Agatha Christie | Thinking about books

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Underdog (1993)

March 11, 2012 David Marshall 4 comments

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Underdog (1993) (Season V, Episode 2) is a wonderful example of what a television company can do with a slight short story if it decides to go all out. This first appeared in 1929 as “Under Dog” and so is more than ready for the full-blast of an art deco adaptation. The opening scenes in the factory is completely stunning. It actually reminded me of Mon Oncle by Jacques Tati which has a wonderful sequence in which Monsieur Hulot confronts modern architecture and loses. He accidentally damages the tree espaliered to the wall of the monstrous house and returns at night to cut it into a more symmetrical shape. When a noise wakes the Arpels, the owners, their heads appear in two circular windows making the house look like a face. In Underdog, a burglar comes down a beautiful multiple horseshoe staircase inside the factory. With the stairs backlit, he moves up and down in synchronisation with other employees until he can get to the floor he wants without being seen. It’s a wonderful moment with which to start the show, as are all the remaining scenes inside this factory. Similarly, the house chosen for occupation by Sir Reuben Astwell (Dennis Lill) is breathtaking. These locations are stars in their own right. Although I know the building that stands in for Whitehaven Mansions, the home for Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) in London, is actually called Florin Court and is to be found in Charterhouse Square, it would be good to discover where these other buildings are located. I would pay to go on a charabanc architectural tour.

The staircase and real star of the show

Anyway, back to the story, we have Hugh Fraser reprising his role as Captain Hastings and Pauline Moran as Miss Lemon. The good Captain is off to play in one of these gentlemen’s golf competitions while Hercule Poirot is invited to view the Astwell collection of Belgian miniatures — statues that are notorious for being the largest miniatures ever made. This gets us into the house where the unlikeable Sir Reuben is struck down in his study. This interpretation of the plot gives the impression we’re looking for a nest of Nazi spies intent on stealing the formula for this new synthetic rubber. Except it appears Sir Reuben was intent on selling the manufacturing rights to IG Farben, the major German chemical company of the day. So perhaps we’re looking for a hero who wanted to keep the secret for the British military. Or perhaps everyone who knew Sir Reuben recognised a deeply unpleasant man and wanted to kill him. This would make the synthetic rubber a red herring — a fish endowed with great tensile strength. Lining up as obvious suspects are the research scientist doing the work, Horace Trefusis (Bill Wallis), the brother Victor Astwell (Ian Gelder), Lady Astwell (Ann Bell) the wife in a loveless marriage, and Charles (Jonny Phillips), the son. There’s also the dodgy companion, Lilly Margrave (Adie Allen), and the burglar apparently called Humphrey Nailor (Andrew Seear).

Dennis Lill as the unlovable Sir Reuben Astwell

There are moments of silliness, of course. For example, the chase to London is based on the hypothesis that a criminal would give his correct home address when signing the register to stay at a hotel. Miss Lemon suddenly being recruited as a hypnotist is also memorably risible. But, taken as a whole, this is probably the best shot Bill Craig could make to stretch everything out to an hour, allowing for ad breaks. The answer comes by a process of elimination. When you have everyone in the same room and work your way carefully through what they actually did, there’s only one person left. The reason is not something we could have known. Poirot knows because he read a file but forget to tell us what he read.

In the end, Captain Hastings is allowed to get a hole-in-one (not in the least due to Miss Lemon’s powers of hypnotism, of course) while the good Hercule Poirot looks on through his telescope, proud of the little people he surrounds himself with. Underdog makes good television.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Underdog, Bill Wallis, David Suchet, Dennis Lill, detective fiction, Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser, mystery, Pauline Moran, Underdog

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb (1993)

March 11, 2012 David Marshall 2 comments

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Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb (1993) (Season V, Episode 1) shows the good and bad sides of television adaptations. There are times when you can see the production values have been cut. This is usually because it’s not economical to spend more money in producing a more leisurely version of the story on the screen. Corners are cut to get the story out there, allow time for the ads, and hopefully keep the purists happy. In this case, ironically, we have more than enough material for a “one-hour” package, i.e. about fifty minutes actual running time. Why? you ask. Because this is bringing a short story to the screen. Whereas the purist’s angst might jump up (or should that be down?) to levels of major despondency if a full novel is abridged to fit into the straightjacket of less than an hour, this generates similar levels of despondency, albeit from the opposite end of the spectrum. Frankly, even taking the most generous view of the source material, it’s a slight story. If you were sitting around a campfire on a dark evening around Halloween, telling this tale would occupy no more than ten minutes — and that’s with the storyteller taking time between paragraphs to munch on half-a-dozen of the marshmallows toasting over the flames. That’s ten paragraphs and six marshmallows — you do the arithmetic. Some storytellers will do anything to impress their listeners.

Why Halloween? you ask. Well, this is Agatha Christie flirting with the supernatural. Yes, it’s a mummy’s curse apparently killing off the members of an archaeological team digging in the Valley of the Kings. When they break into a tomb, Sir John Willard, the team leader, lasts two minutes and then keels over. He’s dead before he hits the floor. Cue ominous music and awestruck expressions from the remainder of the team. The diggers and guards are for running away, but all the “while folk” put on a brave face and allay the fears of the superstitious locals. Amusingly when Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) and Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) arrive on the scene with Sir John’s son, Guy Willard (Grant Thatcher), we also have the shadow on the tent trick. As if Anubis would actually be stalking around the campsite looking for a late-night snack (possibly of marshmallows). All this is particularly shallow stuff in supernatural terms — although being fair to Agatha Christie, she wrote these stories in the early 1920s at a time when people were much more inclined to suspend disbelief and accept mere hints of the paranormal as a full story. Indeed, Poirot approaches the case with implicit scepticism. He’s much more interested in the credulity of people. For him, in the wrong hands, the force of superstition could become a murder weapon.

