poirot Investigates" (s.s.);  1926 "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" (The Great American Novel Magazine June 1929);  1927 "The Big Four";  1928 "The Mystery of the Blue Train";  1932 "Peril at End House" (Liberty June 13-Aug 22, 1931);  1933 "Thirteen at Dinner" (American Magazine March-August 1933);  1934 "Murder on the Orient Express" (The Saturday Evening Post Sept 30-Nov 4, 1933);  1934 "Murder in Three Acts" (The Saturday Evening Post June 9-July 14, 1934);  1935 "Death in the Clouds" (The Saturday Evening Post Feb 9-Mar 16, 1935);  1936 "The A.B.C. Murders" (Cosmopolitan Nov 1935);  1936 "Murder in Mesopotamia" (The Saturday Evening Post Nov 9-Dec 14, 1935);  1936 "Cards on the Table" (The Saturday Evening Post May 2-June 6, 1936);  1937 "Poirot Loses a Client" (The Saturday Evening Post Nov 7-Dec 19, 1936);  1937 "Death on the Nile" (s.s. Cosmopolitan Apr 1933 / novel The Saturday Evening Post May 15-July 3, 1937);  1937 "Murder in the Mews" (s.s. Redbook Sept-Oct 1936);  1938 "Appointment with Death" (Colliers Aug 28-Oct 23, 1937);  1938 "Murder for Christmas" (Colliers Nov 12, 1938-Jan 14, 1939);  1939 "The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories" (s.s., 5 of the 9 are Poirot stories);  1940 "Sad Cypress" (Colliers Nov 25, 1939-Jan 27, 1940);  1940 "The Patriotic Murders" (Colliers Aug 3-Sept 28, 1940);  1941 "Evil Under the Sun" (Colliers Dec 14, 1940-Feb 22, 1941);  1942 "Murder in Retrospect" (Colliers Sept 20-Nov 22, 1941);  1946 "The Hollow" (Colliers May 4-May 25, 1946);  1947 "The Labors of Hercules" (This Week Sept 24, 1939-May 12, 1940);  1948 "There is a Tide";  1948 "Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories" (s.s., 1 of the 9 is a Poirot story);  1950 "Three Blind Mice and Other Stories" (s.s., 3 of the 8 are Poirot stories);  1951 "The Under Dog and Other Stories" (s.s.);  1952 "Mrs. McGinty's Dead" (Chicago Tribune Oct 7-Dec 30, 1951);  1953 "After the Funeral" (Chicago Tribune Jan 20-Mar 14, 1953);  1955 "Hickory Dickory Death" (Colliers Oct 14-Nov 11, 1955);  1956 "Dead Man's Folly" (Colliers July 20-Aug 17, 1956); 1959 "Cat Among the Pigeons" (Ladies Home Journal Nov 1959);  1960 "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and Other Stories" (s.s., 5 of the 6 are Poirot stories);  1961 "Double Sin and Other Stories" (s.s., 4 of the 8 are Poirot stories);  1963 "The Clocks" (Cosmopolitan Jan 1964);  1966 "Third Girl" (Redbook Apr 1967);  1969 "Hallowe'en Party" (Cosmopolitan Dec 1969); 1972 "Elephants Can Remember" (Star Weekly Feb 10-17, 1973);  1975 "Curtain" (Ladies Home Journal July-Aug 1975).

Most of the Poirot short stories also appeared in American magazines.  For sake of ease, instead of a strictly chronological listing, I have broken down the stories by magazines.  The first is Blue Book which printed the majority of the stories.  Blue Book was a pulp magazine, one of the most successful, which had a 70 year run from 1905-1975.

