Hercule Flambeau | |
---|---|
First appearance | The Blue Cross |
Created by | G.K. Chesterton |
Portrayed by | Paul Lukas Bill Griffis Peter Finch Siegfried Lowitz Dennis Burgess Olivier Pierre John Light |
In-universe information | |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Thief Detective |
Nationality | French |
Hercule Flambeau is a fictional character created by English novelist G. K. Chesterton, who appears in 48 short stories about the character Father Brown. A master criminal, his surname "Flambeau" is an alias, the French word for a flaming torch.
He first appeared in the story "The Blue Cross" as a jewel thief. Father Brown foiled his attempted crimes in this and several other stories. As a notorious and elusive criminal, Flambeau is a worry for law-enforcers. He is exposed by Father Brown, and later becomes a detective himself. [1] His last appearance as a thief occurs in "The Flying Stars", in which Father Brown persuades him to return his loot and to give up the criminal life. As a reformed criminal, Flambeau assists Father Brown in a number of other short stories, beginning with "The Invisible Man".
Although Brown and Flambeau spend much of the day together in "The Blue Cross", when they meet again in "The Queer Feet", Brown recognizes Flambeau but the thief has no recollection of the priest.
He becomes Flambeau's friend before he reforms him, and uses this friendship to transform him. In "The Secret of Flambeau", Flambeau credits Father Brown for his reformation when he says, "Have I not heard the sermons of the righteous? [...] Do you think all that ever did anything but make me laugh? Only my friend told me that he knew exactly why I stole, and I have never stolen since."
Flambeau's fate is revealed in "The Secret of Father Brown". Retiring as a detective, he marries and settles in a Spanish castle, raises a large family and lives in a blissful state of domesticity. Flambeau gives up his assumed name and returns to using his birth name, Duroc.
It has been suggested that Agatha Christie's famous detective Hercule Poirot was inspired by the character. [2]
Flambeau has appeared in several film, television and radio adaptations. Actors who have portrayed him include:
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Kogoro Akechi, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
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This page details the other fictional characters created by Agatha Christie in her stories about the Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.
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Father Brown, Detective is a 1934 American mystery film directed by Edward Sedgwick and starring Walter Connolly, Paul Lukas and Gertrude Michael. It is based on the 1910 Father Brown story "The Blue Cross" by G. K. Chesterton.
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Father Brown is a British period detective television series loosely based on the Father Brown short stories by G. K. Chesterton, starring Mark Williams as the crime-solving Roman Catholic priest. Broadcast began on BBC One on 14 January 2013. In April 2023 the BBC confirmed that filming had begun on an 11th series, for broadcast in January 2024, and also confirmed the return of Lorna Watson as Sister Boniface. The commissioning of series 12 and 13 was confirmed in April 2024.
In Agatha Christie's mystery novels, several characters cross over different sagas, creating a fictional universe in which most of her stories are set. This article has one table to summarize the novels with characters who occur in other Christie novels; the table is titled Crossovers by Christie. There is brief mention of characters crossing over in adaptations of the novels. Her publications, both novels and short stories, are then listed by main detective, in order of publication. Some stories or novels authorised by the estate of Agatha Christie, using the characters she created, and written long after Agatha Christie died, are included in the lists.
Genius at Work is a 1946 American comedy film directed by Leslie Goodwins and written by Monte Brice and Robert E. Kent. The film stars Wally Brown, Alan Carney, Anne Jeffreys, Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi. The film was released on October 20, 1946, by RKO Pictures.
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