Agatha Christie's Poirot - The New Mysteries Collection

Starring:David Suchet, James Fox, Emma Griffiths Malin, JJ Feild, Emily Blunt, Judy Parfitt, Daisy Donovan, Barbara Flynn, Daniel Lapaine, David Soul, Frances de la Tour, Zoe Telford, Alastair Mackenzie, Steve Pemberton, George Yiasoumi, Elodie Kendall, FÃ©licitÃ© Du Jeu, Roger Carel, Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh
Director: Andy Wilson (IV), Dave Moore, Simon Langton
Studio: A&E Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Portly, mincing, gracious, and unrelenting, Hercule Poirot rivals Sherlock Holmes as the greatest sleuth of the English murder mystery genre--a form as strict as a sonnet that's part logic puzzle, part magician's misdirection, of which Agatha Christie remains the undisputed queen. The New Mysteries Collection pulls together TV-movie adaptations of four Poirot novels, each a compendium of eccentric characters, intricate plotting, sleek storytelling, and sprinklings of wit (such as a dotty matriarch's declaration, "Murder is a very awkward thing--it upsets the servants so").

Death on the Nile sets an entire boatful of suspicious character afloat in Egypt, where Poirot's vacation is disrupted by a splash in the night, falling rock, missing pearls, three murders, and a boozing gargoyle named Salome Otterbourne. The plot is one of Christie's more preposterous, yet also one of her most popular. Sad Cypress opens with a murderess on trial, then flashes back to young lovers, a wealthy but stricken dowager, a spiteful anonymous letter, and a pretty young blonde. A wonderfully creepy dream haunts Poirot as he struggles to redeem the wrongly convicted killer. In The Hollow, Poirot's vacation in the English countryside gets disrupted by a philandering doctor apparently shot by his adoring wife, his blood trickling into a swimming pool clotted with leaves. But the best of the lot is Five Little Pigs, a story told almost entirely in flashback, as a young woman hires Poirot to clear her mother, who was convicted of murdering her father. Not only are the clues deftly planted and the solution cunningly worked out, it's one of the rare mysteries that inspires a genuine sorrow for its characters.

Amazon.com

Portly, mincing, gracious, and unrelenting, Hercule Poirot rivals Sherlock Holmes as the greatest sleuth of the English murder mystery genre--a form as strict as a sonnet that's part logic puzzle, part magician's misdirection, of which Agatha Christie remains the undisputed queen. The New Mysteries Collection pulls together TV-movie adaptations of four Poirot novels, each a compendium of eccentric characters, intricate plotting, sleek storytelling, and sprinklings of wit (such as a dotty matriarch's declaration, "Murder is a very awkward thing--it upsets the servants so").

Death on the Nile sets an entire boatful of suspicious character afloat in Egypt, where Poirot's vacation is disrupted by a splash in the night, falling rock, missing pearls, three murders, and a boozing gargoyle named Salome Otterbourne. The plot is one of Christie's more preposterous, yet also one of her most popular. Sad Cypress opens with a murderess on trial, then flashes back to young lovers, a wealthy but stricken dowager, a spiteful anonymous letter, and a pretty young blonde. A wonderfully creepy dream haunts Poirot as he struggles to redeem the wrongly convicted killer. In The Hollow, Poirot's vacation in the English countryside gets disrupted by a philandering doctor apparently shot by his adoring wife, his blood trickling into a swimming pool clotted with leaves. But the best of the lot is Five Little Pigs, a story told almost entirely in flashback, as a young woman hires Poirot to clear her mother, who was convicted of murdering her father. Not only are the clues deftly planted and the solution cunningly worked out, it's one of the rare mysteries that inspires a genuine sorrow for its characters.

