1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 94: Poirot: Dumb witness
[Preliminary rant]
I don’t believe in David Suchet’s Poirot.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Hercule?” (I keep wondering).
Indeed, Poirot in this book rules out various suspects because he deems them incapable of the murder in question.
This is more than a difference of detail; it’s what the story turns on.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
More lines from the adaptation:
It’s the sloppiness of impostor-Poirot’s aphorism that strikes such a false note.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Suchet’s body language is wrong, too. Poirot is famously dapper. Suchet puts on dapper clothes but not a dapper manner.
He is repitilian: he hunches down into his shoulders, scans the horizon, seems almost to taste the air with a forked tongue.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Worst of all, this Poirot’s eyes don’t twinkle. (For a more mirthful Poirot, see Evil under the Sun, with Peter Ustinov.)
Too little mirth betrays too much self-seriousness, which betrays a deficiency of wisdom. But wisdom is the little Belgian detective’s outstanding, if seldom remarked upon, quality.
I might hire Suchet’s Poirot to solve a murder. I wouldn’t go to him for life advice. But that is precisely what the novels so richly provide.
I would stake my intellectual and moral reputation on the profundity of Christie’s hero. But I’d stake nothing on Suchet’s Poirot’s having more depth than a can of tuna.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Suchet has his champions, of course. He certainly looks the part.
Those who turn to this production for its window-dressing will be satisfied.
It’s the window-dressing that I commend in what follows.
[End of rant]
This adaptation of Dumb Witness glamorizes the setting by moving it from the Home Counties (and London) to the Lake District.
An early sequence shows a 1930s-era boat-racer’s attempt to set the world’s fastest mile time.
[Digression]
Nothing like this occurs in the book. The sequence’s purpose is entirely sensory-nostalgic. Considered on its own, this isn’t a damning quality, but it does encourage the thought that Christie was in the business of supplying comfort literature.
She was, and she wasn’t.
It’s comforting that justice – or, on occasion, enlightened vigilantism – triumphs in her books.
But as I never tire of asserting, the closest cinematic approximation to Christie, tonally speaking, isn’t based on her work at all. The movie in question is Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, which hardly inspires a yearning for the time and place it depicts. Christie’s work is grittier than this show gives it credit for.
[End of digression]
The speedboat catches fire; the racer barely escapes alive. Afterward, there is a gathering at the house of the racer’s rich Aunt Emily. Present with the hostess and the racer – the rakish Charles (whose repairs of the boat Emily has just refused to fund) – are Charles’s twin sister, Theresa; their cousin, Bella (another niece of Emily’s); Bella’s foreign husband, Jacob, and their children; Poirot and his friend, Captain Arthur Hastings; Miss Wilhemina, Emily’s paid companion; Doctor Grainger, Emily’s physician and Miss Wilhelmina’s beau; the Misses Tripp, forecasters of doom and gloom; and Bob, Emily’s fox terrier.
The portrait of The General, Emily’s ancestor, hangs over the proceedings. These are hijacked by the Misses Tripp, who elicit from The General’s spirit a foretelling of Emily’s demise.
That night, Emily falls down the stairs. She survives but is badly shaken. Did she slip on Bob’s ball (found on the landing)? No, thinks Poirot, who observes that Bob never leaves his toys lying about haphazardly. Emily was tripped. Poirot advises her to change her will.
Not long afterward, there is a first murder, and then there is a second. These are spectacular scenes. The first victim, before collapsing, is enveloped in a green haze. (“It’s her spirit passing!” gleefully exclaim the Misses Tripp.) The second victim is gassed with carbon monoxide. Instead of quietly losing consciousness, he jumps out of bed, gasps terribly, and flops over. Not carbon monoxide’s usual effect, I understand. Nor is this murder included in the novel. Never mind. It’s window-dressing we want, and that’s what the adaptation gives us.
Poirot and Hastings remain nearby for all of this, at the Motor Boat Racing Club. Poirot is tolerated although he is not a member (and is a foreigner). For he is famous. Jacob, the foreign husband of Bella, Emily’s niece, is not allowed inside the building. Poirot is indignant but remains at the club. He and Hastings observe the waiter refill the salt shakers (“cellars”) which are exquisite to behold and justifiably incorporated into the story. (How careless of Christie to have left them out.)
Two masked, black-clad figures paddle up to a dock under glorious twilight and break into Emily’s house. Fortunately, The General’s portrait falls off its hook, crashes, and rouses the household. The burglars flee. I don’t recall, but they probably paddle away in the dark. Poirot will reveal their identities when he gathers the household together to announce the identity of the murderer.
There is a final injustice in the disposal of Emily’s property. Everyone wants her money, but no one wants Bob, her dashing, intelligent fox terrier. The Misses Tripp even go so far as to hold a séance to accuse Bob of the crime. Poirot must hatch a most deceitful scheme to secure a home for Bob. One admires the cuteness but doubts the wisdom of this scheme.
And that, in a nutshell, is how I feel about the adaptation.
I don’t believe in David Suchet’s Poirot.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Hercule?” (I keep wondering).
Perhaps he says this somewhere in the corpus, but not in the novel Dumb Witness. Poirot seldom generalizes about murder. He is interested in particular murders.POIROTI say all are capable of murder, mon ami.
