The Alphabet Murders

The Alphabet Murders (1965)

It's really no mystery why this girl is MURDER... it's as simple as ABC if you look hard enough!

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates a series of murders in London in which the victims are killed according to their initials.

Date of release
1965-12-26
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (52)
Runtime
1h 30m
Genres
Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Director
Frank Tashlin

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The A.B.C. Murders

The Alphabet Murders is a 1965 British detective film directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Tony Randall, Anita Ekberg and Robert Morley. It is based on the 1936 novel The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie.

Production

The part of Poirot had originally been intended for Zero Mostel but the film was delayed because Agatha Christie objected to the script; amongst the things she objected to was the intention to put in a bedroom scene with Hercule Poirot. The film varies significantly from the novel and emphasises comedy, the specialty of director Frank Tashlin. Poirot is given buffoonish characteristics, while still remaining a brilliant detective.

The film features uncredited cameos by Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple and Stringer Davis as her friend Mr Stringer. The pair had previously appeared as those characters in a series of four films produced by MGM between 1961 and 1964. The film was an attempt to do for Poirot what Rutherford did with Marple.

Austin Trevor, who plays the butler Judson, had played Poirot in three British films in the early 1930s: Alibi (1931), Black Coffee (1931) and Lord Edgware Dies (1934).

The film title changed multiple times during production. Initially known as The ABC Murders after the book, it was retitled The Alphabet Murders and later to Amanda.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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