Abandonment of the planned Zero Mostel adaptation of The ABC Murders

The planned Zero Mostel adaptation of The ABC Murders was abandoned after Agatha Christie objected to its script, including a bedroom scene for Hercule Poirot. The project’s collapse on what should have been its first day of shooting contrasts with the later film adaptation, which was made with a different cast and creative approach.

The Planned Production

The project was to be directed by British filmmaker Seth Holt, with American comedian Zero Mostel cast as Hercule Poirot. It was a proposed screen adaptation of The ABC Murders, but the available account identifies the script—not a completed production—as the immediate point of conflict.

Christie’s Objection and the Shutdown

On the scheduled first day of shooting, Christie strongly objected to the script, which included a bedroom scene for Poirot. The objection was decisive: the project came to grief before filming began. The evidence establishes both the specific element she opposed and the timing of the collapse, but does not detail the subsequent negotiations or explain the scene’s intended function.

A Different Adaptation Follows

In 1966, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made another film version at its English studio in Elstree, near London, and released it as The Alphabet Murders. Directed by Frank Tashlin, it starred Tony Randall as Poirot and Robert Morley as Hastings; the account describes its comic approach and its adaptation of the novel as a travesty. Its eventual release marks a separate production, not a continuation of the abandoned Holt–Mostel project.