not only does he speak french very well in the film (i'm french, i can tell), but can you also believe peter ustinov dubbed himself in the french version (as did jane birkin) AND in the german version (i don't think jane did, though). quel homme.
shareYeah, and on the German AND English versions, although speaking these languages perfectly, he deliberately added a heavy french accent (!) to give Poirot even more credibility. Great!!!
shareI completely agree. This is one my favorite Agatha Christie book-to-film adaptations. Brilliant cast as well as a scenic, exotic locale. However, Hecule Poirot, played by the brilliant Pater Ustinov in this film, is indeed BELGIAN, not French.This is an ongoing joke throughout the stories, as Poirot always seems to be correcting someone about his origins being Belgian, not French. Though, as always, Ustinov's portrayal of Poirot was brillant, with his Belgian accent, perfection.
shareHe is Belgian in terms of politics or citizenship, but Belgians are either French (Walloons) or Dutch (Flemish). As a Walloon, Poirot has a French accent.
sharethank you! you explained this much better than i did. i wans't even thinking of the flemish. of course hercule poirot is from the french side of belgium.
shareof course he is belgian, what i mean by "french accent" is that he sounds french. there isn't much of a difference between the french and the belgian accent (actually there is, and it's very funny, come to think of it). but yes, indeed, poirot is belgian. and his name isn't hercules parrot.
shareIn an interview he did for "Death on the Nile", he was asked why he gave Poirot a French accent rather than a Belgian one, and his answer was that, in his experience, most Belgians liked to think they sound French, though they get annoyed if someone actually mistakes them as such. ;-)
shareHow did you like "Death on the Nile" a few years earlier?
shareexactly. i mean you have to be really good to be able to do that. i once saw simon callow on stage doing a one-man show about charles dickens and he was good too. actually, he was excellent. the lighting too (there wasn't much of anything on stage except him and some slight variations of the light). great, great show.
shareYes, and one of the best jokes was him saying "'alf an Hour" instead of "Half an 'our"
"Life is full of censorship. I can't spit in your eye." - Katharine Hepburn
>>peter ustinov dubbed himself in the french version (as did jane birkin) AND in the german version
I've just arrived in Germany for a vacation and turned on the TV. This movie was on, and I recognized Ustinov's voice immediately. Totally cool!
I'll have to see if I can get the French version - it would be nice to hear him doing that as well.
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He's truly amazing when doing his French voice, love it !
But it is said in the comments for that movie that he did 6 movies as Poirot??? o_O Really? I think I only saw 3 of them then ! :-O
I don't recall if they touch on it in the Ustinov movies, but Poirot could speak English idiomatically, although with an accent. He often pretended that his English was worse than it was because he found that having people think of him as a silly foreigner was often useful. David Suchet does this very well, speaking perfect English privately but sounding like a music-hall parody of a Frenchman (sorry ... Belgian!) when it suited him on a case.
shareTo me the most impressive thing here is that in other roles his _English_ is spot on too - because you see, he isn't from ANY of these countries, he's RUSSIAN!
I'm totally jealous of this talent, that's for sure.
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"Never finish what you can't start!" ;)
"not only does he speak french very well in the film (i'm french, i can tell), but can you also believe peter ustinov dubbed himself in the french version (as did jane birkin) AND in the german version (i don't think jane did, though). quel homme."
Ustinov spoke german very good. So no problem for him to make the german dub. The only accent he has is the "Ustinov accent" which might be the same in all languages.
It was very funny, I once saw an interview with him on Norwegian television, you know with an Norwegian interviewer etc. Now, Norwegian was not one of the languages Ustinov spoke, but as the incredible language genious he was, he could take the diction and melody of most any language in the world. So to show all Norwegians in this world how our language sounds to foreigners, he would speak this kind of gibberish with a totally spot on Norwegian tone. It was great, because seing that Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are so close to each others (in vocabulary and grammar) it must be confusing telling the difference if you don't know any of those languages. But he took the Norwegian sound perfectly.
Brilliant man.
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- Who's the lady with the log?
- We call her the Log Lady.
I don't want to be picky, but I noticed that Poirot says something like "he's not being fooled by the criminals' charades". Is it ok that he pronounces it /ʃəˈɹeɪd/ instead of /ʃəˈɹɑːd/ ? Wouldn't a French speaking person most likely use the second version?
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