SimonJack This TV film of "The ABC Murders" is one of the best movies of the entire Agatha Christie series on Hercule Poirot. It also ranks among the very best mystery thrillers of all time. The film is packed with intrigue from start to finish. The simple modus operandi of the murders in this story belie the complexities of this fantastic mystery. Super sleuth Poirot is stumped for a long time, but his little grey cells help him eventually unravel this great mystery. His sidekick, Captain Hastings, is on hand to lend a hand. And Chief Inspector Japp has more than the usual work cut out for him in the effort to apprehend the murderer. The cast for this film give it their all, and some guest actors turn in tremendous performances as well. Donald Sumpter as Cast gives a performance worthy of an award. This is too great a mystery to say much more about. It would deprive those who haven't yet seen the film from the full enjoyment of a superb mystery. Kudos to Grenada Media and associates. This is an outstanding production of an enthralling thriller from the pen of the greatest mystery writer of all time.

TheLittleSongbird I love episodes like Sad Cypress, Five Little Pigs and Peril At End House, but The ABC Murders deserves to be up there with the best of them. It was a near-perfect, top notch and thrilling episode. There are one or two slow moments, and before I realised that there was half an hour left I had the impression as I haven't read the book that I had been told too much, but these are the only problems I had with it. The plot is complicated with plenty of surprises, but is well constructed and well explained. The adaptation looks splendid, not in a sumptuous visual style like say Sad Cypress but in a dark haunting visual style like something like Hickory Dickory Dock. The music is enough to make the hairs stand up on your neck, it certainly did that to mine. The acting from all involved is exceptional, whilst David Suchet gives an impeccable performance as always as Poirot, it is Donald Sumpter who walks away with the acting honours in one of the best supporting performances in the history of the Poirot run. It is considered as one of Suchet's favourite Poirots, and you know what, it is easy to see why. It is superb. 9/10 Bethany Cox

theowinthrop David Suchet succeeded where Charles Laughton and Tony Randall failed. Like Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov, Suchet became the definitively correct "Hercule Poirot" in a series of television versions of the Agatha Christie stories. Playing the role seriously, but brightening the role with flashes of humor, Suchet makes the eccentric former Belgian Police Chief seem real and not a caricature.He is well supported in his series with Philip Jackson as his friend and rival Superintendent Jopp of Scotland Yard, and Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings (Poirot's "Watson"). But it is the care of the casting director and the screen writers who have kept the series going so very well all this time.I have chosen THE ABC MURDERS to symbolize the best work in the series in maintaining what Dame Agatha sought - an honest attempt to tell her mysteries straight and with full entertainment value. You have to compare this version with the funny but spoof version with Tony Randall called THE ALPHABET MURDERS to understand.SPOILER COMING UP The way THE ALPHABET MURDERS was developed it is supposed (by Scotland Yard and even a confused Poirot/Randall) that the murders are committed by a woman (Anita Eckbert) with psychiatric problems. The key to the psychiatric problem seems to be that Eckbert's character is killing people off who have first and second names with the same letter, so that the murders are A.A., B.B., C.C., D.D., etc.Now part of this is actually in the original novel. The victims of the mysterious killer do have names that follow the alphabetical pattern. But in the original there is no lovely looking "Anita Eckbert" character. There is a gentleman named "Alexander Bonaparte Cuff" (Donald Sumpter) whom pieces of evidence from the police suggest is that homicidal killer. He is a quiet, respectable type - a lover of chess. And when Poirot meets him he realizes that Cuff could not be the killer. So he reviews the killings, and finds the flaw the killer overlooked.But it is a close case. And it involves one of the most unattractive killers in Christie's works. He is an ambitious killer, who sees a chance to make millions at everyone's expense (especially the murder victims). He also is (in the novel more than this version, unfortunately), quite a belligerent bigot - constantly referring to Poirot as a "frog" (Poirot is Belgian, not French). In the novel, when he is finally revealed by Poirot, and thwarted in a last suicide attempt, he snarls another "Dirty Frog" comment - and is told off by Poirot that given the underhanded, sneaky, and cowardly manner he used to commit his crimes he really did not live up to British standards. Figuratively, Poirot leaves some spit in the face of the killer - a rare action of retaliation by the detective. That (as I said) is not in this version, but the fact that the original story was used raises this as the best version of THE ABC MURDERS that was done.

pawebster The book is a good one and it has been well dramatized here. Donald Sumpter is excellent as the travelling salesman, Cust.It's unlike other Christies in that most of the victims are not wealthy or aristocratic. The scenes in the Andover shop and at Bexhill are (perhaps unintentionally) touching. The deaths are really sad -- which is almost never the case in a Christie book, where murder is only a chance for an interesting puzzle and the victim is quite often a nasty tyrant whom almost everyone wants dead. When Hastings is moved by the scene in Andover, Poirot brushes his comments aside, saying they must not succumb to sentimentality.Entertaining. Recommended.