In the Agatha Christie's Poirot episode "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook," Hercule Poirot sits in his office with nothing to do. His friend, Captain Hastings, suggests a few mysteries he could devote his little grey cells to. None of these potential cases, including a significant bank theft, interest Poirot in the slightest. Perhaps, the great detective muses, he will trim and pomade his mustache instead.
Pomade is a dense, oily substance that can be used to make hair retain a given shape. In my youth, I knew a young pastor who sported an enormous mustache. While the main part resembled that of Inspector Japp, he teased each side into a spiral covering his lower cheek. His red hair showed off his mustache in spectacular fashion. I wonder if sinners saw the flames of Hell in his mustache, and if it helped attract converts to his ministry?
While not as spectacular as that of my pastor-friend, Albert Finney sported a bigger mustache in the 1970s movie adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. It's a little bigger than that of David Suchet, but not as spectacular as my pastor-friend's.
Leave it to actor, director, producer, and overall British Hollywood heavyweight Kenneth Branagh to go one better. The mustache Branagh sported in the recent movie version of Murder on the Orient Express takes the cake. It's hard to imagine anyone doing a bigger, more elaborate mustache than Branagh. Okay, maybe my red-headed pastor-friend would have been in the running, had he ever tried out for the part. I wonder if audiences would accept a red-headed Poirot?
Incidentally, Poirot needed a special facial apparatus to protect his mustache while he slept in both movies. I wonder if this pastor from my youth needed to strap one of those on his face every evening?
Perhaps the best comparison is between David Suchet's Poirot and that of Peter Ustinov. The latter had a bushy mustache like Inspector Japp, which has just been teased into a point on each side. Compared with Ustinov's, David Suchet's is dainty and stylish.
Like Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, whom Agatha Christie constantly evoked in her stories, would often fall into the doldrums between cases. He regularly turned down pleas for help that didn't pique his interest. Can you imagine Holmes telling Watson that he would rather attend to his wardrobe, or his personal hygiene, than investigate someone's perplexing mystery?
While Sherlock Holmes always looked respectable, and perhaps even dashing, Hercule Poirot had a style all his own. Wouldn't you agree, mon ami?
Dragon Dave
