Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Poirot: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Waxed Moustache, Starched Collars, Little Gray Cells—and Crime, of Course

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 27, 2012

Several notable actors have played Agatha Christie's dapper Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot, including Albert Finney in Sidney Lumet's all-star version of Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and Peter Ustinov in three theatrical films and several TV movies between 1978 and 1988. But rarely has an actor made it his life's work to embody a character the way British thespian David Suchet has immersed himself in Poirot. An accomplished stage performer with credentials from Iago to Salieri, Suchet is best known to moviegoers as the terrorist mastermind in Executive Decision. Beginning in 1989, he began appearing on British TV as Christie's diminutive, fastidious, courtly, mustachioed detective and has, by popular consensus (including Christie's heirs) so effectively realized the great mystery writer's vision that he is still filming her Poirot novels and stories twenty-three years later.

The project is almost done, though. By the end of next year, Suchet will have played Poirot in every story that Christie wrote about him (with some minor exceptions). It only seems appropriate since, even before filming his first scenes as Poirot, Suchet had so thoroughly prepared that he'd read every word Christie wrote about the character, building a dossier of passages culled from Dame Agatha's writings so that, when the cameras rolled, he'd mastered an almost infinite variety of tiny details and characteristic gestures to delight her fans.

The Poirot series is divided into one-hour episodes derived from short stories, and feature-length TV movies running 90 minutes or more, based on novels. In America, the series has primarily been shown on PBS via the Masterpiece Mystery series. Because American viewers came to the series late and had to do so much catching up, they saw the episodes out of order and reorganized. The same disorder applied to the video releases, which have been split up and named in such a way that you need a secret decoder ring to know what goes where. For example, the movies previously released on Blu-ray—Murder on the Orient Express and Poirot: Movie Collection Set 6—are actually, when combined, the twelfth and most recent series of Poirot, which aired in the U.K. between January 2010 and December 2011. The thirteenth and final series is currently in production.

Acorn Media has gone back to the beginning and is issuing Poirot in its original broadcast order. Series 1 contains the ten one-hour episodes that first aired in the U.K. from January 8 through March 19, 1989.

The time is 1935, and the place is London, where Poirot lives and plies his detective trade from a comfortable residence in the gorgeous Art Deco building known as Whitehaven Mansions. Though England is his adopted home, for which he obviously feels great affection, Poirot maintains an ironic distance from both English customs (such as cricket) and the English language (which he occasionally mangles). His skills as a detective have already brought him notoriety, because the papers routinely report on his successful cases, to the eternal frustration of Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson). Japp is a decent enough cop, but he regards Poirot as an annoying amateur, despite his repeated successes (which Japp always manages to dismiss as somehow just "luck").

These early episodes show considerable variety, rarely observing the familiar formula in which the detective investigates, then gathers all the suspects together to reveal the murderer's identity. The closest they come to that formula is in "Murder at Sea", where the characters' confinement to a ship virtually necessitates a climactic gathering. Some of the crimes aren't even murder. "The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly" involves a kidnapping. "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook" begins as a hunt for a missing domestic, a case that Poirot considers beneath him, but (as we Americans might say) he is guilt-tripped into taking, despite being mortified at the thought that Inspector Japp might hear he's sunk so low. "The Incredible Theft" concerns purloined state secrets that could prove decisive in the coming conflict with the Third Reich.

Often Poirot doesn't even have a client. Crime naturally gravitates in his direction. In "The Third Floor Flat", a woman moves into the apartment two floors below Poirot's and is murdered that same day. What else can the world's greatest detective do but solve the case? In "Triangle at Rhodes", Poirot is just departing from a leisurely vacation in Italy when he learns that one of the guests at the hotel where he stayed has been poisoned. Naturellement he must hastily return to deduce the murderer's identity.

