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The Alphabet Murders (1965) This adaptation of Agatha Christie's The A.B.C. Murders was made while Margaret Rutherford was starring in the Miss Marple films (Rutherford and Stringer Davis have a cameo appearance in their continuing roles, pointed up by the cheerful theme tune of the Marple movies), but also just after Peter Sellers had first played Inspector Clouseau. With Frank Tashlin directing and Tony Randall in his Dr Lao master of disguise persona as a bizarrely-accented Poirot, it's a comical travesty of Christie's giallo-ish plot, with too much slapstick mugging and running around, a gallery of familiar Britfilm faces in tiny cameos, and a wink-at-the-audience air (Randall introduces the film as himself, presumably to demonstrate that he's not really bald) which doesn't entirely defuse the ruthlessness of the original. Randall's Poirot does Sellers-style mangled-pronounciation gags, bristles when anyone accuses him of being French, is fussy with his moustache and handles a running joke about giving up cigarettes - what he doesn't seem to do much of is sleuthing. Poirot, of course, can't be a Clouseau-like idiot, but here he isn't that clever either. Tashlin's cartoon style really needs colour and widescreen, and sits ill with the sort of bumbling comedy most of his European supporting cast can manage. Having Robert Morley run around in only a bath-towel with his secret agent ID taped to his blubbery stomach seems crueller than funny, while a flatly dubbed (and drably-dressed) Anita Ekeberg is stridently charmless as mystery woman Amanda Beatrice Cross and no substitute for Jayne Mansfield in the Tashlinesque blonde bombshell role. Someone is murdering through the alphabet, picking off victims with
the initials A.A., B.B., etc - though, in a familiar twist, the whole
gimmick serial spree is an attempt to conceal a murder for profit among
the supposed random killings. Morley and Maurice Denham play Poirot's
regular supporting characters, Captain Hastings and Insepctor Japp,
and it's presumably an in-joke to cast Austin Trevor, who played Poirot
in a couple of 1930s films, in a tiny role as a butler. Also with: Guy
Rolfe, James Villiers, Julian Glover, Cyril Luckham, Richard Wattis,
David Lodge, Patrick Newell (a hefty masseur) and Windsor Davies. First published in this form here. Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com
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