This review contains spoilers.
Agatha Christie is called the queen of mystery writers but she also typed up yarns of espionage and suspense.
Her very second novel, featuring Tommy and Tuppence, was an ur-Hitchcockian romp with some treaty as the "macguffin." Though most of her output consisted of straight mysteries, she continued fitting in novels of adventure and espionage, including THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS (1915); DESTINATION UNKNOWN (1954) and PASSENGER TO FRANKFORT (1970). These were in a popular mode when she started writing, including John Buchan (THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS), Dornford Yates and Sapper (Bulldog Drummond). Buchan was a great storyteller and stylist whose books were influential (compare the story of THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS with that of "National Treasure" and you find the bare-bones story-line identical, though this is not the place for that analysis). Lots of writers fell into this mode of espionage and adventure, producing tales of varying quality. Yates could tell a cracking good yarn but was no great writer. Sapper's books were popular but weren't a patch on Buchan.
This is a lot to hand people unacquainted with the literature of the period when this book was written but it is important in understanding its genesis.
Christie was so-so at this sort of tale. Some were good, others not. And it is unusual for a Poirot tale.
THE BIG FOUR follows what may be (arguably), THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, but it's less a novel than a series of interconnected stories of around two chapters each, leading to a big conclusion.
But before launching into my devastating criticism, allow me to say the "Poirot" series was never strictly accurate (as, say, were the Miss Marple series of Joan Hickson, the "Campion" series with Peter Davison, or the early Sherlock Holmes tales with Jeremy Brett --or the adorable Tommy and Tuppence "Partners in Crime" series with Francesca Anniston. All of which did take liberties due to the differences in the print medium as opposed to TV.
Anyone watching "Poirot" from the kickoff without a grounding in Christie may be forgiven for thinking Poirot ran a detective agency with Hastings and Lemon dancing in attendance and in every case he butted heads with Japp, while all those characters put in limited appearances in her novels and stories.
So from the beginning Christie fans had to accept that "Poirot" was always going to be different from the source material and had to bow to that. Fine. The show had to cater to and entertain the lowest common denominator, which included people who were too lazy to pick up a book but would watch anything on the tube.
Over time "Poirot" got more bizarre. Some episodes sailed fairly close to the originals, given excusable changes due to time and budget limitations. But some later episodes eliminated characters only to plug in new characters; and in others motives and even the villains were changed as writers who supposed they were smarter than some little old lady indulged in their own stories, retaining only Christie's titles.
I have read where the scriptwriter of "The Big Four" said it couldn't be done so it had to be changed. Nonsense. I'm a writer (with a pseudonym) and while only only of my stories has been dramatized (for radio and they made a hash of it) I could have done it. In this dramatization we gave a failure if imagination and perhaps arrogance. THE BIG FOUR is not one of Christie's better books, even in her tales of adventure and espionage (as was, say, THE SECRET ADVERSARY). But even paring away some of the story's wilder aspects *which I won't spoil* due to budget (or because neo-writers who haven't a prayer of writing anything that will sell like Christie did or be so beloved indulge in their delusion of superiority), the script ould have been done better.
Agatha Christie's THE BIG FOUR was an early novel about an organization apparently trying to take over the world (not really Poirt's milieu but it was Christie's idea). The four are an American industrialist (a favorite villain for writers who hate capitalism but are devoted to the murderous Communism); a female French scientist (a Madame Curie gone wrong, who has discovered the secret of atomic energy); a Chinese gentleman--undoubtedly Christie's version of Fu Manchu)--and a actor (unnamed) who can pass himself off as anyone. This wacky bunch, a 1920s celebration of diversity, is trying to rule the world and they have the intelligence (Chinese), the scientific knowledge (French) and the money (American) to make the attempt. Only the brain of Hercule Poirot can rob them of success.
Here's the first hurdle the writer(s) stumbled over in their personal steeplechase. In the world of Socialist Hitler, Communists Lenin and Stalin, fascist Mussolini, and Hirohito, leader of Japan's imperialist "master race" (the period when all Poirot's shows are set) is it so weird to think of a private group with the brains, scientific threat and the money to try to take over the world? James Bond villains with less are accepted on a bigger screen.
Of course, the next hurdle woild be the Chinese fourth of the quartet. Modern PC censors of the arts won't have anyone ever in all of world history ever doing anything wrong except those of European descent (how many of his iwn people did Mao murder ot deliberately starve after Der Fuhrer had gone, and none too soon, to his personal crematorium?). Well, never mind. In a few years China would be a victim of Japanese imperialism. So a change
from Chinese to a kind of intellectual Tojo would have been more accurate.
While cloaking itself in events actually taken from the novel (the frozen meat, the electrified chess game, etc) this script changes the yarn not only in events but in fundamental nature.
The good: Hastings, thankfully, returns here, looking much older and unable to do the running and jumping the original story demands. Thus, changes.
But as the fundamental nature of the story altered, I must insist this is NOT Christie. Here are some changes that stick in my craw: 1) In the book, the American industrialist is a soap manufacturer, but in "Poirot" he's an arms dealer (who sold arms to both sides in the Great War; well, at least he's not jingoistically patriotic). In the world of television writing it's axiomatic that an industrialist has to earn his money off death rather than cleanliness.
The scientist does not have that stigma--though, remember, after atomic secrets were really found, a few scientists traded or gave atomic secrets to the Soviets.
2) In thid episode, the Chinese gentleman, the industrialist and the scientist are part of a Peace Movement on the brink of World War II. Well, post-WW2 world peace movements were often orchestrated by the KGB. A late-30s peace movement orchestrated by Hitler in the same way might have been a welcome new wrinkle in the tail our precious authos were too silly to invent.
The major problem with Christie's book is its episodic style. A story based on Hitler funding a worldwide peace movement would tie it nicely together.
(Big spoiler) 3) In this show, "The Big Four" is a myth. Working from the fact that number four is, in the book, an actor of great skill, they present us with a Big Four he made up to frighten the world. Oh, sure, he passes himself off in all the roles he adopts in the book, but for his own selfish ends. Taking a character who appears but briefly in the book, an actress who knew him slightly years ago and who is immediately killed, the writers spin out unbelievable and hackneyed hogwash about a man who does all the evil in the book because of unrequited love! How ridiculous is that? They didn't even ring in Hitler, who was actively trying to take over the world.
The idea that one man, unaided, who can act but can't do much else, carries all this off is ridiculous. The end of the book takes place in a cave in the Dolomites (a mountain range in Italy) and, again in a way that precedes James Bond, Poirot manages to blow them all up. Well, they no doubt had budget restraints so the climax of this show takes place on a stage in a neglected theater where the actor fell into unrequited love with the woman (who does not die, btw).
The original Christie book is silly but fun and adventurous. Clearly the writers had ontempt for that sort of literature.
Instead, they created an even more far-fetched tale that strips the guts out of Christie. This is a low point in the "Poirot" series.