Though the subject of each episode may be grave, the dialogue is typically quick and witty, thanks in no small part to Suchet's effortless mastery of the Poirot accent and his perfect use of distinctive gestures to turn simple phrases into comic bon mots. Suchet is ably supported by series regulars Pauline Moran as Miss Lemon, Poirot's no-nonsense secretary, who never lets her admiration for her boss get in the way of practical necessities such as filing or requesting a new typewriter; Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings, a sort of good-hearted but dim-witted Dr. Watson to Poirot's Sherlock Holmes; and the aforementioned Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector Japp, who isn't above calling in Poirot to consult on a case, even as he looks dubious that the little Belgian with the impeccably waxed moustache can actually accomplish anything.

But solve the case Poirot does every time, politely asking questions, listening carefully to the answers, thanking each interviewee with the greatest deference—and missing nothing. Then his famous "little gray cells" go to work, and answers shortly arrive.

A complete list of the episodes follows:

1. The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
2. Murder in the Mews
3. The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
4. Four and Twenty Blackbirds
5. The Third Floor Flat
6. Triangle at Rhodes
7. Problem at Sea
8. The Incredible Theft
9. The King of Clubs
10. The Dream

Poirot: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

These episodes of Poirot were shot on 16mm film, which was the standard format for British TV at the time. Having recently reviewed Brideshead Revisited, which was one of the first British television productions shot on 16mm and was somewhat disappointing on Blu-ray, I didn't know what to expect, but fans of Poirot will not be disappointed. Whether because of superior film stocks, a more recent transfer, or both, the image on Acorn Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray discs takes full advantage of the medium's potential, revealing fine details in the stylized Art Deco production design and period costumes and providing rich, saturated colors in scene after scene. Blacks are genuinely black, which is particularly important for a period drama depicting a more formal time when men frequently dressed in dinner jackets.

Film grain is visible but fine and natural-looking. In some darker scenes, the grain pattern is sometimes rougher and more obvious, but it never becomes intrusive. The transfer was so clean and free of video noise that I found myself getting up close to the screen and studying the image for tell-tale signs of high frequency filtering, but I couldn't find any: no motion artifacts, waxy complexions or "frozen" grain patterns. To the extent that the image is softer or "smoother" than one would expect from 35mm film, this appears to reflect the limits of 16mm resolution, as well as the somewhat artificial lighting style favored by the production. Certainly there was no indication of artificial sharpening, and compression artifacts were non-existent.

Poirot: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The audio track for these early episodes is mono presented as Dolby Digital 2.0 at a bit rate of 256kbps. When played through a good set of stereo speakers in "direct" mode, the track should provide a wide soundstage, much like a typical theatrical array. When played through a matrix decoder, the two identical channels should collapse to the center speaker of a typical home theater array.

Now, before anyone turns up their nose at this audio track on the basis of specifications alone, let me say, based on listening to the episodes, that they sound excellent. These are dialogue-driven dramas with undemanding sound effects, and they present little challenge to an efficient codec such as Dolby Digital. If any part of the track should suffer, it would be the music by Christopher Gunning, whose memorable theme was heard throughout the first nine seasons of Poirot, usually played by wind instruments, but occasionally varied according to locale, as in "Triangle at Rhodes", where what sounds like a mandolin picks up the theme, in keeping with the Italian location. On this track, however, Gunning's music has a warm, tuneful presence that perfectly complements the continental gentility of Agatha Christie's refined hero. The orchestra's bass extension is surprisingly deep, lending the theme a cheerfully ominous undertone as it kicks off each episode. The track is first-rate and certainly sounds better than I can imagine any TV broadcast did in 1989.

Poirot: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Other than introductory trailers on disc 1 for Acorn Media, Murder on the Orient Express and George Gently, Series 1, no extras are included.

Poirot: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There is a timeless quality to period pieces, since they are already set in the past. In the case of Agatha Christie's Poirot stories, they feel classic for the additional reason that their author did so much to establish tropes and techniques of detective fiction which still remain familiar today. With the stellar presentation on these Blu-rays, it's hard to believe these episodes of Poirot were made over twenty years ago. They look and sound as fresh as if they were filmed just recently. Now that such a vivid record of Suchet's definitive portrayal is so readily available, I imagine it will be a long time before anyone is brave enough to play Hercule Poirot again. Highly recommended.