Scattered throughout are a wealth of recognizable faces, though not many recognizable names--among the better known are James Fox (The Remains of the Day), Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal), Paul McGann (Withnail and I), Sarah Miles (White Mischief), Lysette Anthony (Husbands and Wives), and David Soul (Starsky & Hutch!). But it's David Suchet as Poirot who keeps everything in motion, his beady eyes glittering under heavy lids, constantly tending to one of the most ridiculous mustaches in literature. Poirot has been played by such stars as Peter Ustinov and Albert Finney, but Suchet has made the fastidious Belgian detective his own. He's simply magnifique. --Bret Fetzer

Description

This set will contain the following four Poirot movies (A&E September 2004 premieres): Death on the Nile, Sad Cypress, The Hollow, Five Little Pigs

Customer Reviews:

Death on the Nile, Five Little Pigs, Sad Cypress, and etc. .......2007-06-28

I enjoyed Poirot and the mysteries were certainly well done, however, I want the other characters brought back. Japp, Miss Lemon, Hastings, all contributed to fleshing out the story in one way or another. Please bring them back, I miss them. David Suchet has broad shoulders but he needs a supporting cast. Ed Evans

Great New Movies If You Love Poirot on Biography.......2007-05-12

I watch the Poirot movies all the time on Biography, and just wanted some new ones to watch that I haven't seen before. I love the older ones with Hastings and Japp, and when I found out these newer movies didn't have the older characters, I thought I would be dissapointed, but I wasn't. So far, I have loved them all, David Suchet does an excellent job as Christie's Poirot and he holds his own. If you love mysteries, these movies are definitely a must see!

David Suchet returns in four dramatized Christie Novels.......2007-03-08

This set, "Agatha Christie's Poirot - The New Mysteries Collection," consists of four of Dame Agatha's Poirot novels dramatized at TV feature length. The four novels are "Death on the Nile" (1937), "Sad Cypress" (1940), "Five Little Pigs" (1942) and "The Hollow" (1946). Four other novels are dramatized in the companion set, "Agatha Christie's Poirot - Classic Crimes Collection." The two sets contain the output of the new A&E production team.

The new series diverge from the old in a number of ways. They concentrate on Christie's novel-length works rather than her short stories. Far more important to Amazon reviewers, though, seems to be the change in casting. The dim but endearing Captain Hastings, the hyper-efficient Miss Lemon and that stolid plod, Chief Inspector Japp are all gone. We find Poirot alone in his new, smaller, gloomier, distinctly less impressive flat--although he's apparently still in the same building. Some note that the new scripts make references to modern sexual sensibilities that certainly, unquestionably, indubitably did not appear in Dame Aggie's writings. Typical reactions among those who mention this change involve one or all of dismay, disgust and disdain. Others have drawn attention to production values for the new series. One reviewer put it this way: "[T]he production value of the films has gone through the roof. Simply put, these are the best looking Poirot films made so far, particularly with regards to `film moment' shots and the use of color in regards to theme." Finally, there has been the obvious effect of all-devouring time; the now portly Suchet is sixty-ish and he looks it.

Let's consider that point, the older Poirot. In 1920, Hercule Poirot appeared in Agatha Christie's first book, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," a novel set in the middle of the First World War. Captain Hastings, wounded on the Western Front, is back in England to recover. He happens to meet an odd little man named Hercule Poirot (a name plainly impossible for any self-respecting Englishman to pronounce correctly.) Poirot is described as an elderly Belgian refugee who is a retired policeman. Considering the events that took place in Belgium in the late summer of 1914, it must be assumed that he retired no later than the first half that year. If Poirot retired at sixty--Christie writing at age 30 would probably have considered that to be elderly--he was born no later than 1854. If at sixty-five, then 1851. The earlier his retirement, the earlier his birth date.

Poirot's career in England stretched from the horrors of the Western Front to what he and his creator clearly regarded as the only slightly less baleful era of rock 'n roll. For production convenience, the original series was set in 1935. 1937 seems to be the date for this series, considering that the name of a certain Mrs Simpson appears in the newspapers. In 1937, Hercule Poirot must have been at least 83 years old. All things considered, David Suchet was and still remains entirely too young for the part.

