The Alphabet Murders

The Alphabet Murders
Theatrical release poster
Directed byFrank Tashlin
Screenplay byDavid Pursall
Jack Seddon
Based on
The A.B.C. Murders
1936 novel
by Agatha Christie
Produced byLawrence P. Bachmann
StarringTony Randall
Anita Ekberg
Robert Morley
CinematographyDesmond Dickinson
Edited byJohn Victor Smith
Music byRon Goodwin
Production
company
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
  • August 1965 (1965-08) (UK)
  • 17 May 1966 (1966-05-17) (U.S.)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Alphabet Murders (also known as ABC Murders) is a 1965 British detective film directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Tony Randall, Anita Ekberg and Robert Morley.[1] It is based on the 1936 novel The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie.

Plot

Tony Randall begins the movie by talking directly to the audience. He explains that he will be starring as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in a mystery set in London. As the movie begins, Poirot has arrived in London to see his tailor. There, he learns that a circus clown with a unique diving act has been murdered (with a poison dart), and Poirot decides to solve the case. He is joined in this endeavor by Captain Hastings from the British Secret Service, who has been assigned to protect Poirot, or at least follow him. Hastings becomes Poirot's assistant, of a sort. Soon afterwards, a voluptuous bowling instructor is killed. The clown was named Albert Aachen (A.A.), the bowling instructor was named Betty Barnard (B.B.) and both crime scenes featured a "calling card" from the killer: a book entitled "ABC Guide to London." Of course, Poirot suspects the killer is working his or her way through the alphabet.

While getting a massage, Poirot is attacked by a beautiful woman. We are left to conclude that the attack was intended to prevent the famous sleuth from solving the crimes. We learn that she carried a purse with the initials A.B.C. Later we discover that her full name is Amanda Beatrice Cross.

Poirot suggests that Sir Carmichael Clarke (C.C.) might be next. We also meet a psychiatrist named Duncan Doncaster (D.D.) who is established as a potential fourth victim. Amanda Cross is actually a patient of Dr. Duncaster's. And secretly, Dr. Duncaster was paramour to Betty Barnard, and he is also having an affair with Sir Clarke's wife, Lady Diane. Poirot learns that Amanda Cross suffers from a split personality--one of her identities is that of a normal person, while the other seems to be a homicidal maniac. Indeed, she is the beautiful woman who attacked Poirot on the massage table.

Sir Clarke goes to a night club, to confront his brother Franklin over Franklin's spendthrift and gambling behaviors. During the confrontation, Sir Clarke is shot and killed. Again with a poison dart, and again with a copy of ABC London left behind. Dr. Duncaster is next--also with the poison dart, also with a copy of ABC London. This makes four murders.

As the police and Poirot focus their attention on Amanda Cross, she apparently learns what she has done and jumps from a tall crane into the River Thames. The police close their investigation, calling it "open and shut" that Amanda Cross was a "nutcase" intent on this bizarre series of alphabetical murders, eventually committing suicide to wrap things up. Poirot is not at all convinced. Indeed a happenstance mention of herring inspires Poirot to exclaim, "Red herrings. The four murders are red herrings to distract us from the important one murder."

Franklin Clarke and the newly-widowed Mrs. Clarke set off by train to carry out Sir Clarke's wishes to be buried at sea off the coast of Scotland. Sir Clarke's coffin is on the train. When Poirot and Hastings go to Sir Clarke's house in London, it is there that they learn what Franklin and Lady Diane are doing--and in a moment of foreshadowing, they also learn that the house's central heating furnace has curiously been turned up, even though it is quite warm outside. Immediately, Poirot and Hastings book passage on the train. Poirot makes an inscrutable detour en-route to the station, to set up "some additional insurance."

In their cabin, while Lady Diane celebrates her new-found riches with Franklin, she fails to notice that he has spiked her drink. She passes out, and he drags her to the storage compartment on the train where Sir Clarke's coffin is located. At the coffin, two things happen: Poirot arrives to confront Franklin, and the coffin is opened, from within, to reveal a not-dead-at-all Amanda Cross.

In typical Hercule Poirot fashion, he unravels the entire mystery: Amanda and Franklin are lovers. They conspire to kill Sir Clarke and Lady Diane, so that Franklin can inherit Sir Clarke's fortune. Amanda does the dart gun killings in a manner to fool the police. The body of Sir Clarke is being burned in the furnace to turn the heat up at his house. And now Lady Diane was going to be put into the coffin to be buried at sea. Franklin and Amanda would ride off into the metaphorical sunset with all of Sir Clarke's wealth, scot free and beyond suspicion.

While Poirot initially had the pair at sword-point, the two overwhelmed him, and the sword was suddenly pointed at Poirot. Would it be murder number five? Or six counting Lady Diane? No. Poirot blows a whistle to call out his "additional insurance." Police pop out of every cubbyhole, grabbing the pair by the legs, disarming them, effecting their capture, saving Lady Diane, and saving Hercule Poirot in the process. Arranging for the police to be hidden away on the train was Poirot's additional insurance.

Cast

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.[2] 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.[3] The film was an attempt to do for Poirot what Rutherford did with Marple.[4]

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.[5]

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Depressingly unfunny comedy-thriller: though directed by Tashlin, virtually none of the misadventures encountered by Poirot during the course of his case raise even the slightest smile. Even the tangled mystery, solved by a typical Agatha Christie 'surprise', is unusually dreary."[6]

Leonard Maltin gives the film 2 1/2 out of 4 stars, calling it an "odd adaptation" of Christie's book. Maltin goes on to say, "[T]he strange casting of Randall ... and a little too much slapstick make this more a curiosity than anything else."[7]

TCM calls Randall's Poirot "an Inspector Clouseau-style bumbler", noting that the second instalment of the Pink Panther series had been well-received the previous year.[8]

A. H. Weiler of The New York Times dismissed the film as "a routine run through of clichés and clues".[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The Alphabet Murders". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
  2. ↑ Osborne, Charles (1990). The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie. Contemporary Books. pp. 116–7. ISBN 9780809241071.
  3. ↑ Weiler, A.H. (12 July 1966). "The Screen: 'Alphabet Murders' Opens". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  4. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (5 July 2025). "Forgotten British Film Moguls: Lawrence P. Bachmann". Filmink. Retrieved 5 July 2025.
  5. ↑ Todd, Derek (25 March 1965). "Production: 'Alphabet' = 'Amanda'". Kine Weekly. Vol. 2999, no. 574. p. 11.
  6. ↑ "The Alphabet Murders". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 33 (384): 106. 1 January 1966. ProQuest 1305826033.
  7. ↑ Leonard Maltin (3 September 2013). Leonard Maltin's 2014 Movie Guide. Penguin Publishing Group. p. n/a. ISBN 978-1-101-60955-2.
  8. ↑ TCM, The Alphabet Murders
  9. ↑ The New York Times, July 12, 1966, page 36
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