This is kind of enjoyable for a number of reasons that are unimportant but add up to something greater than its parts. One thing is its educational content. The plot isn't simply a matter of intrigues in a dysfunctional family or anything so familiar. The mystery is focused on a Victory Ball at a mansion. The guests are all costumed as celebrated figures. Hastings goes as the Scarlet Pimpernel. Poirot goes as himself.
The mystery centers on the murder of two of the half-dozen characters dressed and masked in the costumes of Commedia dell'arte, a kind of Italian troupe improvising antics on 17th-century stages. Maybe no one else cares but I've been interested in the ways in which this now defunct bit of alien theater has left behind fragments that we can identify today -- Harlequin Romances, harlequin glasses, pirouettes, Punch and Judy, the words "pants", "zany", and "burlesque," and a movie titled "Scaramouche." Picasso painted the characters. The Marx brothers modernized them.
The young man playing Pierot is found murdered in one of the rooms, a butter knife through his heart (!), a ripped-off costume button in his clenched hand, an empty cocaine box on his chest, and a monogrammed handkerchief next to his body. (The possibility of fingerprints is dismissed at once; Agatha Christie had no more interest in fingerprints than Conan-Doyle did.) A multitude of clues -- too many, in fact, for anyone to piece together except you-know-who.
Another minor element that adds relish to the viewing is the occasional bit of subdued humor, and, man, it IS subdued. I mention in passing that the detective is once referred to as "Mister Poy-rot." Poirot and Japp more or less reconstruct the crime on a live BBC radio show, during which Poirot reveals the murder and the motive. The solution depends partly on the same trick that Gregory Peck used to demonstrate the innocence of a murder suspect in "To Kill A Mockingbird," but it was surely a case of independent invention.
After the show, as Poirot, Japp, and Hastings are leaving the studio, someone rushes up and tells them that the station has been flooded with phone calls of delight regarding the night's performance. Poirot smiles slightly with satisfaction, until the messenger adds that the only complaints were about someone's lurid accent and mangling of the language. An irritated Poirot immediately blames Japp for using terms like "this lot" and "you lot" and, before mincing out the door, promises to send Japp his copy of "the English, as she should be spoken." Well, it may lose some of its impact in print, but it's an amusing incident on the screen.
The mystery centers on the murder of two of the half-dozen characters dressed and masked in the costumes of Commedia dell'arte, a kind of Italian troupe improvising antics on 17th-century stages. Maybe no one else cares but I've been interested in the ways in which this now defunct bit of alien theater has left behind fragments that we can identify today -- Harlequin Romances, harlequin glasses, pirouettes, Punch and Judy, the words "pants", "zany", and "burlesque," and a movie titled "Scaramouche." Picasso painted the characters. The Marx brothers modernized them.
The young man playing Pierot is found murdered in one of the rooms, a butter knife through his heart (!), a ripped-off costume button in his clenched hand, an empty cocaine box on his chest, and a monogrammed handkerchief next to his body. (The possibility of fingerprints is dismissed at once; Agatha Christie had no more interest in fingerprints than Conan-Doyle did.) A multitude of clues -- too many, in fact, for anyone to piece together except you-know-who.
Another minor element that adds relish to the viewing is the occasional bit of subdued humor, and, man, it IS subdued. I mention in passing that the detective is once referred to as "Mister Poy-rot." Poirot and Japp more or less reconstruct the crime on a live BBC radio show, during which Poirot reveals the murder and the motive. The solution depends partly on the same trick that Gregory Peck used to demonstrate the innocence of a murder suspect in "To Kill A Mockingbird," but it was surely a case of independent invention.
After the show, as Poirot, Japp, and Hastings are leaving the studio, someone rushes up and tells them that the station has been flooded with phone calls of delight regarding the night's performance. Poirot smiles slightly with satisfaction, until the messenger adds that the only complaints were about someone's lurid accent and mangling of the language. An irritated Poirot immediately blames Japp for using terms like "this lot" and "you lot" and, before mincing out the door, promises to send Japp his copy of "the English, as she should be spoken." Well, it may lose some of its impact in print, but it's an amusing incident on the screen.