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Hercule Poirot (Tony Randall) has come to London strictly to get a new suit, but the Secret Service thinks his life is in danger and decides to put him under protection by one of their agents, Hastings (Robert Morley), and see to it that he takes the next airplane back to Brussels. Now the Secret Service is right, as an attempt on Poirot's life is actually made, by a mysterious lady (Anita Ekberg) later identified as Amanda. Now of course she doesn't succeed in killing Poirot, but she does get away, and somehow draws Poirot into a murder case. You see, only recently a water clown with the initials A.A. has been killed, and then at a bowling alley where Poirot is sure he'll be able to track Amanda down at, a bowling instructor with the initials B.B. (Grazina Frame) is murdered almost before Poirot's very eyes. Now Poirot knows he can crack this case, but Hastings is very adamant to get him out of the country, so ever so often Poirot gives him the slip, which more than once actually ends him in jail and only Hastings can bail him out ...

Somehow, Poirot can track Amanda down to Dr Doncaster (Guy Rolfe), her psychiatrist who describes her as a schizophrenic with an obsession for the alphabet - which doesn't keep Doncaster from secretly hiding her though. Poirot meanwhile has figured out Amanda's next prospective victim, rich industrialist Sir Carmichael (Cyril Luckam) - but when he arrives at Carmichael's, he doesn't want to hear nothing of it, but Poirot learns the man's wife Lady Diane (Sheila Allen) is cheating on him with doc Doncaster while his stepbrother Franklin (James Villiers) is a hopless gambler. All that knowledge can't keep Sir Carmichael from being killed, or doc Doncaster, who's really next on the list by name alone, but ultimately Poirot can track down Amanda and chase her up a crane whence she jumps to her certain dead. Case closed, it seems - for everybody but Poirot, who eventually figures she must have worked in someone's employ - like Lady Diane and Franklin, who actually only staged the murder spree to get rid of their husband/stepbrother and get their hands on his money. But it seems there are more cards in this game than just a full deck ...

Now you've probably not guessed it from my synopsis (but might have from the fact that cartoon veteran-turned-slapstick director Frank Tashlin had the riegns on this one), but this is a comedy. And while the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marples, which were shot at the same time (which makes her cameo herre all the more funny), were pretty hilarious but always murder mysteries first, this one's rather full-on in its comic approach, as the murder mystery (that deviates a great deal from Agatha Christie's source material) is not all that well structured, doesn't 100% make sense, and always takes backseat behind a good joke. Now of course, this film wasn't too well-received by serious Agatha Christie fans, and really the approach doesn't always work even - like in the very dramatic scene where Amanda leaps to her death, the feeling just doesn't transmit due to all the silliness happening around -, but at the same time it also shows Tashlin's absolute mastery of (slapstick) comedy, as everything works in almost cartoon-like precision, all set-ups are carefully laid out to get the most out of each shot, and the director most certainly doesn't shy away from absurdities. Now this might not even be Tashlin's best, but it's a great watch, just to see a master at work.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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