With the release of A Haunting in Venice, based on the Agatha Christie mystery Hallowe’en Party, Kenneth Branagh is now tied with Peter Ustinov for the title of “actor who’s played Hercule Poirot in the most big screen adaptations.” Exciting? Sure, if you’re into intergenerational tinkling matches between Hollywood actors over who can pretend to be Belgian the most. Us, we like winners, and we assume Branagh does, too.
If he wants to take the win, the British actor and director will need to step his game up and put out at least one more Poirot mystery. Luckily for him, there are plenty of options to choose from. Here’s a look at some of the most likely candidates for film adaptation.
Evil Under the Sun
This one’s probably the most obvious choice. It’s a classic Poirot story that hasn’t been adapted to the screen in over 20 years. A good dozen or so colorful characters (more if you don’t edit anybody out) would mean plenty of opportunities for Branagh to fill in the compulsory roster of celebrity guest stars, and the seaside resort setting lends itself to the Adam Sandler school of filmmaking, where everyone gets paid to hang out at the beach for three months.
The premise is classic Agatha Christie. Poirot winds up investigating a murder while on vacation at a scenic beach hotel. The victim: a flirtatious young woman with an eye for married men. There’s strangulation, voodoo, deception, romance, and a narratively significant spray tan. It’s got everything you’d want in a movie.
The A.B.C. Murders
If he’s up for the challenge, Branagh could do something really fun with The A.B.C. Murders, also sometimes published as The Alphabet Murders. It wouldn’t be easy – there’s something inherently goofy about an antagonist who kills based on alliteration, like a Batman villain who grew up on Sesame Street – but the multiple settings would make the film more kinetic than most Poirot country house mysteries, and the opportunity to hear Branagh saying the name “Sir Carmichael Clarke of Churston” in that accent is impossible to pass up.
Appointment with Death
One of the standard-setting, classic Christie novels with DNA that still shows up in modern thrillers to this day, Appointment with Death is almost tailor-made for a film adaptation – a fact that isn’t lost on show business, as it’s already been adapted theatrically in 1988 and used as the basis for more than a handful of television episodes. Aside from a phenomenal fake-out at the beginning of the story, it features a terrific ticking clock element, as Poirot promises to find the cause of a mysterious death within 24 hours. Maybe the fact that he heard the victim’s stepchildren talking about murder earlier made the detective feel cocky, or maybe that’s the fake-out mentioned earlier. Either way, this story is a gold mine.
Curtain
Long odds here. Curtain was the last Poirot story, and the detective goes out with as much of a bang as an elderly man with a severe heart condition could reasonably be asked for. The tragedy is that the book is lousy with contemporary themes like psychological abuse, and the mystery itself is haunting and fantastic. The only down shot is that Branagh would have to close the book on future adaptations, since – no spoilers – it’s a pretty definitive end to the series.
Okay, here are the spoilers: He dies. Tough to keep your celebrity-driven franchise of period piece murder mysteries going if you kill off your main character/SAG card eligibility generator in the fourth entry.
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
Full disclosure: This one’s a short story printed in 1960, and if we’re being honest with each other, it doesn’t actually lend itself to a big screen adaptation at all. It would only last maybe a half an hour, and it would have a lot to do with dessert-based tomfoolery where rubies get stuck in scrumptious holiday treats. It’s not exactly the crime of the century, or even a good excuse to go to the movies.
That said, there’s very little I wouldn’t give to see a straight-faced, hyper-dramatic ad spot for a movie called The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding that crescendos in the bass drop from “Believer” by Imagine Dragons the way that the Murder on the Orient Express trailer did.