David Suchet and Grant Thatcher acting Egypt

So now we have to sympathise with Clive Exton who drew the short straw for adapting this tale for the screen. He has to spin out this thin gruel into a feast without spending a fortune on everyone flying out to Egypt for several month’s location shooting. We begin auspiciously with Miss Lemon (Pauline Moran) in her office in London with tarot card turning up death, and then with Hastings using the planchette board. Later the good Captain explains Miss Lemon has been depressed by the death of her cat and is trying to reach her on the other side. Thoughtfully, on his way back from Egypt, Hercule Poirot stops at one of the tourist stalls and buys her a reproduction black cat. He then convinces his gullible secretary she can use it to feel closer to her dead cat.

Once in Egypt, we have stereotyped Americans and Egyptians milling around in tents with the odd camel and other geographically appropriate props available to give the scenes credibility. All I can say is thank God for Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings who brave all hazards to dress for dinner and maintain a proper sense of decorum at all times. Put this together and you will understand how truly dreadful all this is. Despite the best efforts of the indefatigable David Suchet and the always reliable Hugh Fraser, the nature of the puzzle to be solved is trivial. Not that death is ever trivial, you understand. But it does not take many little grey cells to see who must be responsible. In this instance, the ending of the original story has been changed slightly to add a moment of drama. There’s also an early use of the telephone to gather confirmatory evidence. But all to no avail. Unless you are a completist determined to watch every episode regardless of quality, The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb is not worth bothering with.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb, Clive Exton, David Suchet, detective fiction, Grant Thatcher, Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser, mystery, Pauline Moran, supernatural

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Hallowe’en Party (2010)

January 7, 2012 David Marshall Leave a comment

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Agatha Christie was sometimes tempted into flirting with the supernatural. There’s the collection appropriately named The Hound of Death, and some of the stories involving Harley Quin. Then we have the séances. Some are explicitly fake as in The Sittaford Mystery and Peril At End House. But there are others where, at first sight, there might be real “spooks”, e.g. Dumb Witness. The novel, The Pale Horse, is more explicit in the tradition of Dennis Weatley with its black magic theme, and then there’s this slightly atmospheric novel with the murder taking place during Halloween. If there’s a consistent theme, it’s the effect the dead have on the living. Many characters are left with the feeling there are loose ends from the past. Some bear burdens of guilt. In a sense, this is perfectly consistent with the literature with which Agatha Christie grew up. There’s a wonderful Gothic tradition that mixes in with both the bottom, penny-dreadful end of the market and the more classic work of Conan Doyle, H G Wells, and so on. It’s not surprising she should have tipped her toe in the supernatural pool from time to time, e.g. to spice up a murder in an exotic location as in Murder in Mesopotamia.

Deborah Findlay and Vera Filatova as the au-pair

In this adaptation, there’s a deliberate attempt to create atmosphere both at the beginning and later when Rowena Drake (Deborah Findlay) is walking back through the woods to her country home. I confess to being slightly ambivalent about this. Although I accept the legitimacy of creating an ambiance for the children’s halloween party, the murder itself has no supernatural connotations and there’s nothing else to justify the notion there may be a deranged stalker lurking in the woods — it’s a bit like a poor man’s slasher film and somewhat out of character with the rest of the programme. The other shift in emphasis comes from the change in the manner of the earlier school teacher’s death which is used to substantiate several hints she and the child victim were witches who went through a form of trial by water.

Putting aside these minor aberrations, the rest of the production is played straight and without any more obviously supernatural hints (allowing for the fact Agatha Christie did set one scene on an altar supposedly used for pagan rituals). Charles Palmer follows on from The Clocks with another stylish adaptation, this time penned by the increasingly ubiquitous Mark Gatiss, that stays reasonably faithful to the spirit of the original. I forgive the decision not to allow the murder(s) to escape justice. The final confrontation we see does quite perfectly capture the extent of the narcissism involved although, as I recall the original, there maybe one too many murders listed in the reveal at the end. I’ll have to dig out my copy and refresh my memory. But, more seriously, there’s the problem of the supposed lesbian relationship and the less than convincing explanation of how it ended. It’s a slightly tiresome feature of several of these Christie adaptations that a sexual subtext has been added or overemphasised. Once the decisions are taken to drop The Elms school and to change Janet White’s cause of death to generate more emphasis on the supernatural side, I suppose Mark Gatiss is forced into the open, but it runs completely contrary to the spirit of a story transplanted back into the 1930s.

Julian Rhind-Tutt sporting some big hair

As to the cast, it’s always good to see Zoë Wanamaker, this time returning as Ariadne Oliver. There’s a timeless and effortless quality to her acting and, although she’s left somewhat in the background here, she has some nice moments with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. There’s a nice cameo from Timothy West, Julian Rhind-Tutt is eminently watchable despite all the hair, and Deborah Findlay is one of these stately-as-a-galleon matriarchs who runs a tight ship of a household despite the presence of two unprepossessing children gratuitously introduced by Mark Gatiss.

So, Hallowe’en Party is quite a pleasing version of a novel that came towards the end of Agatha Christie’s writing career, i.e. it sags a bit in the middle. The core mystery is fairly obvious from quite an early stage, but there’s some nice misdirection as to who’s responsible for the deaths. David Suchet shows no sign of slowing down although his feet hurt a little during the filming. There are only a few more of the Christie canon left to adapt. Roll on 2012.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Halloween Party, Charles Palmer, David Suchet, Deborah Findlay, detective fiction, Halloween Party, Hercule Poirot, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Mark Gatiss, Zoë Wanamaker

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Clocks (2009)

January 2, 2012 David Marshall Leave a comment

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Sometimes, we forget how old these stories are. In this case, we have a book, The Clocks, first published in 1963 but, for these purposes, it’s relocated even further in the past. We start off in the tunnels under the White Cliffs of Dover, supposedly a secret headquarters for Naval Intelligence just before the outbreak of what will become World War II. An agent of the Nazi government has infiltrated the tunnels and, with the security so lax, an entire army of spies could have wandered in and rifled through all the secret plans, she steals the disposition of mines throughout the English Channel. This cannot be a complete secret because every ship sailing through the Channel must know which areas to avoid, particularly if they wish to enter one of the ports. But I suppose it’s always useful to German High Command to have certainty. For these purposes, we’re to assume the British would not simply move the fields once they realised the plans had been stolen. Perhaps that’s more easily said than done. Who knows?

