Jonathan Storm: New round of 4 Agatha Christie tales
There's much to be said for familiarity and comfort. I still have some of my Dad's golf socks from the '60s. They don't make them like that anymore.
There's much to be said for familiarity and comfort. I still have some of my Dad's golf socks from the '60s. They don't make them like that anymore.
In some corners of TV, they do make them like that anymore, as Masterpiece Mystery! demonstrates with its new round of Agatha Christie tales, three Poirots and one Miss Marple. The new productions begin Sunday with M. Hercule Poirot investigating untimely deaths in fine country houses in Cornwall and Yorkshire.
There have been many Marples. People say no one can replace the original, Margaret Rutherford. The august Helen Hayes and Angela Lansbury tried in the movies; Joan Hickson had a great run on TV, followed by Geraldine McEwan and, currently, Julia McKenzie, who will star in "The Pale Horse" on PBS on July 10.
Disney has a deal for Twin Peaks' Mark Frost to write a new one for the big screen, starring Jennifer Garner. That will be different.
The current Poirot, David Suchet, is widely considered the best, following Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Albert Finney, Tony Randall, and others. He's back Sunday in "Three Act Tragedy," followed on subsequent Sundays by "The Clocks" and "Hallowe'en Party."
Suchet is my old friend, one of the TV stars I met on my first spin at the Television Critics Association L.A. Press Tour 21 years ago, just as his first, 10-installment essay of the part, beginning with "Adventure of the Clapham Cook," was ready to roll in America on Mystery!
"Suchet's integrity as Poirot is what really lifts the effort," I wrote, and it's true today. "His detective is not a clown, but a very human little man whose keen powers of deduction, neurotic fastidiousness, and large ego make him a consummate professional, annoying companion, and formidable adversary. Over it all, Suchet adds a benevolence that also makes Poirot a fine friend."
"Three Act Tragedy" has the same panache. Christie's characters lived above the economic and social upheaval that preceded World War II, in a style and slow pace that would be wiped out by it.
Art Deco was everywhere, even in the automobiles. Everyone dressed for dinner. Travel was civilized, not for every sardine who could swipe a credit card. In this one, Hercule takes Le Train Bleu to Monte Carlo.
"Where do you stay?" his friend inquires.
"The Majestic, naturellement," Poirot responds, as we wonder, as always, where his money comes from.
In 1990, I noted the wonderful supporting work by characters with small parts, a maid, for instance played by Katy Murphy, who has worked in British TV off and on ever since. Jodie McNee does a fine turn in a similar role this time.
Kimberley Nixon (as Egg), Martin Shaw (Cartwright), and Jane Asher (Lady Mary, "long on breeding, short on cash") are notable in larger parts.
After an entertaining 40 minutes or so, when we meet the usual eclectic stable of possible murderers, witness the usual shocking developments, and watch amateurs do a little detecting in gorgeous surroundings, Poirot announces that it is, once again, time for "the approach classique. . . . We eliminate the suspects one by one. We do not scamper around like the puppy."
And what a pleasure it is, once again, to see the old dog not doing any new tricks.
Jonathan Storm:
Television
Masterpiece Mystery!
9 p.m. Sunday on WHYY TV12