The Alphabet Murders
1966VOTE NOW
| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: May 17, 1966 |
Starring:
Anita Ekberg, Clive Morton, Grazina Frame, Guy Rolfe, James Villiers, Julian Glover, Maurice Denham, Robert Morley, Sheila Allen, Tony Randall
Summary:
Hercule Poirot investigates a series of murders in London in which the victims are killed according to their initials.
Tashlin transforms the mystery into a giddy parody of Alfred Hitchcock’s films: borrowing his highly inflected, riotously inventive visual styles, Tashlin creates a sort of live-action cartoon, with distorting angles yielding disorienting juxtapositions, whether from the explosive results of a dish of kidneys flambé or during balletic capers at a bowling alley.
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The film’s breakneck zaniness sometimes gets into the way of the labyrinthine story, and you’ll be forgiven if you completely lose track of what’s going on (or at least why), but this is a remarkably entertaining and unusual Agatha Christie adaptation, and Randall’s take on the character is, surprisingly, one of the best.
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Frank Tashlin directed this attempt at a stylish comedy-thriller; it goes very wrong--there's no suspense, because we have no idea what's going on, and the spoofy, slapstick embellishments are almost painfully self-conscious.
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