The Alphabet Murders

Agatha Christie's character Hercule Poirot has always been difficult for filmmakers to cast.  The caliber and type of actor playing the part has varied greatly over the years --- Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Albert Finney, Alfred Molina, and David Suchet have all worn the funny mustache --- but the general attitude toward the character has remained fairly static.  Hercule Poirot is a brilliant amateur detective that earns the respect of Scotland Yard, despite his overblown vanity regarding his appearance.  The Alphabet Murders decides to try something different.  What if this was a mystery with a bumbling detective?  And Poirot was played for laughs?  Wouldn't that appeal to everybody absolutely no one?

The Alphabet Murders is based on Agatha Christie's whodunnit, The ABC Murders, minus only the plot and most of the details.  The film opens with Tony Randall, as himself, addressing the camera and explaining that he will be playing the part of the great Hercule Poirot. 

Subtly, no doubt

If nothing else, I have to admit that was an unexpected choice.  Randall then transforms into Poirot and, after a few gags involving him breaking the fourth wall, the plot is afoot.  Almost.  It seems that Hercule Poirot is not held in high esteem by the British police, even as they find themselves in the middle of a murder spree.  Instead of consulting with Poirot, Soctland Yard sends Hastings (Robert Morley) to guide Poirot safely out of London and on a plane to his homeland of Belgium.  How well does that work?  Let me put it to you this way: when Hastings is onscreen, his movements are accompanied by a tuba on the soundtrack.

Bum-ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum-dum-dum...

The reason Poirot doesn't oblige the Brits is because he was approached by an Amazon a desperate woman (Anita Ekberg); Poirot begins the case out of idle curiosity, but it becomes something more when he accidentally meets her on the street and she claims to not know him.

It's not surprising that he would remember her, though.  Low-key outfit, lady.

Why would anyone ask for Poirot's help and then claim not to know who he is?  What does this mystery woman have to do with the murder of a clown?  Wait...what?  A clown?  Let me check my notes...well, I guess that's right.  Clown murder.  ***sigh***

"Is that really any more ridiculous than anything else here?"

How was the acting in The Alphabet Murders?  Universally overdone.  However, the script did call for broad physical comedy, so I can't fault the actors for playing to the script.  Having said that, Tony Randall was dreadful as Hercule Poirot.  Imagine an actor from the 60s doing an exaggerated impression of a gay Frenchman and you will have the general idea of Randall's performance. 

Don't give me that look.  You're the one mugging the camera for laughs.

Robert Morley played his bumbling supporting role adeptly, although he failed to provide any laughs.  Morley is just very believable when he plays characters who inevitably get locked inside closets.  If his character was suicidal after as a result of his own incompetence, I might say Morley did a fantastic job, but the character sadly is oblivious to failure and embarrassment.  Anita Ekberg was fairly blank as the mystery woman, and the plot gives a reason for that blankness, so...I guess she was adequate?  The rest of the cast is pretty unmemorable and inconsequential to the larger story, although I did recognize a young Julian Glover in a small role and Margaret Rutherford (who played Agatha Christie's other prize character, Miss Marple) had a cameo.

When I look at director Frank Tashlin's body of work, it's not surprising that he made a murder mystery into a farce.  This is a guy whose biggest movies involved Jerry Lewis, so of course he spends a lot of time on "jokes" that no one could enjoy. 

Get it?  The mirror shows the wrong person talking!

Still, The Alphabet Murders could have been a much better movie and a lot of the blame lies on Tashlin.  If his direction had actually led me to laugh, or even smirk, I would cut him some slack.  Instead, he just had two funny-looking men stumble across the screen for the better part of 90 minutes without anything to show for it.  The acting was insultingly broad, the editing was not crisp enough for the gags the script provided, and the mystery is just confusing instead of suspenseful.  I will give credit where it is due --- there are about fifteen minutes in the final act of the movie where this mystery gets interesting.  Not coincidentally, they are the fifteen minutes free of gags.

In all fairness, I should point out that The Alphabet Murders was given the comedic treatment after Margaret Rutherford starred in four semi-comedic movies based on other Agatha Christie works.  It appears that this movie went a bit too far, though. 

Tony Randall was never meant to be a sex symbol

It would be almost a decade before another film was made using the character of Hercule Poirot; after that, he was primarily relegated to public television made-for-TV movies.  I still can't wrap my head around how awful this movie is.  I've recently started to wonder if there have been any good Agatha Christie movies made, but this weak attempt left me depressed.  It's one thing to make a mystery devoid of sense and suspense.  It's another to do that and undercut everything with humor that makes Nancy look like a comic genius by comparison. 

Endless Night

I have no idea what scene this is from

Watching The Mirror Crack'd this Fall stirred a long-dormant movie appetite for me.  While that movie wasn't great, it reminded me how much I enjoy a good mystery.  It also reminded me how few Agatha Christie film adaptations I've watched.  While scanning through Netflix's instant queue, I stumbled across Endless Night, a movie I've never heard of based on a Christie book I have never read.  I figured that a story I was unfamiliar with would keep the mystery intact longer ---and I was right --- but that does not necessarily mean that you should go into this film with the same amount of foreknowledge I had.