Geoffrey Palmer and David Suchet not at sea in Dover

Anyway, the spy is observed in the act by another secretary, but her telephoned warning to the security section — a call taken by her lover, Lt. Colin Race (Tom Burke), who’s too busy playing cards to listen to her — is ignored. That forces our conscientious Brit to follow the spy. Both are killed in a car accident. Before she dies, our heroine writes a cryptic note which is presumed to be a reference to the address where the spy handed over the plans. When our negligent Lt. Race somewhat surprisingly escapes punishment and is surveying one of the possible addresses, he has the mixed fortune to collide with Sheila Webb (Jaime Winstone) who’s running out of a house having just discovered a dead body.

Tom Burke having lost one girl, quickly finds another

As a matter of historical record, the tunnels under Dover Castle were built in the early 1800s but were not adopted into use as a military command centre until 1940. Nevertheless, it’s a nice touch to start a spy story off there. The threat of a fifth column was very real and there was a strong counter-espionage operation in the Neville Chamberlain years before and after the Munich conference. The opening sequence in the tunnels and in the streets outside is nicely filmed as is the set-up with Sheila Webb, sent to the house by her typing agency. At this point we depart slightly from the novel. Over the years, a number of detective have either boasted of their ability to solve crimes without ever rising from their seats, or have only appeared in the real world through their assistants (e.g. Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe never leaves West Thirty-Fifth Street unless there’s a personal crisis). In this novel, the great Hercule Poirot is challenged to solve the murder case from the statements and other written evidence. In this adaptation, our young Lieutenant persuades Poirot to spend a day or two in Dover, ostensibly helping out Naval Intelligence which is convinced the murder and the disappearance of the plans are connected. This change in structure does make the story slightly easier to follow. It also allows the director to introduce one or two jokes at the expense of Poirot who, slightly more than usual, finds himself culturally at odds with the local Inspector Hardcastle (Phil Daniels).

Jaime Winstone as the chief murder suspect

I confess to finding both the original novel and this adaptation slightly less than the usual Agatha Christie standard. The hook is provided by the titular clocks. The question we are supposed to ask is why a young lady should so obviously arrange for herself to go to a house where she would not only kill a man, but also leave a number of clocks, all of which might suggest she was guilty. As an aside, the murder scene was the home of Miss Pebmarsh who’s played with remarkable power by Anna Massey. It was a sad loss when she died early in 2011. Her contribution to British acting for more than fifty years has been significant. Back to the plot, we also have the very tired ploy of the witness who realises something important but is killed before she can persuade the police to listen. Worse, in this adaptation, we even have the police shadowing another potential witness, only to lose sight and then find a third body. However you look at it, the police don’t come out of this story looking good. Indeed, they are shown as more than usually incompetent.

Anna Massey — still one of the best actresses, even close to the end

All this leaves us with David Suchet holding the leaky ship together. He’s his usual watchable self as Hercule Poirot. Indeed, after all these years, it’s hard to remember all the other talented actors who have tried their hands at the great detective. The director, Charles Palmer, and scriptwriter Stewart Harcourt, do their best to distract us with a mad cat lady and other eccentric neighbours around the first murder scene. The typing agency is quite nicely observed with the typists’ fascination for the awfulness of the novels they have to transcribe. Indeed, everyone does their best, sometimes melodramatically so, to get us through to the ending when the identity of the killer(s) is/are revealed and the secret plans are recovered. All Britain can sleep more safely in their beds, except for Sheila Webb and and the young Lieutenant, of course. Their meeting on the groyne on Dover beach would undoubtedly lead to less sleep for them. So, overall, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Clocks (2009) is a well-made episode with excellent production values and a good use of locations in Dover, but it’s a less than convincing mystery thanks to a relatively weak original plot. At least we should be grateful the production company has resisted the temptation to “improve” the original.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Clocks, Anna Massey, Charles Palmer, David Suchet, detective fiction, Hercule Poirot, Jaime Winstone, Phil Daniels, The Clocks, Tom Burke

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Three Act Tragedy (2011)

December 24, 2011 David Marshall Leave a comment

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Three Act Tragedy (2011) is one of Agatha Christie’s earlier books and this adaptation is reasonably faithful to both the plot and the period, it being set in the 1930s with an interesting set of characters, some of whom are sufficiently wealthy to slum it in art deco style houses on cliff tops when not routinely dining at the Ritz or in Monte Carlo, while others put on appearances and trawl the social world in the hope of finding enough customers to stave off bankruptcy. It’s all wonderfully superficial as the cast zoom down to Cornwall or up to Yorkshire via their London pied-à-terres. The director, Ashley Pearce, also nicely plays with the mis en scène, shifting between the pleasing opening framing shots to create iconic images of 1930’s life, both “real” and theatrical, the stylised coroner’s court, and the sometimes beautiful interiors. The overall look and feel is right, reinforcing the rather luxurious world in which Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) and others of his class move so comfortably. In this context, it’s fascinating to watch Poirot breach protocol when talking with those in service. If he’s to extract useful information from them, he must be reassuring and, for example, encourage a maid to be more open and honest than she might otherwise be. Servants had to be invisible and so were often able to observe embarrassing or illuminating facts about their masters and mistresses. They would not hold on to their positions very long if they were too quick to gossip. I suppose Poirot gets away with it because he’s “foreign” and so inherently less intimidating than the British upper and upper-middle classes.

