EDITOR’S NOTE: The Alphabet Murders was on the CBS Late Movie on April 5 and August 10, 1972.

Directed by Frank Tashlin (The Girl Can’t Help It, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) and written by David Pursall and Jack Seddon, this film didn’t win the favor of Agatha Christie — who objected to bedroom scenes — and ended up switch Zero Mostel for Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot. Pursall and Seddon, were upset that Tashlin and Robert Morley, who played Hastings, rewrote the script and Randall ad-libbed so much.

It also has two actors who played Poirot. Maurice Denham, who is Inspector Japp, would appear as the famous detective in a 1985 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Mystery of the Blue Train. Austin Trevor, who is Judson, played Poirot in three movies: Alibi, Black Coffee and Lord Edgware Dies.

Hastings believes that Poirot is in danger and he’s right. A mysterious woman Amanda Beatrice Cross (Anita Ekberg) makes an attempt and draws him into a murder plot that follows the alphabet — this was based on the book The ABC Murders, but since there was a theater chain in England with that name, it was changed to not offend them — with a clown named Albert Aachen and a bowler named Betty Barnard are the first victims. Poirot thinks that Sir Carmichael Clarke could be the next victim, which makes sense.

This movie establishes the Agatha Christie cinematic universe, as Miss Jane Marple (Margaret Rutherford) and Mr. Stringer (Stringer Davis) show up from their own film series. While that’s awesome, it’s strange to see Poirot be a moron like Inspector Clouseau.

Christie and her fans didn’t like this film, which didn’t play England until a year after its release, showing up as a double feature with Tashlin’s The Glass Bottom Boat.