Quote of the Day (Kenneth Branagh, on Creating Hercule Poirot’s Mustache)

“We had nine months of preparation that started from something that was a slither of what Charlie Chaplin might have had, passed through Hitler, went via Errol Flynn, turned the other side of Kurt Russell in Tombstone and landed in a world that tried to justify Christie’s description of his mustache as having a ‘tortured splendor.’”—Actor-director Sir Kenneth Branagh, on finding the perfect mustache for iconic sleuth Hercule Poirot, quoted by Alex Ritman, “Man and Mustache: Kenneth Branagh Takes on Agatha Christie’s Poirot,” The Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 18, 2017

After so much time creating such a look, it would be a waste never to use it again, wouldn’t it?

That’s the most likely explanation I can think of why, after spending so much time crafting this famous bit of facial hair for Murder on the Orient Express, Sir Kenneth Branagh came back to this look for Death on the Nile and the just-premiered A Haunting in Venice.

That, and the fact that the first two films were either somewhat successful at the box office or they didn’t lose a fortune. Because the only crime Hollywood studios will never forgive a filmmaker is a box-office bomb.