Prismark10 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' is the first Poirot story. However as this is the feature length story marking the beginning of the the third season, it almost serves as a prequel.The action moves to 1917, the great war is still raging. Lieutenant Hastings has been wounded and also maybe shell shocked. He is invited by an old friend John Cavendish (David Rintoul) to stay at his vast estate, Styles Court to recuperate. Along the way Hastings is told that John's mother has married Albert Ingelthorpe (Michael Cronin) who is 20 years younger than her. The motive for the marriage can only be money.In the nearby village Hastings encounters a man who he once met, Hercules Poirot who is a Belgian refugee.Later that night John's mother dies, it is poison. Hastings has no option but to call in Poirot, the man who he once helped in an investigation.The obvious culprit is Albert Ingelthorpe who is silent about his whereabouts and who also purchased some poison for a dog. However Poirot is convinced that Ingelthorpe might have a watertight alibi even though he has motive compared to others in the household.A generation of schoolchildren at the time might have been confused that PE teacher, Mr Baxter from Grange Hill cannot surely be the baddie. As we have gone back in time Suchet's Poirot has more hair. Unfortunately little is done make Hastings and Japp look younger.As I have said about the previous early episodes of Poirot, the art and set decoration is sumptuous. There are just some wonderful scenes with a huge hanging painting as some people walk down the stairs of some government building. There are short scenes which require period detail, costumes, sets and extras. Money was thrown into this series.However it did feel a bit overlong and the reasons that Poirot deduced to catch the culprit was rather weak. It is a locked room mystery but one where the killer has written down the incriminating evidence.

anbudmor Everything about this episode fits in well the the series generally. It is very well produced and acted, and generally enjoyable to watch.The problem with the episode lies in the fact that the culprit decides to leave the most inculpatory pieces of evidence at the scene of the crime. The culprit broke into a locked room where the victim had died to retrieve a letter that proves his guilt. When he hears Poirot and some others coming to the room he decides to tear up the letter in 3- strips, crush them lengthwise and leave them with some other pieces of crushed paper in a vase on the mantelpiece. He then escapes through a second door before Poirot et al. arrive.Why the hell didn't he just take the letter? What he should have done is so obvious that it spoils the episode. Fortunately this information is only revealed to the audience at the end of the show, so one gets to enjoy most of the episode before the incredible action of the perpetrator is revealed.

pawebster A picturesque version of 1917 in England is beautifully evoked -- lovely scenery, vintage cars, perfect costumes. Poirot and Hastings are good and the story is absorbing, at least at first. You need to be very wide awake, however, to keep careful track of the characters and events. Agatha Christie herself commented (I think in her autobiography) that she had perhaps overloaded this, her first book, with clues. In the book, you have time to take all this in and can look back if necessary. This TV version has to cram it in at fairly high speed. This - along with the technical nature of the poisoning - means that the average viewer has very little chance of working out how the crime was done. Another problem is that there are quite a lot of characters, some of whom get very little screen time. It was a commendable act of piety to make this film for the centenary of Agatha Christie's birth, but perhaps the book is not really suitable for dramatization.

jamesraeburn2003 World War One 1917: Lieutenant Hastings (Hugh Fraser) is on sick leave from the army after being wounded in France. His old friend John Cavendish (David Rintoul) invites him to stay at the Cavendish country estate, Styles Court, where there's tension in the family. Cavendish's mother Emily Ingelthorpe (Gillian Barge) has married Albert Ingelthorpe (Michael Cronin) a man twenty years younger than her, and the family believes that he can only be after one thing - her money. That night Emily dies a painful death and the subsequent autopsy reveals that she has been poisoned. In the neighbouring village of Styles St Mary, a number of Belgian refugees have taken up residence including Hastings' old friend Hercule Poirot (David Suchet), the eccentric but clever sleuth who is called in to investigate the murder."The Mysterious Affair At Styles" (1920) was Agatha Christie's first novel and it also introduced her most famous creation to the world, the eccentric little Belgian detective with the egg-shaped head and eccentric mannerisms. This film was made to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Christie's birth in 1890 which fell in 1990. The period detail of World War One was superbly depicted in this film (just look at those automobiles!) Ross Devenish directed the film with care and style while David Suchet, Hugh Fraser and Philip Jackson offered their usual excellent performances. Great care was taken with the supporting cast in which Michael Cronin stands out as the somewhat shifty looking Albert Ingelthorpe."The Mysterious Affair At Styles" has recently been reissued on video and DVD, catch it while you can!