Blue Book - Sept 1923 "The Affair at the Victory Ball";  Oct 1923 "The Curious Disappearance of the Opalsen Pearls" (reprinted in Aug 1942);  Nov 1923 "The Adventure of the King of Clubs";  Dec 1923 "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim" (reprinted in Feb 1942);  Jan 1924 "The Mystery of the Plymouth Express" (reprinted Oct 1941);  Feb 1924 "The Adventure of the Western Star";  Mar 1924 "The Marsden Manor Tragedy";  Apr 1924 "The Great Bond Robbery";  May 1924 "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat";  June 1924 "The Hunter's Lodge Case";  July 1924 "The Kidnapped Premier" (reprinted May 1942);  Aug 1924 "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb";  Dec 1924 "The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman" (reprinted Dec 1941);  Jan 1925 "The Case of the Missing Will";  Feb 1925 "The Chocolate Box";  Mar 1925 "The Case of the Veiled Lady";  Apr 1925 "The Lost Mine";  May 1925 "The Market Basing Mystery";  June 1925 "The Adventure of John Waverly";  July 1925 "The Submarine Plans";  Aug 1925 "The Double Clue";  Sept 1925 "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook";  Oct 1925 "The Cornish Mystery";  Nov 1925 "Le Mesurier Inheritance";  Mar 1927 "The Unexpected Guest";  Apr 1927 "The Adventure of the Dartmoor Bungalow";  May 1927 "Lady on the Stairs";  June 1927 "The Radium Thieves";  July 1927 "In the House of the Enemy";  Aug 1927 "The Yellow Jasmine Mystery";  Sept 1927 "The Chess Problem";  Oct 1927 "The Baited Trap";  Nov 1927 "The Adventure of the Peroxide Blonde";  Dec 1927 "The Dying Chinaman";  Jan 1928 "The Crag in the Dolemites".

Detective Story Magazine

Jan 5, 1929 "In the Third Floor Flat";  Mar 9, 1929 "Worst of All";  Mar 30, 1929 "Double Sin".

Ladies Home Journal

Jan 1932 "The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest"; June 1932 "The Second Gong";  June 1935 "How Does Your Garden Grow?"

The Saturday Evening Post

Oct 23, 1937 "The Dream"

Colliers

Nov 9, 1940 "Four and Twenty Blackbirds"

This Week was a nationally syndicated Sunday magazine in US newspapers 1935-1969.

Jan 12, 1936 "Problem at Sea";  Feb 2, 1936 "Triangle at Rhodes";  Mar 16, 1947 "Meet Me in Hell".

The added feature of these serialized novels and printed short stories are the illustrations that accompanied them by some of the best illustrators in the business at the time.

PLAYS

Michael Morton adapted "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" for the British stage as "Alibi".  It opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on May 15, 1928 with Charles Laughton in the role of Poirot and was quite successful.  The play came to New York City in 1932 retitled "The Fatal Alibi" and opened on Broadway with Laughton again as Poirot and a young Jane Wyatt in the cast.  The play closed after only 24 performances.

"Black Coffee" was an original play by Agatha Christie.  It opened December 8, 1930 at the Embassy Theatre with Francis L. Sullivan as Poirot.

FILMS

"Alibi" Twickenham, 1931.  Austin Trevor (Poirot), Franklin Dyall (Roger Ackroyd), Elizabeth Allan.  Director: Leslie Hiscott.  Based on the novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" and the play by Michael Morton.  A country doctor serves as Poirot's assistant as the Belgian detective investigates a supposed suicide on a wooded estate.

"Black Coffee" Twickenham, 1931.  Trevor, Richard Cooper (Capt. Hastings), Adrianne Allen, Elizabeth Allan, Melville Cooper (Inspector Japp).  Director: Hiscott.  Based on the play.  Poirot probes the theft of a secret formula.

"Lord Edgware Dies" Real Art, 1934.  Trevor, Cooper, Jane Carr, John Turnbull (Insp. Japp).  Director: Henry Edwards.  Based on "Thirteen at Dinner".  Poirot must ascertain who murdered an elderly lord and attempted to poison an actress at her own dinner party.

