Lord Edgware Dies

The usual cast of patricians in evening dress take serial murder in their stride in this typical thirties quota quickie in which it's hard to decide who's accent is the more outrageous, Austin Trevor's Belgian one as a moustacheless Hercule Poirot or Jane Carr's American one as chief suspect Lady Edgeware; the latter attended to by a memorably severe maid played by Phyllis Morris.

The reviews are,by and large,unfair. It was the early thirties and one should not ask for Finney's and Ustinov's movies or Suchet's TV series.

This is one of Christie's best books,in a golden decade ("the ABC murders ", " death on the nile " "death in the clouds","murder on the orient express ", 'the Tuesday club murders" ,ending with her triumph "and then were none" );if my memory serves me well , it's one sentence which makes the little gray cells discover the whole truth .

Written in 1933 ,the year before, it is anyway interesting for Christie's fans to see early movies based on her books;although not as good as "love from a stranger"(based on the short story "Philomel Cottage ), "lord Edgware dies " , it is ,for the time, an interesting adaptation.

Trevor may not physically be Poirot (no moustache,tall and not bald) ,but it's false to write there is no hint at Belgian :he has an accent and one can hear many French words in the dialog ( "mon cher ami" "mon Dieu",etc ) Hastings serves as a foil to him (it's his dr Watson),and when he hears that Lady Edgware might be a potential criminal, his tea goes down the wrong way .

Christie's fans should try and watch "the ninth guest" ,released the very same year ,not from one of her books, but contains the seeds of "and then there were none" .

If you forget that this is supposed to be the short, bald, mustachioed Hercule Poirot of the Agatha Christie books, this is actually a pretty good old British mystery. Some of the performances are a bit off - Trevor's French accent (no indication that Poirot is Belgian here) is overdone, Hastings is annoyingly stupid and clumsy, and the acting of the minor roles is amateurish - but Jane Carr is lively and lovely, and the Inspector is British stolidity at its best. The staging is awkward at times, but the direction moves things along nicely. Enjoyable on its own merits, but maybe not for diehard Christie fans.

The beautiful Lady Edgware asks Poirot to help her get rid of her husband, soon after her plea, he's found dead, stabbed in the neck, but she has an alibi.

I think it's easy to overlook that this was made back in 1934, I'm watching this almost eighty years on, and for the most part it's well made, competently acted, and actually pretty accurate, the likeness from the original text that is.

It's atmospheric, it flows well, I actually liked the staging. I felt that they captured the tone of the book, and as for the killer, I felt that they got them, and their motives spot on, not too sympathetic, but devious and cunning.

On the downside, the accents are enough to make Rene Artois blush, they are hilariously bad, Poirot sounds a little comical, Lady Edgware is inconsistent let's say, sadly the character of Hastings is an utter fool. Poirot, has no moustache, and isn't Belgian, I can imagine Christie had a few words to say about that.

I'd love to see this get a commercial release.

7/10.

I love Agatha Christie stories, she was an excellent writer no matter what people think or say. I read her entire work. But I think casting-wise Hastings should have been Piorot and Poirot should have been Hastings but that's just my opinion, watch it and see if you like it. One of the earliest versions of Agatha Christie as far as I know.