Michael (Hywel Bennett) is a bit of a loser.  He holds random jobs for a few weeks at a time, but inevitably walks out or gets fired.  He's a bit of a dreamer, and he dreams of life as a very wealthy man.  While working as a chauffeur, Michael befriends a world-class architect, the peculiar-looking Santonix (Per Oscarsson), and the two idly come up with some grand plans for a fabulous home (which Michael could never afford) on Michael 's favorite piece of real estate (which Michael will never own).

Architect or cubist Picasso inspiration?  You decide

One day, as Michael visits the plot of land he loves so much, called Gypsy's Acre by the locals, he accidentally meets a very sweet girl, Ellie (Haley Mills).  The two quickly fall in love, but it turns out that Ellie is one of the wealthiest people in England.  Amazingly, that inconvenience does not prevent Michael from marrying her.

Michael, having the tough news broken to him

The two marry, despite disapproval from Ellie's family, and have Santonix build them a modern home on Gypsy's Acre.  Then the real problems begin.  One of the locals, whose family once owned Gypsy's Acre, appears to be trying to creep the new couple off the land; she doesn't do much except stare at their house, but according to a reliable source, you shouldn't trust gypsies to do no harm.  On top of that, Michael has to deal with Ellie's overbearing family, who are all too aware that he is now heir to a fortune that was once theirs.  To make matters even more awkward, Ellie invites her best friend/hired companion, the gorgeous Greta (Britt Ekland), to live in their new home. 

Yeah, I'd hate to have her live with me

To recap, Michael has gone from a poor schlub with no prospects to a happily married man that is ridiculously wealthy, living his dream and his biggest problems are bitter old women giving him a hard time.  Life is tough sometimes.  However, the story is told in flashback by Michael and parts of it have nightmarish undertones.  What could have happened that made Michael dream of this image in this odd hue?

Please please please let Beetlejuice be responsible

I was never a big fan of Haley Mills as a child actress, but she's a little better than I expected in Endless Night.  Her character is very sweet and innocent, but I was surprised to not find her annoying.  Well, not too annoying.  On an amusing note, when Haley sings, her voice was dubbed over by Shirley Jones; so, when you see the scene and think "Gee, her lips and throat don't quite match the operatic voice in this scene," you are absolutely correct.  When I have to start by praising the mediocre talent of a former Disney star, you can tell that the acting is not great.  Specifically, Hywel Bennett was consistently awful.  The script has a few opportunities for Michael to seem sympathetic or likable, but Bennett manages to deadpan his way through every chance he got.  I understand that he needs to be a little mysterious for the mystery at the story's center, but there's a big difference between being bland and reserved.  Britt Ekland was also horrid.  Ekland isn't typically in films for her acting talent, but she really shouldn't be asked to cry on cue; her "acting" made me wince on multiple occasions.  George Sanders was fine, but sorely underused as the only cast member that understood the concept of subtlety.  On the bright side, this was the first time I saw Lois Maxwell outside of a James Bond film; all she does is give Michael the cold shoulder, but it showed more range than I thought her capable of.

Miss Moneypenny disapproves

Endless Night was directed and adapted for the screen by Sidney Gillat.  Gillat had a long career, primarily as a writer (including a few early Hitchcock films, like The Lady Vanishes), but if this is a representative example of his directorial skills, he should have stuck with his typewriter.  I will admit that a decent amount of the problem with Endless Night is Christie's source novel --- it focused on psychology instead of mystery --- but Gillat did absolutely nothing to save the concept.  Michael is the narrator, and it is clear that he is an unreliable narrator; Gillat could have run with that idea, having Michael reconstruct scenes when he is caught narrating a lie, forcing the audience to wonder how much of this story actually happened.  That's not the route Gillat goes.  Instead, Michael just bookends the story in a very loose way.  Even worse, the introductory bookend was wretched; coming across as hilariously melodramatic and just plain goofy.  Of course, as director, you can also blame Gillat for getting such wooden performances from his cast, too. 

"You want us to...act?!?"

There are some technical flaws that I noticed, too, with the most notable being the alleged night scene --- where Ellie wakes from a deep sleep only moments after Michael got up and decides to follow him outside, just like any married couple would ***eye roll***--- that was clearly filmed during the daytime and then artificially darkened.  My least favorite aspect of this film was how dull the reveal is.  Yes, Gillat made sure to not explicitly hint at the secret before the plot twist, but it was neither shocking nor entertaining.  He failed to build an ounce of suspense.

He did, however, build an ugly house for this movie

Even with poor direction and embarrassing acting, Endless Night could have stood out for its twist/reveal/mystery.  Had Gillat fostered the notion of Michael as an unreliable narrator, the reveal toward the end could have been fairly cool.  Instead, it seems less the work of a dastardly genius and more like a sitcom plot.  Bad story, bad acting and a lame twist lead to a bad movie.  On the other hand, there is a certain amount of kitsch value to a film with such a ridiculous house, a scene where Haley Mills has no face, and Britt Ekland has the least convincing crying-changing-into-laughter scene ever.  This is definitely a bad movie that has aged poorly, but you can laugh at it for a small bit of enjoyment.

