Lord Edgware Dies (1934) User Reviews

Culture shock for Suchet fans

[greenbudgie · 7/10 · 11 March 2021]

I was pleased to catch up with this early adaptation of Agatha Christie's 1933 Poirot story because of the authentic period feel. They were quick to film this only a year after the story's original publication so the contemporary 1930s situation involved is hot off the press so to speak. What was a culture shock for me was the somewhat switcheroo of the Poirot and Hastings I'm used to seeing in the David Suchet TV series. In this film Poirot is tall while Hastings is the short and fussy one which is a most direct contrast to how the characters are seen in Suchet style. The Suchet version being more faithful to Agatha Christie's creations in that respect.

Lady Edgware approaches Poirot to persuade her husband to grant her a divorce only for Poirot to find Lord Edgware had already granted it via a letter which must have been intercepted. Lord Edgware is murdered in his library quickly followed by the death of another character which would appear to be suicide. Lady Edgware has an alibi as she has been witnessed at a dinner in Chiswick at the time of the murder. But staff at Lord Edgware's mansion say they saw her there at that time and so Poirot has to discover which of these set of witnesses are correct.

Even though this film has to lose a lot of Christie's original plot elaborations to fit a B-mystery running time I think the film tells the story well. The vanity of Lady Edgware's American actress character is so good to see and she has some great lines to deliver. She complains that she could have had her husband bumped off much more easily if she had been back home in Chicago. And she takes to wearing black because it was so fetching at her husband's funeral saying "black is very effective against white marble." I would say this is an enjoyable adaptation for fans of murder mysteries of the cozy English variety.

Poirot does speak French!

[ulicknormanowen · 6/10 · 19 March 2021]

The reviews are,by and large,unfair. It was the early thirties and one should not ask for Finney's and Ustinov's movies or Suchet's TV series.

This is one of Christie's best books,in a golden decade ("the ABC murders ", " death on the nile " "death in the clouds","murder on the orient express ", 'the Tuesday club murders" ,ending with her triumph "and then were none" );if my memory serves me well , it's one sentence which makes the little gray cells discover the whole truth .

Written in 1933 ,the year before, it is anyway interesting for Christie's fans to see early movies based on her books;although not as good as "love from a stranger"(based on the short story "Philomel Cottage ), "lord Edgware dies " , it is ,for the time, an interesting adaptation.

Trevor may not physically be Poirot (no moustache,tall and not bald) ,but it's false to write there is no hint at Belgian :he has an accent and one can hear many French words in the dialog ( "mon cher ami" "mon Dieu",etc ) Hastings serves as a foil to him (it's his dr Watson),and when he hears that Lady Edgware might be a potential criminal, his tea goes down the wrong way .

Christie's fans should try and watch "the ninth guest" ,released the very same year ,not from one of her books, but contains the seeds of "and then there were none" .

Surprisingly tolerable

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 3 January 2022]

The earliest Hercule Poirot screen apperance available for us to see (Austin Trevor had already played the role twice before, but those films are lost - forever?). It's a more enjoyable film than you might expect: it moves relatively well, the plot has the classic Agatha Christie switcheroo (although the finale is very rushed), Hastings and Japp are bumbling but what else is new, and Trevor himself as Poirot is amusing and doesn't take the part overly seriously; his French accent definitely sounds like Clouseau to modern ears, but at the time it probably passed muster. Overall, the film certainly has a place in my extensive Agatha Christie collection. **1/2 out of 4.

Considering it was made in 1934, it stands up well.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 11 May 2022]

The beautiful Lady Edgware asks Poirot to help her get rid of her husband, soon after her plea, he's found dead, stabbed in the neck, but she has an alibi.

I think it's easy to overlook that this was made back in 1934, I'm watching this almost eighty years on, and for the most part it's well made, competently acted, and actually pretty accurate, the likeness from the original text that is.

It's atmospheric, it flows well, I actually liked the staging. I felt that they captured the tone of the book, and as for the killer, I felt that they got them, and their motives spot on, not too sympathetic, but devious and cunning.

On the downside, the accents are enough to make Rene Artois blush, they are hilariously bad, Poirot sounds a little comical, Lady Edgware is inconsistent let's say, sadly the character of Hastings is an utter fool. Poirot, has no moustache, and isn't Belgian, I can imagine Christie had a few words to say about that.

I'd love to see this get a commercial release.

7/10.

Forget Christie

[classicaljim · 7/10 · 12 February 2022]

If you forget that this is supposed to be the short, bald, mustachioed Hercule Poirot of the Agatha Christie books, this is actually a pretty good old British mystery. Some of the performances are a bit off - Trevor's French accent (no indication that Poirot is Belgian here) is overdone, Hastings is annoyingly stupid and clumsy, and the acting of the minor roles is amateurish - but Jane Carr is lively and lovely, and the Inspector is British stolidity at its best. The staging is awkward at times, but the direction moves things along nicely. Enjoyable on its own merits, but maybe not for diehard Christie fans.

Poorest Christie adaptation

[peacham · 1/10 · 8 October 1999]

Not only are the performances consistently cardboard but Trevor does not look or even sound like Poirot! tall and clean shaved and not a hint of belgian ! what were the producers thinking?!

Accent on Murder

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 23 March 2022]

The usual cast of patricians in evening dress take serial murder in their stride in this typical thirties quota quickie in which it's hard to decide who's accent is the more outrageous, Austin Trevor's Belgian one as a moustacheless Hercule Poirot or Jane Carr's American one as chief suspect Lady Edgeware; the latter attended to by a memorably severe maid played by Phyllis Morris.

