Air date: 05/01/1992
Published: 1936
The fourth series of Agatha Christie's Poirot had a different feel to it, being made up of just three feature-length episodes (a glimpse of things to come).
Continuity with what had gone before was maintained, however: the episodes were broadcast in the now customary 'Sunday evening Poirot' slot early in the year, and were shown on consecutive weeks (retaining the sense of it being a series). Both of these features would disappear in future years.
Mere mention of the episode that kicked off the series causes a small degree of amusement for me and my children. In those early days of the set-top-box freeview channels it seemed, at one point, as if our beloved ITV3 was showing this episode every other week!
The A.B.C Murders is an interesting tale, both in the original and in adaptation, and revolves around the ingenious idea of someone 'hiding' a murder in a series of apparently random murders.
Hercule Poirot receives a series of letters, from an anonymous 'A.B.C', warning of murders that will take place in various towns: Andover, then Bexhill, then Churston (down in Devon) and, finally, at Doncaster (during the running of the St Leger horse race). A copy of the A.B.C. train timetable is found at the scene of every murder, and it turns out that the surnames of the victims begin with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. It all appears to be the work of a madman.
In the original the narrating by Hastings is interspersed with chapters designated "Not from Captain Hastings' Personal Narrative". These slowly introduce the character of Alexander Bonaparte Cust, a travelling stockings salesman. The frequency of these chapters, and the general pace of the book, accelerates as Cust's story moves ever closer to the main plot, with Poirot, Hastings and the police trying to track down the 'A.B.C murderer'. In the adaptation the coming together of these two plotlines is handled particularly well.
Family and friends of the victims tag along as a kind of unofficial 'team' to help Poirot. The upshot is that one of them has used and set-up Cust, an epileptic and very suggestible individual, arranging for him to be in each town on the day the murders are committed. Although Cust is eventually arrested, Poirot is not happy with the outcome and deduces that Franklin Clarke, brother of the third victim, is actually responsible, and killed his brother for his fortune.
The adaptation is remarkably faithful to the original, both in plot detail and sequence. At Poirot's summing up Clarke tries unsuccessfully to shoot himself in the original; for TV he does a runner and hides in a darkened theatre - only to be caught by the police. In both he accuses Poirot of being a "jackanapes" after being rumbled.
In the original Inspector Japp appears only at the beginning and then briefly later on in the story. For TV he is, of course, heading up the police investigations throughout.
One other point of note. In reviewing Peril at End House (episode 11 at the beginning of series two) I referred to the issues of chronology and of Poirot's retirement: two interrelated problems that occur in the canon of Poirot stories (partly because Agatha Christie chose to make Poirot reasonably old from the outset). In the original of The A.B.C. Murders Hastings is already married and living in Argentina. At the beginning of the story he has returned to the UK on business. Mention is made of Poirot supposedly having retired to grow marrows. Poirot says this was scuppered by a murder (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, possibly, although it was published ten years earlier). All this changes for TV. At the beginning Hastings has just returned from a six-month holiday in South America (with a stuffed caiman he had shot!), and no mention is made of the retirement issue (after all, it would be another eight years before The Murder of Roger Ackroyd would be aired on TV). In the original Japp, in making a quip about Poirot's use of hair tonic, appears to make oblique references to The Mystery of the Blue Train, Death in the Clouds, and Lord Edgware Dies. As none of these stories had been adapted yet this reference also has to disappear for TV.
The stuffed caiman provides a typically amusing ending to the adaptation with Cust - who visits Poirot to express his thanks - being fascinated to hear how Hastings bagged it. As he begins to recount the story Poirot and Japp surreptitiously make their exit.
