So bland is this adaptation and so embarrassingly awful the dialogue that I feel all my blood has drained away. To say it has been 'Americanised' is rather insulting to Americans, however it is fair to say that it has been reduced down to the Lowest Common Denominator of American culture. Any subtlety, wit or literary value has been stripped out lest it confuse the low-brow knuckle-draggers of middle America. Witness the way that characters are forced to endure that most excruciating of all devices - the completely implausible and unnecessary exposition of character/plot/history details to another character (the cheapest and laziest way of filling in such details - aimed at an audience considered too dim to pick up necessary facts from a more sophisticated rendition of them).
It's just as well that Ustinov's portrayal of Poirot includes a more-or-less constant 'bad smell' facial expression, given the pong given off by this script! I am sure that you can actually see Ustinov literally shuddering as he has to endure some of this dialogue. The comment about this feeling like a really third-rate episode of 'Murder She Wrote' - with all the cheap shortcuts, rice-paper-thin characterisations and contrived, cringe-worthy, painful dialogue aimed at the terminally stupid - is spot on. Euuurghh ... still feel dirty having watched it!
It's just as well that Ustinov's portrayal of Poirot includes a more-or-less constant 'bad smell' facial expression, given the pong given off by this script! I am sure that you can actually see Ustinov literally shuddering as he has to endure some of this dialogue. The comment about this feeling like a really third-rate episode of 'Murder She Wrote' - with all the cheap shortcuts, rice-paper-thin characterisations and contrived, cringe-worthy, painful dialogue aimed at the terminally stupid - is spot on. Euuurghh ... still feel dirty having watched it!