Sir Charles Cartwright (Martin Shaw) at home with his telescope

At the other end of the scale come the redoubtable Sir Charles Cartwright (Martin Shaw), a retired actor in the grand style and his life-long friend from university, Dr Bartholomew Strange (Art Malik). These are men of high social visibility and personal wealth so, in terms of casting, it’s very pleasing to see Art Malik in the role of an eminent psychologist with a major estate in Yorkshire and a purpose-built “treatment centre” in the grounds. He has restored the house and now is a respected local employer. The loose cannon floating through this world is the playwright, Miss Mills (Kate Ashfield). She’s nicely picked out from the crowd as a slightly eccentric and solitary observer of the world. Never really mixing, she would rather eavesdrop and accumulate details for her next play set in this artificial bubble of a world.

David Suchet consults Kate Ashield, the very observant playwright

Although some other Christies do move around a little, this novel not only has Poirot and others charging across the English landscape courtesy of the railway service, there must also be a scene in Monte Carlo. This creates a slightly rushed feel, particularly as our detective must actually do the PI thing, stake-out a person of interest and then use the traditional, “follow that cab” line as if it was new. It’s always good to see our consulting detective get into the practicality of investigation rather than merely sitting in a room and allowing his little grey cells the chance to shine.

Reverend Babbington (Nigel Pegram) gets ready to sample his drink

As to the mystery itself, it offers a pleasing case for Poirot to investigate. Indeed, in a way, it comes as almost a personal challenge to see through the necessary deceptions to arrive at the truth. However, the reveal is rather more staged than usual. One of the critical problems for any detective working outside the formal police force is the acquisition of sufficient evidence to guarantee a conviction. Having a gathering of all the suspects and then working through to a reasoned conclusion is one of the ways in which the problem can be overcome. Superintendent Crossfield (Tony Maudsley) literally lurking in the wings of the theatre in the hope of a confession is potentially good. Except Poirot and the Superintendent already have more than enough evidence to arrest the suspect before everyone arrives at the theatre. More importantly, Poirot goes out of his way to protect one potential witness but there’s another person probably more at risk, i.e. the one protected may know whodunnit but the other has certain knowledge. Although it’s not a major defect, it does make the ending less satisfying than it might otherwise have been. Overall, this is one of the better adaptations with David Suchet allowed to engage in a little self-parody at times and make us smile.

As a final thought, I offer a note of clarification. If we travel back eighty and more years, it was necessary to prove fault in order to obtain a divorce. It’s fairly obvious if one spouse commits adultery or deserts the other, this is a form of matrimonial “offence” and will justify a court finding that spouse at fault. But, if the spouse is insane, he or she has no ability to form any intention of wrongdoing. Finding fault in such cases is therefore more difficult. Today, we have no-fault divorce and a decree is granted if the marriage has irretrievably broken down. This avoids the problem where one spouse lacks mental capacity.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Art Malik, Ashley Pearce, David Suchet, detective fiction, Hercule Poirot, Kate Ashfield, Martin Shaw, Three Act Tragedy

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express (2010)

December 18, 2011 David Marshall 6 comments

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Murder on the Orient Express (2010) is a joint production of ITV Studios and WGBH Boston staring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. As an adaptation of the original novel by Agatha Christie, this is an interesting attempt to reframe the story as a moral dilemma. It begins with Poirot conducting an investigation in Palestine which is abruptly concluded by the suicide of a man whom he was accusing of involvement in a murder. Regardless whether he was correct in his accusation, the immediacy of the man’s response to snatch up a gun, his blood splattering over Poirot, left Poirot with the sense he did not handle the entire affair well. When we get to Istanbul, a further street scene is added to the plot as he watches an angry crowd stone an adulteress. As viewers, we’re supposed to make a judgement about the act of retribution on behalf of the wronged husband. In this Turkish culture, stoning is the accepted form of punishment but we’re expected to condemn it as barbaric. We’re supposed to be predisposed to condemn vigilanteism by a crowd regardless of the perceived provocation.

David Suchet who has made the role of Hercule Poirot his own

There’s quite a heavy religious element running through this adaptation with Poirot shown praying and saying the rosary as a good Catholic should, except. . . Although Poirot almost certainly was a Catholic — most Belgians of that time would have been — there’s no real sign of religiosity in the particular book or, more generally, in the series as written by Agatha Christie. This is one episode of a long-running series of television adaptations and, although it’s an effective element in this one episode, it does rather skew the normal characterisation of the man. In the book, Poirot is a man of compassion who, while he does not approve the murder, agrees to allow the murderer(s) to go free. This version does not feel quite right.

If Poirot is inflexibly moralistic and we apply the tenets of the religion at that time, why should he decide to look the other way? The murderer(s) have paid their victim the compliment of imitation. Indeed, their premeditation probably makes them even less sympathetic than their victim unless we’re to assume the kidnapper always intended to kill the girl he abducted. A Catholic of that period would have been self-righteous and lack the will to lie to the police. The idea Poirot would cover up the crime and then walk away praying the rosary in the hope it would somehow wash away his sin is somewhat extraordinary. If the adaptation does offer a reason for this decision, we should consider Poirot’s refusal to act as the man’s bodyguard. He has seen the man in the hotel and observed him on the train. Regardless whether he recognises him as Cassetti, Poirot turns down the offer of a large sum to protect him. So, by omission, Poirot has some responsibility for the man’s death. He could have saved him but, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, chose to walk on the other side. Looking at the adaptations still to come to the small screen, this characterisation of Poirot could foreshadow Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. This more intense Catholicism and sense of guilt would fit more comfortably into the final mystery where much of the man’s narcissistic pride has evaporated and the little grey cells have lost some of their certainty.