In 1916, Agatha Miller Christie was thinking about writing a book for pin money. (Monetary cpnsiderations aside, her older sister had bet her she couldn't do it!) She and her dashing husband Archie Christie were bright young things, but on their beam ends financially. She wrote letter to a friend in which she whined that they could afford only two servants. She decided to write a mystery. At the time, there was only one true pattern for a detective and its name was S. Holmes, still very much a living literary figure. Twelve stories of his Canon were yet to be written and they wouldn't be published between hard covers until 1927 with "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes." After collecting a set of galling rejections, Agatha's first book, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" and Hercule Poirot saw print in 1920.

Holmes had a biographer named Watson, plodding colleagues at Scotland Yard, beginning with Inspector Lestrade, and a landlady-housekeeper, Mrs Hudson. Following the set pattern, Christie gave Poirot his biographer in Captain Hastings--the complete boob that Watson NEVER was--and he introduced Inspector Japp. Later, Poirot would find his London flat and enjoy the ministrations of Miss Lemon. In all but a single short story, she is a background figure.

In the older TV series, Hastings got into everything. Miss Lemon's role expanded beyond anything in Christie's writings. All police detectives combined into Chief Inspector Japp. All this, first to humanize the little Belgian detective, then to ease the endless task of explaining plot points.

In 1926, Christie hit the big time with "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." She was universally acknowledged as the great successor to Conan Doyle. But Hastings wasn't even in "Ackroyd." She realized that she had no need to follow Holmes anymore, so she sent the tedious Hastings off to molt in some remote South American exile, bringing him back only on a rare, sentimental occasion.

In this Hastings-, Lemon- and Japp-free series, the new producers have done no more than follow Christie's lead. Nevertheless, I miss them, just as I sometimes miss them in the written versions. The producers really ought to bring them back for at least one show in each season.

Regarding post-Christie sensibilities on sexual matters, heaven knows it's mild enough stuff in these productions, but why do they bother? The stories are set in 1937, not 2007 or even 1977. Whatever people were doing then, they certainly were not talking about it freely, as here. (Yes, I am perfectly aware of such people as Sackville-West and Trefusis, but that was a juicy scandal, not a casual aside as in "The Hollow.")

Finally, there are the production values. Some reviewers are impressed. I am not. Whatever the current producers are paying, they are not getting their money's worth. The old series was a gem. Remember those opening graphics? And that annoying but unforgettable theme music? The old series showcased Art Deco artifacts and architecture. The Deco movement peaked, then fell away in hardly more than a decade--two at most. I am convinced the old series showcased every good example of Art Deco architecture to be found in all of Britain. By contrast, the new series is flat and uninteresting. Instead of bright, clean-lined Art Deco, we are shown nothing but the same-old-same-old Masterpiece Theater/A&E Presents visual blahs that turn up a dozen times a week on PBS. Even worse is the rhythm of the new series. Several times in each episode, with the regularity--not to mention the soul--of a stopwatch, everything comes lurching to a halt. (Why they do not display a card saying "Insert Commercial Here" I cannot imagine.) And the music! That old tune is still there, but almost inaudible in the background. What a waste! Let's not even talk about the opening credits.

In summary, these are acceptable, if sometimes VERY loose adaptations of Christie's mid-career novels. They're OK, but they are not the visual treats they used to be. On the other hand, even mediocre Poirot is better than no Poirot at all.

Four stars wit' ze little grey cells.

classic Poirot.......2007-02-11

These films are classic Poirot. Very well photographed, very well casted. David Suchet is awesome. I think he is the best Poirot yet.

Not Up to Suff.......2006-12-10

Did not like this series at all! There seems to be a move away from the original stories and an adding of questional material that would not have been in an Agatha Christie novel--shady at best--pitiful at worst! In some cases I felt they tried to change the story altogether. Will not keep this series, plan to sell or give away.

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