Teresa Reviews “The Secret Adversary” (2015)

Fidelity to text:

one gun. The names match. Jane Finn remains a woman of mystery. The secret adversary of the title remains. Virtually everything else was altered from a little to a lot.

Quality of movie on its own:

one & 1/2 guns but only because it started off well and I like ’50s clothes and sets. After that, it devolved steadily into ridiculous plot contrivances until Bill and I were groaning, catcalling the actors, and rolling our eyes at what we were watching. Keep in mind that I’m not a harsh judge of movies. This movie did not hold together.

As with so many of the Agatha Christie film adaptations, The Secret Adversary was a television show. In this case, the BBC produced a series called Partners in Crime. The series set out to follow Tommy and Tuppence’s adventures. For those of you keeping score at home, Agatha wrote four novels and a loosely connected series of short stories about them. Tommy and Tuppence start out as bright young moderns in 1919 and gradually age in real time until Postern of Fate (1973), when they’re in their seventies.

The producers filmed one season: The Secret Adversary consisting of three one-hour episodes, aired in July 2015. N or M?, also three one-hour episodes, aired in August 2015.

The series was canceled after that and after watching The Secret Adversary, I can see why. I doubt if N or M? will be any better but that one is still waiting in the queue. I shudder to think of what I’m in for.

What went wrong? The BBC is well-known for good adaptations of great British literature. They spend the money to do it up fine. Watching the three episodes back-to-back, just like a movie, showed that they spent money on costumes, sets, accessories, music, acting. Everything in fact except the single most important component of any movie.

The script.

It was dreadful.

The Secret Adversary didn’t work as an adaptation and it didn’t work as a standalone movie for newcomers who’ve never heard of Tommy and Tuppence.

We’ll begin at the beginning. For some mysterious reason, the BBC decided to set the story not in 1919, right after the demobilization of the Great War, when England was awash in returning soldiers who couldn’t find jobs but in 1952. 1952!

This completely changes the tenor of the story. Agatha wrote her novel when the war was still fresh and raw, England was recovering, and there was massive social unrest. Russia had endured a violent revolution, the tsar and his family murdered, the continent was soaked with blood, and political repercussions from the Great War were everywhere. Bolsheviks were lurking around every corner.

In addition, the industrial revolution was gearing up faster than ever, motor-cars were showing up all over the place, women were finding a much louder voice than ever before, and servants discovered that factory work paid better and was less demeaning. The entire social structure of England was under attack.

I suppose that wasn’t enough background excitement for the BBC so instead we get 1952. It was the Cold War so they could shoehorn Communists into the plot.

Perhaps they needed to recoup the money they’d spent on other TV series set in 1952. Those sets, cars, costumes, and accessories were going begging so why not reuse them?

In the novel, Tommy and Tuppence are both in their early twenties and single. They meet by chance on the street. They’re broke and looking for work; any kind of work will do. They knew each other from years before, but this time, it’s different. Sparks fly and romance blooms.

Not in the TV series. Our heroes been married for years. They have a son, George. A golden retriever. A charming ’50s cottage although I have no idea how they afforded it, any more than I understand how they afforded their very stylish wardrobes. They must be in their 30s. Youth fled as waistlines thickened and hairlines receded, at least for Tommy.

Passion seems to have fled too, since we see Tommy and Tuppence sleeping in twin beds. I know the movies and ’50s vintage TV stuck to this trope to pretend that sex didn’t exist, but come on. Real married couples slept in double beds with each other back then. I have no idea why the BBC made this choice, unless it was to emphasize that Tommy and Tuppence are sexless and boring.

They shouldn’t be this way. In the novels, they adore each other, they’re hot for each other, and that doesn’t change as Tommy and Tuppence grow old.

Agatha did something rare with Tommy and Tuppence. They married and stayed happy, despite the usual traumas of life. I appreciate seeing a married couple still in love and working as a team, rather than Hollywood’s standard set of tropes. You know the one: you get two possibilities. The exciting run-up to the wedding when everything is fresh and wonderful and our happy couple is so in love. The other standard story is the miserable, collapsing marriage leading up to the acrimonious divorce.

It is nice to see a happy couple. Although Tommy and Tuppence are not happy. They’re more like roommates. One thing that remains true to the novel is they are broke.

Why are they broke? Because of another script change. In the novel, Tommy is brave, stalwart, not given to flights of fancy and he’s not easily fooled. He’s young and fit. He’s brave. Here, Tommy is overweight, dopey, and so passive that he meekly goes along with whatever Tuppence and the villains want him to do!

And, he keeps bees. Or rather, he is trying to set up a beekeeping business so he can make money selling honey. Yet he is so obtuse, he hasn’t read the beekeeping manual that came with the hives. His son (showing the kind of respect Bart Simpson shows to Homer) rats Tommy out to mom. There were no bees that I recall in the novel. Perhaps the scriptwriters were thinking of Sherlock Holmes retired in his old age to tend bees in the countryside.

It was so stupid. The way they behaved together was nothing like the books. In fact, they reminded me of a mashup of two different married couples you are probably familiar with.

In this film version, Tuppence comes across as Lucy Ricardo, although more stylish. Tommy resembles Homer Simpson, but more buffoonish.

Yes, you read that right. Tuppence doesn’t have the commonsense that Marge Simpson does. Tommy isn’t as smart as Desi Ricardo. Worse, he doesn’t have the bravado of Homer Simpson, although the waistlines are similar.

They were a well-dressed couple; I’ll give them that.

Unlike Homer Simpson, Tommy also has magical movie facial hair. No matter what was happening or how long he had been held captive, he was always freshly shaven.

This was maddening to watch. They were idiots! The plot was idiotic! Virtually every single character went through the plot-grinder, coming out radically different on the other side.

As an example, Julius Hersheimmer, American millionaire from Texas, becomes an African-American millionaire who made his fortune developing artificial sweetener. Jane Finn herself is no longer his long-lost first cousin. No. That wasn’t interesting enough. Instead, he claims Jane is his niece (there is a noticeable age difference). Was she his niece? No! She was his cookie on the side, waiting in the wings for his divorce to be finalized.

Mr. Carter becomes Tommy’s enabling and bumbling uncle, not the capable spy-master of the novel. Albert is no longer the cockney liftboy who Tommy and Tuppence meet and take under their wing. No, he becomes an inept version of Q from the James Bond series. He’s a science teacher at a boys’ school and fond of gadgetry.

The villains are still villains, but they’re incompetent too. They certainly don’t seem to be in it for political gain. We get a few hints, but nothing like the novel. Rita Vandemeyer becomes almost comical, as a fading opera star with a white Persian cat. She’s supposed to be an adventuress, a woman of mystery, someone who is dangerous and can hold her own in a man’s world. No more.

At least the secret adversary remains.

The ending was a hash of loose ends and ridiculous contrivances. A jar of honey figures prominently, shoehorned into the plot to justify Tommy’s taste for get-rich-quick schemes that will leave his family in financial ruins.

Should you waste three hours of your life on this adaptation?

Only if you want to see the great clothes everyone wears. Tommy and Tuppence’s ’50s vintage cottage is good eye-candy as well. The sets are nice. Otherwise, there are better choices. Watch this version of The Secret Adversary only if you plan on seeing all the filmed versions of Agatha’s stories and you’re doing it for completeness’s sake.

Now that you’re hankering to read “The Secret Adversary,” why not try our complete, annotated version of it? It’s available in as a beautiful trade paperback, illustrated with scenes from the newspaper annotation from 1925 (available from Cupboard Maker Books in Enola!), or as an ebook for any device.

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