David Suchet and the crowd

In this respect, it’s interesting to compare Poirot with Jacques Futrelle’s creation Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. As a detective, this man aspires to being a “calculating machine”. There’s no light or dark in his scientific approach to solving problems. He enjoys the challenge and leaves it to the world to deal with the morally grey areas in ascribing degrees of blameworthiness to the criminals. In most of his cases, Poirot is similarly free of moral doubts. He hands his solutions over to the police and courts, and rarely seems troubled by the human consequences of his work. This makes this adaptation somewhat heavy-handed. For example, at least one of the murders asserts the Lord was on her side. If this was believed real, the detective must step aside to allow divine retribution to prevail. In this battle between scientific methods of detection and religion, Sherlock Holmes is more clearly willing to work outside the law and exercise a personal judgement for mercy. Only once, in “Speckled Band”, does he flirt with the idea of taking the law into his own hands and dispatching the criminal. For all his trappings of science, Holmes remains a man rooted in the culture of his time. He’s more inclined to see the potential for destructiveness if pure science prevails over morality. It requires immense arrogance on the part of scientists or detectives using scientific methods, to assert only they can lead humanity to a new life of happiness.

Toby Jones as Cassetti after meeting the crowd

Returning to this television adaptation and looking past the attempt to convert a murder mystery into a modern morality tale, we do find a nicely claustrophobic production. There’s been a very real attempt to put the characters on top of each other in the different compartments with little room to swing a small proverbial cat. Even the dining car feels narrow and cramped with everyone huddling together. This is reinforced by limited lighting with shadows cast into the hollows of eyes and sunken cheeks as sleep comes hard and the cold creeps in from the snow drifts outside. Curiously, the cast is not asked to do much. They are shuffled around and, when asked, offer the usual evasions. I suppose the point is to leave them as faceless as the crowd who stoned the adulteress. Only Toby Jones as Cassetti is allowed enough time to establish himself as thoroughly unlikeable.

So, overall, Murder on the Orient Express is an interesting effort. It seems to have offended the Christie purists but there’s nothing inherently wrong with an adaptation that challenges conventional wisdom. For me, it’s a moderately successful version of a classic detective story.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, David Suchet, detective fiction, Hercule Poirot, Murder on the Orient Express, Toby Jones

Agatha Christie’s Marple (2007) — the final set of three episodes

December 10, 2011 David Marshall Leave a comment

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Well, with the final three lined up, I can maintain my morale and keep going. After the first disasters, it’s been a terrible struggle to switch on the television. With a derisive laugh, I can always hope the broadcasters saved the best for the last set of three. Towards Zero is another of these adaptations which inserts Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan) into the mystery. This is not necessarily an improvement on the Inspector Battle original, but it’s equally not necessarily a fatal flaw. A mystery is a mystery to be solved and this particular puzzle is quite elegant, no matter who does the sleuthing. The one good feature about this particular adaptation is the police officers who turn up to investigate the death that’s so obviously a murder are reasonably competent. They know to look for fingerprints and do search diligently for evidence. At times, they even ask intelligent questions when interviewing the select group of suspects. Their failure is to understand social dynamics of the people (who are not particularly likeable) and to see the significance of the summons from Lady Camilla’s room on the night she died. Incidentally, Eileen Atkins is rather pleasing as the reclusive old lady. It’s a shame she has to be bludgeoned to death. It makes a sad contrast with Tom Baker whose portrayal of Federick Treves tended to the grotesque. I suppose the whole thing worked quite well as entertainment although the drama of tipping poor Ted Latimer (Paul Nicholls) in the river was a bit over the top and the tennis match featuring Greg Rusedski and Neville Strange (Greg Wise) was tame. So, not that it’s in any sense a redemption for this series, this particular episode was one of the better ones. Perhaps we really will finish on a high note or two.

Eileen Atkins and Greg Wise

Ordeal By Innocence should have been better given the quality of the cast but, yet again, we have major tinkering with the original and poor direction. The result is that it’s rather difficult to distinguish between the adopted children. They all seem underdeveloped as characters. In the novel, there’s a better effort made to explore their individual personalities and, while this is not one of the best Christies, it does have a sound plot. Yet again Miss Marple has been inserted into the story and, worse, we have a change in the identity of the second victim and an unexpected suicide. Frankly, I fail to understand why the murderer should have chosen to kill Gwenda (Juliet Stevenson) and why add a twin only to have him disappear into the lake? Making any changes to the original should actually improve on the original, perhaps clarifying a weak point or making a dated element more meaningful to a modern audience. In this case, the result just feels muddled and, although the change to the ending does make quite a shrewd use of the book’s title, it’s the only ray of sunshine in this otherwise dismal swamp.

Juliet Stevenson when she was still engaged to be married

Looking back at a life wasted watching television, At Bertram’s Hotel has quite the most bizarrely confusing opening I can remember seeing in any sleuthing adaptation. The camera wanders around with Jane Marple bumping into people as the lobby of the hotel revolves around her and, supposedly, introduces all the main characters to us. In the original, the hotel has faded gentility. This has a Satchmo lookalike belting out a jazz number as the crowd from Piccadilly Circus, in town tonight, mills around without anyone to shout, “Stop”.* To say this is a re-imagining of the original novel is an understatement. Although the murder of Micky Gorman is reproduced with moderate reliability, the most fascinating aspect of the original has been thrown away, i.e. the actual purpose for the hotel remaining unchanged with the old folk lurking around the public rooms sipping tea.