Indeed, Poirot in this book rules out various suspects because he deems them incapable of the murder in question.
This is more than a difference of detail; it’s what the story turns on.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
More lines from the adaptation:
No seasoned Poirot reader would impute to him the view that murder is doable only under the influence of madness.HASTINGSQuite a list of suspects, Poirot.
POIROTWhich is not complete. You forget the sisters Tripp [local spiritualists].
HASTINGSOh, those two? They’re batty, yes, but not killers, surely.
POIROTBut what is murder but a kind of madness, mon ami?
It’s the sloppiness of impostor-Poirot’s aphorism that strikes such a false note.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Suchet’s body language is wrong, too. Poirot is famously dapper. Suchet puts on dapper clothes but not a dapper manner.
He is repitilian: he hunches down into his shoulders, scans the horizon, seems almost to taste the air with a forked tongue.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Worst of all, this Poirot’s eyes don’t twinkle. (For a more mirthful Poirot, see Evil under the Sun, with Peter Ustinov.)
Too little mirth betrays too much self-seriousness, which betrays a deficiency of wisdom. But wisdom is the little Belgian detective’s outstanding, if seldom remarked upon, quality.
I might hire Suchet’s Poirot to solve a murder. I wouldn’t go to him for life advice. But that is precisely what the novels so richly provide.
I would stake my intellectual and moral reputation on the profundity of Christie’s hero. But I’d stake nothing on Suchet’s Poirot’s having more depth than a can of tuna.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Suchet has his champions, of course. He certainly looks the part.
Those who turn to this production for its window-dressing will be satisfied.
It’s the window-dressing that I commend in what follows.
[End of rant]
This adaptation of Dumb Witness glamorizes the setting by moving it from the Home Counties (and London) to the Lake District.
An early sequence shows a 1930s-era boat-racer’s attempt to set the world’s fastest mile time.
[Digression]
Nothing like this occurs in the book. The sequence’s purpose is entirely sensory-nostalgic. Considered on its own, this isn’t a damning quality, but it does encourage the thought that Christie was in the business of supplying comfort literature.
She was, and she wasn’t.
It’s comforting that justice – or, on occasion, enlightened vigilantism – triumphs in her books.
But as I never tire of asserting, the closest cinematic approximation to Christie, tonally speaking, isn’t based on her work at all. The movie in question is Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, which hardly inspires a yearning for the time and place it depicts. Christie’s work is grittier than this show gives it credit for.
[End of digression]
The speedboat catches fire; the racer barely escapes alive. Afterward, there is a gathering at the house of the racer’s rich Aunt Emily. Present with the hostess and the racer – the rakish Charles (whose repairs of the boat Emily has just refused to fund) – are Charles’s twin sister, Theresa; their cousin, Bella (another niece of Emily’s); Bella’s foreign husband, Jacob, and their children; Poirot and his friend, Captain Arthur Hastings; Miss Wilhemina, Emily’s paid companion; Doctor Grainger, Emily’s physician and Miss Wilhelmina’s beau; the Misses Tripp, forecasters of doom and gloom; and Bob, Emily’s fox terrier.
The portrait of The General, Emily’s ancestor, hangs over the proceedings. These are hijacked by the Misses Tripp, who elicit from The General’s spirit a foretelling of Emily’s demise.
That night, Emily falls down the stairs. She survives but is badly shaken. Did she slip on Bob’s ball (found on the landing)? No, thinks Poirot, who observes that Bob never leaves his toys lying about haphazardly. Emily was tripped. Poirot advises her to change her will.
Not long afterward, there is a first murder, and then there is a second. These are spectacular scenes. The first victim, before collapsing, is enveloped in a green haze. (“It’s her spirit passing!” gleefully exclaim the Misses Tripp.) The second victim is gassed with carbon monoxide. Instead of quietly losing consciousness, he jumps out of bed, gasps terribly, and flops over. Not carbon monoxide’s usual effect, I understand. Nor is this murder included in the novel. Never mind. It’s window-dressing we want, and that’s what the adaptation gives us.
Poirot and Hastings remain nearby for all of this, at the Motor Boat Racing Club. Poirot is tolerated although he is not a member (and is a foreigner). For he is famous. Jacob, the foreign husband of Bella, Emily’s niece, is not allowed inside the building. Poirot is indignant but remains at the club. He and Hastings observe the waiter refill the salt shakers (“cellars”) which are exquisite to behold and justifiably incorporated into the story. (How careless of Christie to have left them out.)
Two masked, black-clad figures paddle up to a dock under glorious twilight and break into Emily’s house. Fortunately, The General’s portrait falls off its hook, crashes, and rouses the household. The burglars flee. I don’t recall, but they probably paddle away in the dark. Poirot will reveal their identities when he gathers the household together to announce the identity of the murderer.
There is a final injustice in the disposal of Emily’s property. Everyone wants her money, but no one wants Bob, her dashing, intelligent fox terrier. The Misses Tripp even go so far as to hold a séance to accuse Bob of the crime. Poirot must hatch a most deceitful scheme to secure a home for Bob. One admires the cuteness but doubts the wisdom of this scheme.
And that, in a nutshell, is how I feel about the adaptation.