Portraying Poirot
“Hollywood is not in the business of making these epic, sweeping films anymore,” said Josh Gad, a member of the allstar cast of the latest “Murder on the Orient Express.” But even director Kenneth Branagh’s main inspiration, David Lean, was well aware that beautiful pictures are nothing without a compelling central figure — one like Hercule Poirot.
Described by mystery novelist Agatha Christie as having an “egg-shaped head” and trouble “keeping his moustaches out of his soup,” he is the self-described “world’s greatest detective,” and a character into whom an actor can sink all his teeth, while indulging in some of the screen’s more outrageous French (actually Belgian) accents. (Charles Laughton was the first to play him, in 1928 on London’s West End.) Some of the principal Poirots are as follows:
■ Kenneth Branagh: Directing himself in “Murder on the Orient Express,” Branagh certainly wears the most outrageous mustaches of any Poirot. But his detective is also more ruminative than most, considering the crime at hand with a combination of emotional investment and philosophical distance.
■ David Suchet: Now
71, Suchet, who has played everyone from Cardinal Woolsey to vampire hunter Abraham
Van Helsing, is probably most closely identified with Poirot, whom he played for 13 seasons on the U.k.-produced series (shown here on PBS and A&E) and whose portrayal was said by Christie’s daughter to be the one her mother would have liked the most. Suchet’s Poirot was very precise, with a withering eye for the guilty.
■ Peter Ustinov: Renaissance man of movies, Ustinov portrayed Poirot several times, including in “Death on the Nile” (1978), “Evil Under the Sun (1982) and “Thirteen at Dinner” (1985). He played Poirot the way he played most of his roles, with a twinkle.
■ Albert Finney: Sidney Lumet’s take on Christie resulted in the star-studded 1974 “Murder on the Orient Express,” which found Finney playing a slightly sinister Poirot, an excitable sleuth who found great satisfaction in pinning down his suspects like flies to a board.
■ Tony Randall: Yes, the
Felix Unger of TV’S long-running “Odd Couple” played Poirot in 1965’s “The Alphabet Murders,” a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek takeoff on Christie, inspired by her 1936 novel, “The A.B.C. Murders.” Randall’s mustache looks moth-eaten.