Stephen Mangan as Inspector Bird on the roof with the body

The actual story we see on the screen with the twins, loopy renegades from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and black-market dealings in artwork is a travesty. What makes it all the more dire is the decision to share the work of detection with a maid, Jane Cooper (Martine McCutcheon) who shows up the bumbling Inspector Larry Bird (Stephen Mangan) and is rewarded with the chance to live with him at the end — presumably so she can solve more of his cases for him. This gives us another example of a very satisfying novel distorted out of recognition to no good effect.

Looking back at this series, I really cannot imagine why Granada Television felt the need to so completely rewrite most of the source novels. Agatha Christie was remarkably inventive and, while not always completely on target, she was rather better than the team of people lined up to write these adaptations. In this final case, the adaptation itself is made worse by the poor direction, not establishing a clear understanding of who everyone is supposed to be in the first half of the show. But the consistent problem has been Geraldine McEwan. It’s unfair to keep on harping about Joan Hickson whose portrayal of Miss Marple was magnificent. I suspect Joan Hickson was simply lucky to land in a team that respected the original intention of Agatha Christie and were prepared to go the extra mile to support the harder, more predatory interpretation. It would have been just as easy to find Joan Hickson left high and dry in dismal adaptations or surrounded by melodramatically-inclined actors. When you actually examine Geraldine McEwan’s view of Miss Marple, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of her hiding behind the mask of senile incompetence. But she should let it slip every now and again so we can all be in on the joke. As it is, the directors did little or nothing to bend the fourth wall to let us see the “real” Miss Marple at work. The result is a view of this character as rather dotty, often lurking in the background and not infrequently relying on others to do the work for her. Indeed, on many occasions, there’s very poor continuity where sidekicks talk with someone or see something significant but are never seen reporting what was heard or seen to our sleuth. Obviously, some kind of telepathy is involved. So apart from one or two episodes, there’s very little to recommend. If you have the choice, buy the DVD set of the earlier Joan Hickson versions.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Eileen Atkins, Geraldine McEwan, Greg Wise, Joan Hickson, Juliet Stevenson, Marple, Martine McCutcheon, Stephen Mangan

Agatha Christie’s Marple (2006) — the third set of three episodes

November 19, 2011 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

It was a close-run decision whether to continue watching but, as it turned out, The Moving Finger was the best of the series so far. Although this is not saying much, given the awfulness that has gone before, there was just enough encouragement. You can always hope you have the worst behind you. . . Anyway, this has Geraldine McEwan’s Marple rather more in the background, wandering around, often looking a bit dotty, but able to make pithy remarks of substance every now and again to show her brain is still working. The primary point of view falls to Jerry Burton (James D’Arcy) who failed to end it all on his motorbike (instead of crashing his plane in the original novel). I suppose it does give him more to chew on as he recovers both physically and emotionally in the backwater village of Lymstock. The casting of Ken Russell and Francis de la Tour as the Calthrops is faintly hilarious, but everyone else, surprisingly including Harry Enfield as the prissy solicitor, is held back. Although they are all caricatures, this village is not quite a jarring as some of the others we’ve been exposed to. I could have done without the knowing opening sequence showing the arrival of the Burtons in their red sportscar, but this script sat back and allowed the story to unfold at a steady pace. The trap for the murderer is all you would expect, but I can’t say as I like the staged suicide. The safety of all involved depends on the killer coming up with something not immediately fatal, so this scenario is all a bit contrived to let everyone emerge unscathed. Nevertheless, it’s reasonably enjoyable.

Jerry Burton dressed for dinner

And now a moment of reflection. Until a few years ago, I used to go to the RSC’s latest interpretations of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. There’s always something interesting to watch as different productions with different actors can bring out unexpected subtleties. The words themselves never change too much (although there was a very famous musical created out of Comedy of Errors where there were more substantial changes), but the entertainment experience can be very different. So when we come to a new set of adaptations of Miss Marple novels, there’s a chance for new light to shine on the usually clever plots. All of which brings me to the Sittaford Mystery. Frankly, at times, I thought I was watching a television version of The Mousetrap as a group of people, caught in the same place by heavy snow, try to work out who the killer is. Except this is neither the titular mystery nor the stage play. It’s just a travesty. I cannot recall ever seeing such a botched adaptation. This may not be one of Christie’s best books, but it deserves better than this. All I will say is that, while it may not be a bad idea to insert Miss Marple into this particular story, there’s absolutely no need to invent all this backstory about Egypt and trotting out Robert Hardy to do his Churchill impression is laughable. The whole proceeds at a funerial pace, delaying the important séance far too long and then producing a different murderer at the end. I suppose the murder only comes after an hour because Timothy Dalton was cast as the victim. Had it been anyone less prestigious, we could have killed him in the first few scenes and made progress with the plot. This adaptation is not entertaining in its own right nor is it in any way faithful to the Christie original.

Timothy Dalton looking Prime Minister material

All of which brings us to Nemesis. I have no great brief to defend the novel. Being the last Miss Marple novel and one of the last books she wrote before dying, it’s rather plodding in execution although the idea is up to the usual Agatha Christie standard. But the slowness of the novel is not an excuse to substantially rewrite the plot. I suppose if I came to the television adaptation not knowing anything about the original, it would seem quite a clever idea to maroon everyone on a tour bus. That said, the pace of the story on screen is turgid and the last act in the convent the worst kind of melodrama. As an adaptation, I can see absolutely no justification for radically changing the plot to omit one murder and change everything about the motivation for the original death, to convert Clotilde (Amanda Burton) and Anthea (now renamed Sister Agnes and played by Anne Reid) into nuns, to introduce Miss Marple’s nephew, Raymond West (Richard E Grant), to no good purpose and to omit Professor Wanstead who was important in resolving the crime in the novel.

