• Hercule Poirot Movies
• Knives Out Hercule Poirot's Christmas

The butler did it, you say? In Rian Johnson’s new movie, this mothballed murder mystery cliche gets a welcome airing out.

The already stacked Knives Out cast has added yet another exciting name: Christopher Plummer. Daniel Craig is playing a detective character inspired by Hercule Poirot, and the plot is said to. As he tries to discover the killer's identity, Poirot also uncovers the hidden lives and motives of the train's other passengers. Thematically, the film is very much like 'Knives Out,' though 'Murder on the Orient Express' is a more classic whodunit tale.

Knives Out, a new murder mystery by Rian Johnson. Daniel Craig as a Kentucky-fried private detective (think of a drunk Mitch McConnell attempting Hercule Poirot) and Ana de Armas as Harlan’s. Most recently, fans have considered him as a source of inspiration for the Benoit Blanc, the brilliant Knives Out detective. Poirot stars in 33 novels and 59 short stories and 1 original full-length play by Agatha Christie, and 4 continuation novels by Sophie Hannah.

Knives Out pays clever homage to British crime writer Agatha Christie while also rewriting her treatment of social class in her novels, stories and plays. The movie is set in America but the set-up is classic Christie. The wealthy patriarch of a large and unwieldy clan has died the day after a tense and argument-laden birthday party. The manner of death suggests suicide – but is it? The entire family is suspect. A will is to be read. A flamboyant detective with a French-sounding name arrives on the scene.

A non-family member is a part of the mix, and the importance given to her character reflects the movie’s attempt at weaving social commentary into a classic whodunit yarn. Marta (Ana de Armas) is the Spanish-speaking nurse of bestselling author Harlan (Christopher Plummer). Marta is unable to lie and vomits when asked to do so. This characteristic reaps rich dividends after Harlan is found dead in his study, and is especially lucrative if you ignore the niggling question about why a nurse wouldn’t seek treatment for her own peculiar condition.

Harlan’s warring wards makes for easy suspects. His daughters Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Joni (Toni Collette) and son Walt (Michael Shannon) are polished dispensers of platitudes and shedders of crocodile tears. Harlan’s grandson Hugh (Chris Evans) is a dissolute playboy, while son­-in-law Richard (Don Johnson) has a skeleton in his closet that pops out in most spectacular fashion.

The stellar cast is toplined by a superb Daniel Craig as private investigator Benoit Blanc. The name is a hat-tip to Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot. Benoit has Poirot’s sang-froid and self-regard but also a hilariously earthy American accent – an early indication of the way in which the movie is both respectful of Christie as well as irreverent.

Several Christie devices litter Benoit’s investigation – the significance of seemingly stray remarks; the unreliability of witness testimonies and flashbacks; the small clues that add up to important discoveries; the detective who is part-conjurer and part-psychologist. Poison, Christie’s preferred mode of killing, gets a contemporary update. Harley’s mansion resembles a wealthy prop manager’s storage unit, and perhaps the most striking item on the sets is a chair made out of glistening knives that turns out to have an important cameo in this game of thrones.

The sharp writing never feels dated even though the murder mystery is resolutely old-school. The tone is light and easy, and the critique of class prejudice and snobbery cuts sharply but not deep. Household help made significant contributions to Christie’s plots, and this contemporary rewrite provides new, imaginative ways with which to regard the small army of butlers, cooks and caretakers who watched their affluent employers kill or be killed. In Knives Out, the best joke is the constant misidentification of Marta’s country of origin. Is she Paraguayan? Brazilian? That’s like asking whether Hercule Poirot was French.

Hercule Poirot Movies

We asked Mark Aldridge, author of Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World to update our Hercule Poirot facts to include some of his latest findings.

1. Hercule Poirot first appeared in Agatha Christie’s first published novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which debuted in 1920. In her initial version Poirot explained all in a court room setting, but this was changed to a more familiar drawing-room discussion by the time it was published.
2. The first description of Poirot was by Hastings in The Mysterious Affair at Styles who said, 'He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side…The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound.'
3. He is a retired Belgian police officer turned world famous private detective, but Christie had initially considered different detectives for her mystery, including a schoolboy or a scientist.
4. When first published in the magazine The Sketch, the Poirot short story ‘The Chocolate Box’ featured the sleuth mentioning his ‘little sister Yvonne’.
5. Poirot is unhappy with disorder and once said that he finds it 'really insupportable that every hen lays an egg of a different size! What symmetry can there be on the breakfast table?' He’s also known to have refused to eat an irregularly shaped loaf of bread.
6. Poirot first appeared on television as early as 1937, less than a year after the BBC launched its service. Christie’s one-act play The Wasp’s Nest debuted on the medium, with two live performances starring Francis L. Sullivan as Poirot.
7. On the radio, one of Poirot’s most notable appearances was in Yellow Iris. The 1937 BBC production made use of the cabaret setting, as Christie’s script played out the story in-between a selection of musical numbers.
8. Poirot takes great pride in his appearance from his immaculately groomed moustache to his patent leather shoes. He uses a special preparation called ‘Revivit’ to conceal his grey hair.
9. Poirot’s moustache was so important that Agatha Christie was asked to approve its appearance in the 1965 comedy mystery film The Alphabet Murders, which starred Tony Randall as the detective.
10. Poirot’s obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times in 1975, in advance of the publication of Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case – the first time a fictional character received this treatment.
11. In the United States, Harold Huber played the role of Poirot in a series of radio adventures, most of which were original stories. The first episode, broadcast in 1945, was introduced by Agatha Christie herself.
12. Agatha Christie claimed that for Poirot, 'Cards on the Table was the murder which won his carefully technical approval.'
13. In a rare filmed interview, Agatha Christie was asked which was the best Poirot novel. After some hesitation ('Oh dear that’s a tall order!') she declared that it was probably Murder on the Orient Express.
14. In 2014, HarperCollins published the first authorised Poirot continuation novel, The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah, which reached the bestseller charts in 16 territories including the UK and US. This has since been followed by three further books, most recently The Killings at Kingfisher Hill in 2020.
15. Charles Laughton was the first actor to play Hercule Poirot on the stage in 1928’s production of Alibi (based on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), and he has since been played by Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, David Suchet, John Malkovich and Kenneth Branagh to name a few.
16. One of Agatha Christie’s abandoned ideas was to have Poirot inhabit the world of the board game Cluedo, including such characters as Professor Plum (with a candlestick).
17. Poirot is very particular about what he drinks. He regularly consumes hot chocolate and tisanes, but he once called decaffeinated coffee an ‘abomination’.
18. Many actors have been considered for the role of Poirot in film and television adaptations, and those who were discussed as possibilities but never made it to the screen include Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley.
19. Poirot has been parodied many times, including by the likes of Hugh Laurie in the Spice Girls film Spice World. One of the best known spoofs was by Ronnie Barker in the BBC comedy show The Two Ronnies, although Barker had actually already played the part ‘straight’ on stage in Oxford in the 1950s. Most recently, fans have considered him as a source of inspiration for the Benoit Blanc, the brilliant Knives Out detective.

20. Poirot stars in 33 novels and 59 short stories and 1 original full-length play by Agatha Christie, and 4 continuation novels by Sophie Hannah.

Mark Aldridge is the author of the new book, Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World. Packed with original research, never-before-published correspondence, images from the Agatha Christie archives, and a foreword from Mark Gatiss, this book will delight fans of Hercule Poirot and mystery lovers alike.

Knives Out Hercule Poirot's Christmas

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