Product Description

Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 12/31/2002 Run time: 400 minutes Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9416 in DVD
• Brand: A&E
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 400 minutes

Amazon.com
Four beautifully made mysteries comprise this boxed-set collection of Agatha Christie classics, in which David Suchet perfectly captures the brilliant detective Hercule Poirot. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, in which yet another of Poirot's retirements is interrupted with murder, is an admirable adaptation of a nearly unfilmable plot. Lord Edgeware Dies offers the pleasing combination of murder, theater folk, and a glimpse of a besotted Poirot. Evil Under the Sun features cold-blooded murder at a sunny health resort, and Murder in Mesopotamia doubles the fun by dropping all the intrigue into an archaeological dig. Each mystery is lovingly crafted with clever direction, a clear fondness for Christie's work, and painstakingly accurate period settings. Suchet and Hugh Fraser (as Captain Hastings) make a marvelous pair, capturing both the easy companionship and the frequent bickering of true friendship. Special DVD features include an index of all the Hercule Poirot stories and biographies of Agatha Christie and David Suchet. --Ali Davis

Customer Reviews

U.S. editing has botched this series
I recommend that you stay away from this set. American green eye shades from A&E's advertizing department cut ten-twelve minutes from each episode so that they could squeeze more fast food ads in to the showings on television. The resulting botch makes several of these episodes unwatchable. Sorry; hopefully Acorn will put these out in pristine form.

A&E Home Video ruins another one.
As hard as it may be to believe, A&E home video, who accquired the American rights to the more recent episodes of the wonderful BBC POIROT series, is actually releasing them on disc in their edited-down U.S. broadcast versions (You know, the ones with 10+ minutes hacked out of them so they can run burger and soap ads), rather than the original complete U.K. versions. From most companies, this would be startlingly incompetent, but apparently it's just an ordinary day at the office for the bright professionals at A&E. Since they released the Royal Shakespeare Company version of NICHOLAS NICKLEBY in an edited-down, arbitrarily hacked-apart version, nothing these goofs do surprises me. Once again, thanks for nothing, A&E!

Great stories - shame about the U.S. editing
David Suchet as Poirot is always a delight to watch, and I would love to recommend this DVD collection... but there is one major problem, at least as far as I am concerned. These versions were issued in the US and, I suspect, because of the ruthless hacking to accommodate commercials, these stories are each about 10 minutes shorter than the original U.K. versions. This is particularly damaging to Evil Under The Sun: In the edited-down version, characters inexplicably crop up and disappear and threads are left hanging. There is also a tendency to edit out scenes which are intended to exploit Poirot's little eccentricities which make the character so appealing. In the full version it all makes sense, with events unfolding as the director intended, rather than according to the dictates of the hacks who subsequently cannibalized it! If this irritates you even half as much as it assuredly does me, you might want to consider getting a region-free DVD player or a multi-format VCR (because this doesn't only happen with Poirot, but ALL films which cross the Atlantic), and then ordering British-made movies from amazon.co.uk, or any other reputable British supplier - you'll find it's well worth the trouble.