Fandom Apps Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. Branagh plays Poirot just a little bit camp, too, embracing a sentimental side of the character that we’ve rarely seen without becoming too self-serious. He walks normally! 5. 3. Even Paul McCartney Has Made a Quarantine Album, If You Can’t Write a Good Joke, Jay Jurden Isn’t Listening, An executive allegedly told her, “Don’t you have enough?”, Julien Baker Remains Devastating on New Song ‘Faith Healer’. And his mustache is one of the more unremarkable in recorded mustache history. Famous as much for his magnificent moustaches as his little grey cells. The role hasn’t really aged well, as a good portion of the jokes are racist stereotypes about his inability to understand English. And his surroundings are just as joy-inducing: Lumet’s film featured a cast of stars so bright (including Lauren Bacall, Michael York, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins, and Ingrid Bergman, who won her third Oscar for the film), you could go blind watching it. Most gallingly, he announces, “You can call me Hercule!” Straight-up nonsense: No one has ever called him “Hercule.” Mon dieu! Hercule Poirot - The Mystery of the Blue Train About Hercule Poirot Hercule Poirot: the world-renowned, moustachioed Belgian private detective, unsurpassed in his intelligence and understanding of the criminal mind, respected and admired by police forces and heads of state across the globe.


Andrew Sachs, Revenge of the Pink Panther, 1978. Holm’s Poirot seems more furious and sad, as he’s facing his “death,” and his theatrical presentation of his crime-solving is imbued with more pathos because of the meta-framework. Andrew Sachs is perhaps best known for his role as the bumbling Spanish hotel staffer, Manuel, in the Britcom Fawlty Towers, created by John Cleese and Connie Booth. Standing at a diminutive 5’4” – although there have been various interpretations of this on stage and screen – Poirot’s described in writing as having an egg-shaped head, often tilted to one side, and eyes that shine green when he’s excited.

For the purpose of this “suspect list,” the actors will be evaluated on how well they measure up to the hallmarks of Poirot’s character: fastidiousness (as Poirot’s Watson, Captain Hastings, says of his preference for cleanliness in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, “I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound”); mustache (“upward curled,” writes Christie in Murder on the Orient Express); little grey cells (how he regularly refers to his shrewd intuition); voice (he’s Belgian, but constantly corrects people for mistakenly thinking him French); walk (a “rapid, mincing gait, with his feet tightly and painfully enclosed within his patent leather boots,” writes Christie in Hallowe’en Party); and general appearance (“a little man with enormous mustaches,” writes Christie in Murder, “with an egg-shaped head”). 8.

This makes his performance less amusing, more a character worthy of serious consideration.
Truly modernizing Poirot was not a good idea; attempts to graft Agatha Christie’s formulas into a more explicitly modern world were ill-advised. If you’ve also been going about life on the verge of tears, maybe skip this clip. Photo: Nicola Dove/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. He dresses very precisely, and takes the utmost pride in his appearance. His Poirot doesn’t smile — but who would, knowing their end was near? Albert Finney is the only actor to play Poirot and garner an Academy Award nomination, and Sidney Lumet’s adaptation of Orient Express was proof that the public was still interested in Christie’s work. Perhaps even more famous than the man himself, is his moustache. D&D Beyond

In a proto–Stranger Than Fiction turn of events, Hercule Poirot himself appears at the door, ready to fight for his “life.” Ian Holm (Alien, The Lord of the Rings) as Poirot is up against Peggy Ashcroft’s Christie in a fairly fascinating little production, an interesting exploration between author and creation, artist and commerce.