Geraldine McEwan and Anne Reid trying to spot the murderer

I have to say I cannot imagine anyone less like the original Nemesis than Geraldine McEwan. She’s there with a twinkle in her eye and a slightly dotty look, completely unlike the spirit of divine retribution who’s supposed to have been remorseless in delivering just deserts (whether they were wanted or not). For this adaptation to work, we have to be prepared to believe the dead millionaire essentially did all the detective work before he died and could then persuade everyone implicated to turn up for the tour. His problem was that he didn’t have any actual evidence as to whodunnit and so must rely on Miss Maple to produce the confession. In neither case is this convincing. If there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to suggest a crime had been committed, no sane millionaire would rely on a person as portrayed by Geraldine McEwan to complete the investigation. Her decision to include the philandering and blocked author as her sidekick says it all. Neither one of them can cut the mustard, even if he was in the library with the candlestick.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, detective fiction, Geraldine McEwan, James D'Arcy, Miss Marple, Nemesis, Richard E Grant, Sittaford Mystery, The Moving Finger, Timothy Dalton

Agatha Christie’s Marple (2005) — the second set of three episodes

November 6, 2011 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

With a sense of foreboding, I sat down to watch this second set of three Marple adaptations. We had not exactly started off auspiciously and I had visions of Agatha Christie vaguely stirring in her grave as broadcast signals slowly penetrated the soil around her grave. The first effort is A Murder Is Announced. We’re back in a village circa the 1950s, this one appropriately named Chipping Cleghorn, where someone obviously well-meaning announces the imminent death of person or persons unknown. Come the appointed time, the lights go out, shots ring out and, not surprisingly, a man is duly found dead. Giving up her quiet holiday in a nearby hotel, Miss Marple invites herself into the middle of the investigation and, before long, she’s suggesting lines of inquiry to the random office officer in charge. It’s a wonderful commentary on these pre-CSI times that we could innocently believe our British police officers were so accessible and willing to give credence to an old biddy’s ideas. You can’t see an author today describing anything other than a highly professional squad that appears and erects barriers to keep curious eyes away. Not forgetting the Crown Prosecution Service lurking in the wings to ensure a fair trial will be possible. The notion of gathering all the suspects in the library for sherry and an accusation or two would be frowned on. Yet, that’s the Golden Age paradigm. We meet the cast of suspects, watch the sleuth at work and then arrive at the dénouement in which our detective reviews the evidence, highlights the clues and points the fickle finger of fate at the baddie(s).

Zoë Wanamaker, Geraldine McEwan and Elaine Paige in A Murder Is Announced

Let’s characterise this series as a race between Geraldine McEwan and Joan Hickson. The new team wants to distance itself from the earlier series. It wants this set of adaptations to be better. So they have no compunction in rewriting the books to make for “better” television. Yet one of the more extraordinary aspects of this adaptation is that the production team neglected to do anything about Mitzi (Catherine Tate). The 1950s was a time of great parochialism and hostility to all foreigners, particularly if they were coloured. Indeed, in the next episode, Sleeping Murder, a seaside town is thrown into a paranoid frenzy when a person of Indian origin is seen on the promenade — ironically, something that did not happen in the original novel. Anyway, Mitzy who cooks and “does for” the family is an appalling caricature and it would have been better to avoid pandering to our current anti-immigration prejudices by toning down the performance. That the script leaves out characters from the book, overeggs the relationship between Hinch and Murgatroyd, and actually has Miss Marple cry when she comes across a body, shows the production team has no compunction about changing stuff. In this case, I’m not convinced this does justice to the book but, in its own terms, it does manage to focus on the core mystery which remains ingenious. Zoë Wanamaker and Elaine Page are quite pleasing as Letitia Blacklock and Dora Bunner.

Sophia Myles, Aidan McArdle and Geraldine McEwan in Sleeping Murder

A Sleeping Murder is one of these deeply annoying adaptations of a novel in which we’re expected to accept the extraordinary as complete ordinary. Although Sophia Myles does her best as Gwenda Halliday, her arrival in this particular house in this particular village is such an amazing contrivance made worse by the ability of Aidan McArdle as Hugh Hornbeam to pick up a telephone and summon Miss Marple at the first sign of hysteria. Quite what possessed the production team to murder a reasonably good book with this farrago of rubbish is beyond me. In the original, Ms Halliday is newly married and arrives from New Zealand. There’s no connection to India, no Hugh Holliday as a love interest, and no Funnybones at the end of the pier where, quite frankly, they should all have sunk without trace since sorting out their relationships is hardly entertaining. The only good thing about this episode was the quality of the singing by Sarah Parish and Anna-Louise Plowman.

Anthony Andrews, Geraldine McEwan and Greta Scacchi in By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Then as if the producers decided to go for death by a thousand cuts, we move on to the even more annoying adaptation of By The Pricking of My Thumbs. I didn’t believe this lot would go for complete butchery but this is the case here. This is a perfectly respectably Tommy and Tuppence novel, a series in which Agatha Christie would let her hair down a little and write a more thrillerish, atmospheric book. There would always be a basic puzzle to unravel, but she was always aiming for a greater spirit of adventure than ever would have surrounded the semi-geriatric Jane Marple. For those of you who have yet to dip into one of these books, Tommy works for MI6 and, together with his wife Tuppence, they catch nazi spies during the war and are involved in other faintly daring-dos. For the record, they are equally bright and tend to strike sparks off each other until they arrive at the “answer”. In this mockery, we have Tuppence (Greta Scacchi) as an alcoholic wife left on the shelf by an absentee Tommy (Anthony Andrews). In a visit to a nursing home to visit Tommy’s aunt, Tuppence meets Miss Marple and, in due course, they set off the investigate the goings-on in Farrell St Edmund. When Tommy does appear, he’s played as a pompous idiot who uses the threat of instant incarceration in the Tower if anyone fails to answer one of his questions. Not even the joy of seeing Steven Berkoff and Leslie Phillips can prevent this from being the worst in this Marple series so far.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: A Murder Is Announced, A Sleeping Murder, Agatha Christie, Anthony Andrews, By The Pricking of My Thumbs, detective fiction, Elaine Page, Geraldine McEwan, Greta Scacchi, Marple, Sophia Myles, Zoë Wanamaker

Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004) — the first three episodes

October 22, 2011 David Marshall Leave a comment

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I’ve read every novel and short story by Agatha Christie, reading all the paperbacks to catch up in the 1950s, and then buying the hardbacks as they were published until the final case. This means, with one of two exceptions, I’ve got most of the plots in my memory. So, in watching these adaptations of the Miss Marple novels, I’ve been able to remember whodunnit — well with one exception which I’ll come to later.