The Mirror Crack'd

I've always been a heavy reader, and I tend to go through phases.  I went through a dinosaur book phase, a true crime phase, a biographies phase, a noir phase, and a scientific jargon phase, but the one genre that I have never truly had enough of is the murder mystery.  I'm not sure why that is; some are good, others obviously less so, but I think they serve as a palette cleanser for my reading habits.  Not surprisingly, I return to the works of Agatha Christie on occasion.  As much as I have liked her books --- and I read the crap out of them when I was ten --- I have never thought of them as being terribly cinematic.  The stuff of public television movies?  Sure, why not?  But actual cinema...that just never struck me as a great idea.  I found The Mirror Crack'd on Netflix and decided to give it a shot for a few reasons.  First, I wanted to see how accurate my instincts on Christie movies is.  Second, the cast looked pretty solid.  Most importantly, I have never read the book (or completely forgot about it if I have), so I could theoretically enjoy the mystery.

Like she can theoretically respect the privacy of others

The Mirror Crack'd is a Miss Marple mystery.  That means that the crime (murder) will occur in the small British village of St. Mary Mead (thus, limiting the suspect pool dramatically) and will be solved by an elderly spinster, Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury), thanks to her remarkable insight into human nature.  For this plot, a movie company has decided to film a period piece in St. Mary Mead.  The star of the picture is Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor), but her Hollywood rival, Lola Brewster (Kim Novak), was cast in a supporting role, seemingly just to spite Marina.  A party is thrown to appease the townsfolk and allow them to mingle with the filmmakers, and that is when tragedy strikes.  A local, Heather Babcock, dies after drinking a cocktail intended for Marina.  It is unquestionably murder, since the drink was mostly poison, but who would want to murder the star of the picture?  Many people, apparently.  Once again, it looks like it is up to a spinster to bring justice to the lawless streets of St. Mary Mead.

No, Rock.  She was poisoned, not karate-chopped to death.

When watching The Mirror Crack'd, the first thing you will notice is the high-profile cast.  Angela Lansbury is pretty decent as the all-knowing Miss Marple, even though she has obviously been artificially aged to play the part.  Miss Marple is a tough role to play, because she doesn't actually do much except explain the mystery at the end; Lansbury did a fine job, but it is hard to overcome the inertia of the character.  Interesting side note: this Miss Marple smokes.  You don't often see movies where sweet, elderly women smoke cigarettes any more.  Elizabeth Taylor was surprisingly good as a major actress, past her prime.  I thought she played her delicate moments quite well, but I absolutely loved it when her character was only acting upset.

I also enjoyed her fake smiles

Kim Novak was fun to watch as a foil to Taylor; the two traded quips and barbs throughout the film, and Novak's over-dramatic performance matched her character perfectly.  The supporting cast is pretty high-profile, too.  Rock Hudson played the movie director/husband to Marina Rudd; Hudson was suitably stoic, but nothing remarkable here.  Similarly, Tony Curtis played a slimy producer, but didn't seem to put much effort into it. 

Geraldine Chaplin has a supporting role, as well, although she managed to add some depth to her otherwise bland character.  You can spot a young Pierce Brosnan with a non-speaking role in one of the film-within-a-film scenes; he's little more than a prop with silly hair, but it's still fun to point him out.

The film was directed by Guy Hamilton, who is best known for his contributions to the James Bond 007 franchise.  I haven't seen a whole lot of his work outside of Bond, but I think it can be agreed that a cerebral spinster mystery is a change of pace from his more famous works.  Personally, I wasn't crazy for Hamilton's direction.  Sure, it was competent enough, but a lot of the film just felt too stagey to me; I felt like I was watching a teleplay or a theatrical reenactment.

Because a real Hollywood actress wouldn't look like a Chia pet

On the other hand, I was definitely impressed by the performances he got from Taylor and Novak --- maybe I was just underwhelmed by the non-Hollywood supporting cast members.

My biggest gripe with this movie is with Agatha Christie.  I recently did a little research on Gene Tierney after I reviewed Laura, which naturally led me to learn of her highly publicized tragedy.  The Mirror Crack'd took obvious inspiration from Tierney's life, to the point where I figured out the mystery immediately.  And that is saying something, since Christie mysteries always wait until the last few pages to reveal crucial plot elements.  This felt more like a ripped-from-the-headlines Law & Order episode than a proper movie because it was so obviously based on such a famous mishap.  If you don't have a mild obsession with Tierney, then the mystery will undoubtedly baffle you in the traditional Christie fashion.  Unfortunately for me, I seem to have inherited my grandfather's affection for her, which is admittedly a little unsettling.

Not "death threat" unsettling, but still creepy

I am willing to credit the two leading ladies for their performances and solid storytelling mechanics from the director and the principal supporting cast of The Mirror Crack'd.  Had I not been familiar with the true-life story the plot is based on, I am sure I would have appreciated it more.  As it stands, though, I saw the twist coming from a million miles away, and that ruins the fun in any mystery.