"The Alphabet Murders" MGM, 1966.  Tony Randall (Poirot), Anita Ekberg, Robert Morley (Capt. Hastings), Maurice Denham, Guy Rolfe.  Director: Frank Tashlin.  Based on "The A.B.C. Murders".  While on holiday in England, Poirot is curious about a series of seemingly unrelated murders - an aqua-clown drowned in a swimming pool, a girl killed in a bowling alley by a dart, and so on.  A bungling, gout-afflicted British Intelligence agent (Morley) is assigned to protect the Belgian detective, and he and Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) briefly cross paths.

"Murder on the Orient Express" EMI, 1974.  Albert Finney (Poirot), Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, Michael York.  Director: Sidney Lumet.  An international all-star cast portrays the passengers on a train in which death and conspiracy are to be found.

"Death on the Nile" EMI, 1978.  Peter Ustinov (Poirot), Jane Birkin, Lois Chiles, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith.  Director: John Guillermin.  Set in 1937 Egypt the story takes place mostly on a paddle steamer on the Nile.

"Evil Under the Sun" EMI, 1982.  Ustinov, Jane Birkin, Maggie Smith, Roddy McDowall, Sylvia Miles, James Mason, Diana Rigg.  Director: Guy Hamilton.  A hiker finds a dead woman on the North York Moors.

"Appointment with Death" Cannon, 1988.  Ustinov, Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgud, Piper Laurie, Hayley Mills, David Soul.  Director: Michael Winner.  Ustinov's final appearance as Poirot.  The film was made at a cost of $6 million and did a box office of $960,000.

"Murder on the Orient Express" 20th Century Fox, 2017.  Kenneth Branagh (Poirot), Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer.  Director: Branagh.  Budgeted at $55 million, the film's box office was $352 million.

"Death on the Nile" 20th Century Fox, 2022.  Branagh, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer.  Director: Branagh.  Budgeted at $90 million, the film took in $116 million.

RADIO

In 1939 Orson Welles and the Mercury Players dramatized "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" for the Campbell Playhouse on CBS.  On October 6, 1942, the Mutual radio anthology series "Murder Clinic" broadcast "The Tragedy of Marsden Manor" with Maurice Tarplin as Poirot.

"The Adventures of M. Hercule Poirot" was a short-lived series in 1945 with Harold Huber in the title role.  There were 13 half-hour episodes produced, none of which were adaptations of Christie stories.  The first episode aired February 22, 1945 and was introduced by Christie herself from London on shortwave.

The BBC did an adaptation of "Murder in the Mews" in March 1955 with Richard Williams as Poirot.  Between 1985-2007 the BBC did 27 different adaptations of Poirot stories with John Moffat playing the Belgian detective.

TELEVISION

A one-hour adaptation of "Death on the Nile" was produced for "Kraft Television Theater" on July 12, 1950.  Broadcast live, it starred Guy Spaull as Poirot.  Jose Ferrer played Poirot in a proposed 1961 TV-pilot that never aired.  The pilot was based on the story "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim".  The same story was filmed the following year for General Electric Theater with Martin Gabel as Poirot in a half-hour show that aired April 1, 1962.

"Thirteen for Dinner" CBS, 1985.  Peter Ustinov brought his characterization of Poirot to TV with Faye Dunaway and Bill Nighy.  An American actress is Scotland Yard's prime suspect when her husband Lord Edgware is murdered.

"Dead Man's Folly" CBS, 1986.  Ustinov, Jean Stapleton, Constance Cummings, Nicolette Sheridan.  Poirot investigates murder at a manor house in this made-for-TV movie.

"Murder in Three Acts" CBS, 1986.  Ustinov, Tony Curtis, Emma Samms, Dana Elcar, Lisa Eichhorn.  Poirot hunts a murderer in Acapulco.

David Suchet appeared in the ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" from 1989-2013.  He performed all 33 novels and the short stories.  The final episode "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" aired November 13, 2013.

Alfred Molina played Poirot in a 2001 made-for-TV version of "Murder on the Orient Express" with Meredith Baxter and Leslie Caron.  John Malkovich played the sleuth in a 2018 BBC adaptation of "The A.B.C. Murders".