I find myself faintly amused because, growing up in the immediate period following World War II, I knew people like the characters shown in this “modern” reproduction. Although I was merely middle class and never attended a country-house weekend, my parents were on the fringes of higher society and mixed with people who did. We lived in a private estate — in modern terms, it was a gated community. What actually happened was that on a preset number of days in a year, the groundsman closed the gates to prevent a permanent right of way being established along our road. Looking back on it, most of the children and teens I grew up with were from monied backgrounds. I met their parents at the social events. Before television became established, neighbours used to take it in turns to throw open their homes for an evening party. It was a fascinating time and it’s captured with considerable skill in this series of adaptations.

An older and more thoughtful Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

Born in 1932, Geraldine McEwan has been one of England’s premier actresses for decades. I’ve seen her live on stage in the West End and the Nat — she had immense presence. Even on the small screen, there’s an irresistible life about her and she hits a note of impish charm in this version of Miss Marple. However, I’m not sure we should be smiling at or with Miss Marple. I remind myself of the performances given by Joan Hickson in the television adaptations shown in the 1980s. There was a certain air of menace about that Jane Marple. You had the sense that, behind the apparent confusion you would expect of a lady of that age, there was a real predator waiting to pounce.

Geraldine McEwan and Amanda Holden in 4.50 From Paddington

So, in the order I’ve seen the series, we started with The Murder at the Vicarage. Frankly, this is a less than impressive mystery. It’s too contrived, depending on being able to ensure Miss Marple will not be too seriously injured as the motorcycle sweeps by. First published in 1930, the characters are cyphers who move around to be in the right places at the right time. Nevertheless, some of the stereotypical characters from village life are nicely skewered in this adaptation and we have the joy of seeing old stalwarts like Herbert Lom and Mirian Margolyes. Except when the team was meeting to plan the series in 2003/4, I wonder what justification they devised for relocating the series to the 1950s. Yes, it makes the milieu instantly recognisable to me as an older viewer, but what other benefits flow from bringing this classic novel twenty years forward in time? Does it make it cheaper and easier to dress the sets, find old cars still running, or save time in recreating the clothes? Frankly, it just annoys me. If you are going to be “true” to a book when adapting it for the screen, you should not reinvent it unless there’s a good reason. This is not the same as, say, staging one of Shakespeare’s plays in modern dress. Often relocating the plot into a more recognisable modern context gives a new set of interpretations to the words. This enhances our understanding and translates the original intention into a form more accessible to the modern audience. I see absolutely no benefit from relocating Miss Marple into the 1950s. As a further trivial objection, using Hambleden, Bucks. as St. Mary Meade is disconcerting when it so regularly pops up in television and films, e.g. in the Midsomer Murders, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, etc.

Then we come to What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw (or as I prefer to think of it, 4.50 From Paddington). This is slightly more in the Tommy and Tuppence mould, with Lucy Eyelesbarrow (Amanda Holden) doing some unofficial sleuthing in the country home of the Crackenthorpe family. This allows for some routine melodrama as our young heroine finds the original body from the train and is a key witness to the death of a family member. This has more life about it for the contemporary audience, but it remains fairly trite.

Geraldine McEwan and Joanna Lumley showing period charm

Finally, The Body in the Library appeared and, for the first time, I found myself involved. Although we start off in St. Mary Mead, this is mostly set in Eastbourne which is shot in a nicely period way, showing life in a hotel with its thé dansants and evening dances and bridge sessions. This directly matches my own experiences of seaside holidays in the 1950s with the snobbishness beautifully caught on screen. Better still, we have the joy of Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantree, Ian Richardson as the tragically-wounded Conway Jefferson and, of all people, Simon Callow as Colonel Melchett, but. . .

At this point, I need to step back. What’s the purpose of a television adaptation of a classic novel? In one sense, it’s a rescue mission. Sometimes, the prose style doesn’t travel well in time, so showing us the story makes it more accessible to a modern audience. However, I disapprove of an adaptation that rewrites the ending, particularly in a whodunnit. After reflection, I understand why I was hooked. The sly banter between Geraldine McEwan and Joanna Lumley is very contemporary in tone. Thematically, there’s also a lot more sexuality on display than ever Agatha Christie would have written about. This is very much a story for a modern audience. On balance, I’m not convinced. If adapters want to write their own detective stories, that’s fine by me. But they should not rewrite classic novels, changing the identity of the killer or killers. How would the audience feel if Pride and Prejudice was rewritten so that Elizabeth marries either Mr. Collins or Mr. Wickham? I suspect there would be rioting in the streets as everyone equipped themselves with new trainers, kitchen knives and other essentials with which to pursue the writers. So, I give this a good mark as contemporary television, but zero as an adaptation of a classic novel.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: 4.50 From Paddington, Agatha Christie, detective fiction, Geraldine McEwan, Golden Age, Joan Hickson, Miss Marple, The Body in the Library, The Murder at the Vicarage

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Agatha Christie’s Marple (2007) — the final set of three episodes

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