They got the casting wrong but the stories okay

[dogma-53668 · 4/10 · 10 March 2021]

I love Agatha Christie stories, she was an excellent writer no matter what people think or say. I read her entire work. But I think casting-wise Hastings should have been Piorot and Poirot should have been Hastings but that's just my opinion, watch it and see if you like it. One of the earliest versions of Agatha Christie as far as I know.

"Everything was so carefully planned"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 11 April 2021]

An adaptation of an Agatha Christie book into an eighty minute film will always be difficult but the screenwriter H. Fowler Mear manages to pull it off quite well so plaudits for that. The cast are decent though Austin Trevor as Hercule Poirot does not sport a stylish moustache and Richard Cooper as Captain Hastings is a bit too much of a silly ass. (Hugh Fraser in the role had more dignity) Mainly shot statically in interiors it keeps you interested due to the twists and turns of the Christie plot.

Take One Locked Room....

[boblipton · 5/10 · 8 January 2021]

Lady Edgeware, played by Jane Carr, is a Hollywood actress married to C. V. France. She wants a divorce, and hires Hercule Poirot, played by Austin Trevor, in his third go-around as Agatha Christie's detective. The next day, France is stabbed to death. As long as he's there, Poirot uses his little grey cells to solve the murder.

It's a cheap version of the novel, with acting honors to Richard Cooper as Hastings, largely for his ability to save a shot by turning an error, like catching his umbrella handle on a door, into a minor comic bit. The rest of it is almost uninterrupted talk, as Trevor asks seemingly irrelevant questions.

My issue with Agatha Christie is this: she could plot the heck out of a mystery, playing endlessly with the bits of the classic British form, but she couldn't write very well. Her characters are all stock types; Poirot, for example, is Belgian - called French here - because this would permit her to indulge in a few pat phrases to stand in for an actual character. Being Continental, he didn't matter. Her Americans are standard British Stage characters, yokels with money or dumb and predatory women. Her choice of words is repetitious.

Ah, but her plots, her machinations with locked rooms and impossible murderers! That's where she excelled. And that would be the case here, were it not that the film is structured so that there is a severely limited number of suspects, and Poirot simply has to eliminate them. When he points the finger, will the criminal admit it's a fair cop? Probably. That's what the English do, isn't it?

Good Christie Story Ruined by the Actors

[bozopolis · 2/10 · 13 March 2021]

Found this early Agatha Christie adaptation tonight on YouTube. Having read all of the Poirot novels and seen all of the other Poroit movies and TV shows I was curious. They had to have read the novel, right? But it would be hard to prove by the casting here. We have a French (?) Poirot played by a tall, slender clean-shaven actor. Not only does he not look like Hercule he doesn't act like him either. Hastings is just as bad. Japp better but played as dim as a cheap solar light. The story is basically right Considering it's in the B-Movie mystery typical running time. Glad to have seen it but not because it was good. Not the worst Poirot movie ever but close. Recommended only as a novelty for Christie fans.

Very disappointing...

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 10 March 2013]

Even on its own terms as well. I love the book, Agatha Christie and Poirot so they are good reasons for having your expectations high. But Lord Edgware Dies is a real disappointment all round. I will go as far to say that it is one of the worst Agatha Christie adaptations, and with the Geraldine McEwan versions of At Bertram's Hotel and Sittaford Mystery there are some bad ones. Most of them though are pretty good to outstanding. There are too many things wrong, but a good place to start is the acting. Jane Carr comes off best but even she is disallowed to do much with the role of Lady Edgware, who is more cardboard cut-out than enigmatic and stylish as I imagine her to be. The others are bland and are given nothing to do. But it is the Poirot of Austin Trevor that really lets the side down, considering that he is the central character you rely him to carry any adaptation he's in. Trevor is so bad that he makes you wince, he makes no attempt to look, sound and act like Poirot and he is also very annoying. The undeveloped and cardboard characters, stilted dialogue that has none of the intelligence of Christie's writing, sluggish pacing and storytelling that is completely lacking in suspense and involvement in the mystery also don't help matters whatsoever. Overall, disappointing and a real mess as an adaptation and on its own(the latter of which I always try to base my opinion of an adaptation on). Watch the David Suchet and Peter Ustinov versions instead. 1/10 Bethany Cox

An odd choice for the lead in this one.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 14 November 2023]

Doesn't look nor act like Poirot--trevor played him twice previously american wants to divorce edgware...and willing to kill.

Captain is a bumbler yet husband insists he's more than willing to grant divorce.

During the early to mid-1930s, Austin Trevor played Hercule Poirot in several films. Seeing them now, it seems strange as Trevor was very tall...yet in the books, Poirot was 5'4"! He also doesn't look much like modern interpretations of Poirot, as he's missing the moustache and style of the great Belgian detective. Oddly, Poirot's partner in the story, the Captain, DOES look much like Poirot from the Agatha Christie novels! This is a big strike against "Lord Edgware Dies" from the onset.

Lady Edgware is a vain and narcissistic woman. She approaches Poirot and asks that she intercede on her behalf with her estranged husband. According to her, her husband refuses to grant her a divorce...and she says she hopes Poirot can convince him. Oddly, however, Poirot meets with the man and he's more than happy to grant her the divorce...which confuses Poirot. A short time later, Lord Edgware is found dead...stabbed. What's really going on here?!

Overall, this is a pretty lifeless installment of the Agatha Christie series....low in energy and curiously uninvolving. Not terrible but also not particularly good.