Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Movie Collection - Set 4

POIROT:  THE MOVIE COLLECTION SET 4

Studio: Acorn Media
Year:  2009
Rated:  N/A
Film Length:  Approx. 3 hours, 45 minutes
Aspect Ratio:  anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1
Audio:   PCM Stereo 
Subtitles:  English
Release Date: July 7, 2009

By some serendipity that defies logical explanation, the classically trained, former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, David Suchet has emerged as the definitive Hercule Poirot, Dame Agatha Christie’s diminutive Belgian sleuth whose “little gray cells” help to crack one murder after another (often two or more in one case, as a matter of fact).   Suchet has played Poirot now for decades, and obviously has his interpretation down pat:  the natty little mannerisms, the bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder tics, the faint disgust with which Poirot often views his adopted country of Great Britain and, not so coincidentally, its countrymen.

Through the many years of Poirot adventures, feature length episodes were interspersed with the more traditional ones which had a broadcast length (including commercials) of around an hour.  For the past several years, A&E and/or PBS’ Mystery series have provided some new, bigger budgeted efforts that tend to run around 90 or so minutes.  The downside is that none of these include Poirot mainstays Inspector Japp, Hastings or Miss Lemon.  The upside is they provide an unusually introspective interpretation of Poirot by Suchet, one that doesn’t shy away from encroaching age and loneliness.  These are somewhat dolorous Poirots, but they’re none the less enjoyable for that certain amount of nostalgia which inhabits them.

Mrs. McGinty’s Dead finds Poirot attempting to absolve a young man who has already been convicted of the murder of a lower class cleaning lady (a “char”—for charwoman—in British parlance).  What seems like an open and shut case of robbery soon becomes a labyrinth of hidden identities and multi-generational connections, as is so often the case in Christie mysteries, whether or not they feature Poirot, Miss Marple, or any of the host of other detectives she created in her long career.   Speaking of detectives, this episode features the return of Zoe Wanamaker as the delightfully ascerbic crime writer Ariadne Oliver, a creation obviously serving as a stand-in for Christie herself.  When Oliver decries her own detective creation and how after public acclaim she’s been saddled with him ever since, it doesn’t take a sleuth of Poirot’s powers to figure out Christie is offering some trenchant commentary on her own state.  Also giving a wonderful more or less cameo in this episode is the delightful Sian Phillips, the former Mrs. Peter O’Toole whom many of you will remember as the evil Livia in I, Claudius.  This is an elegant production which makes the most of its sylvan setting and offers several red herrings that should keep all but the most astute armchair detectives guessing until the final denouement.

Equally elegant, if not more so, is the sterling adaptation of Cat Among the Pigeons, which finds Poirot attempting to solve a series of murders at an upscale girls’ boarding school.  If this episode occasionally leaves some salient details out, evidently assuming the viewer will be able to put two and two together, it more than makes up for it in one of the more filmic adaptations to grace the long history of Poirot on television.  This episode, positing Poirot (almost like the cat in the title) among that most British of institutions—the boarding school—allows for the sort of eyebrow raising fun that makes the interplay between our Belgian hero and his veddy, veddy British hosts (hostesses in this case) so amusing.  This episode has a number of neat surprises tucked within it, if the outcome is a little less satisfactory than some other Christie outings.

These are both beautifully filmed and performed productions.  My one caveat, one that I’ve had with other later Poirot episodes (and one which may seem incredibly minor to some of you), is the ridiculous lack of Christopher Gunning’s evocative theme music, a theme which graced the series during its long PBS run and is noticeable for being so absent.  It’s to the producers’ credit that they at least briefly quote the theme in Mrs. McGinty’s Dead; unfortunately there’s not a note of it to be heard in Cat Among the Pigeons.  The underscore they currently use, a sort of Psycho massed string piece as composed by a minimalist like Philip Glass, may point up the sinister aspects of the series, but it is nowhere near as Deco perfect as Gunning’s original.

Video:  These beautifully filmed episodes are offered in an anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 OAR.  Colors, while at times purposefully muted, sport excellent saturation, and contrast and detail are solid throughout.  There are occasional very brief artifacts to report, on such items as herringbone jackets and the like, but overall these are very nice looking DVDs.

Audio:  The PCM Stereo tracks are uniformly excellent, despite the dearth of Gunning's music.  All dialogue is crisp and clear, though (as is usually the case with episodes featuring the "lower class" British dialects), some of the accents can be hard to fathom.  Luckily there are English subtitles to help you through those brief moments.

Extras:  Each of the features comes with the standard text biographies/filmographies, as well as a list of all the Poirot books and stories.  There's also a bonus third disc offering a 45 minute retrospective on the entire series.  It's fun to see Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson and Pauline Moran after so long, but they're all looking relatively youthful and spry, which begs the question:  why not have them in some of these newer episodes?