“You must use the little grey cells, Hastings!” How often have I read that in a Poirot story? More times than I care to count. I’ve been entranced with Hercule Poirot since I was a kid, reading every novel and short story I could get my hands on. I devoured them, reading each at least ten times and some up to a hundred. I’ve read other books by Agatha Christie as well, but none have captured my imagination as much as that little Belgian fusspot with the magnificent mustaches and OCD traits.
I have loved detective stories since I first learned to read. Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, to name a few. I wrote my first mystery when I was in fifth grade, and I illustrated it myself. It was atrocious, but there was a glimmer of the twisted, torturous mind that I would soon fully develop.
Back to Poirot. Many years ago, I started watching the Poirot movies, starting with the Peter Ustinov versions. I didn’t care for them much because I didn’t think Ustinov was the right actor for the role. I can’t exactly explain why, but he was too big, too bluff, and too…much. He was smug and condescending, and, yes, Poirot is both of these things, but not overtly so. I also watched the Albert Finney version of Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (which was a cavalcade of top-tier stars). He was dreadful, though I read that Dame Christie said he was her favorite version. I think she was pulling everyone’s leg. She fairly hated Poirot by the end of her career (as evidenced by her writing the character Ariadne Oliver, a writer who’s fed up with her Finn detective), and she probably rued the day she created him.
I started watching the David Suchet series on PBS, and I was hooked. In the early days, they were fairly faithful to the books, though they had to make adjustments for cinematic purposes, of course. I thought the casting as pretty near perfect with Hugh Fraser as the bluff, hearty, auburn-haired woman-smitten, and dim but loyal Captain Hastings; Pauline Moran as the austere and efficient Miss Lemon, and Philip Jackson as the dour, sardonic, and dogged Inspector Japp. I do have a problem with the way they made Miss Lemon more warm and less like a human robot, but I still quite like Pauline Moran’s performance.