Teresa Reviews “A Pocket Full of Rye” (1985)

Fidelity to text: three poison bottles.
The scriptwriters changed things, starting with the title! The novel’s title is A Pocket Full of Rye. It’s a tiny difference but there and I have no idea why they did it. It’s like changing names of characters, in this case, Miss Ramsbottom becoming Miss Henderson. There’s no reason for this change other than change for change’s sake because the scriptwriter could. Those changes, while irritating, are minor. There are others, one of which changes the tenor of the film, and I’ll get to them later.

Quality of film on its own: three poison bottles.
This was the worst of the four Joan Hickson adaptations we’ve seen to date. I could not understand large chunks of the dialog, even with the sound turned way up. Worse, the ending fell apart completely. This may be due to my familiarity with the novel. It did not work. If, however, you’re coming to A Pocketful of Rye without having read the novel, you may not notice.

Unfulfilled promises by the scriptwriter started in the opening scenes. We see Rex Fortescue skipping along the London street, spontaneously buying flowers for his hot executive secretary, and chortling over reports in a very unbusinesslike manner. We are never given a reason for this behavior. Is it normal? Is this an indication that this just-this-side-of-legal businessman is losing his marbles? We never find out. It’s possible these scenes were designed to tell us that Rex Fortescue is an unpleasant human being, but that’s not what came across.

Gradually the story unfolds, centering particularly on the housemaid, Gladys. She’s pudgy, shy, awkward, and mistake-prone. It’s unusual to have a housemaid as a major character, especially if she isn’t a raving beauty destined to marry the lord’s handsome son. Young ladies like Gladys exist to dust in the background and move the plot forward and that is what happens. Gladys sets things in motion and is then strangled very nastily. Her body is left where it lays, hanging out the clothes in the laundry area of the back garden of the hall, with a clothespin on her nose.

Gladys makes and takes anxious phone calls. We see her little room and — another unfilled promise — we see her address a letter to Miss Marple, the old lady who took her from the orphanage and trained her to be a housemaid. The letter never appears again in the movie, despite the fact that in the novel it provides what will be (after the book ends) critical evidence as to the guilt of the murderer.

Elaine Fortescue and her schoolteacher boyfriend disappear entirely. I understand this choice because 103-minute-long films don’t have a lot of time for stray red herrings who aren’t critical to the plot. What I do not understand is eliminating Inspector Neele’s interview with Mrs. Mackenzie. She’s critical to a major red herring in the plot, and she’s dispensed with in a few mumbled sentences.

It was never made clear that our hyper-competent housekeeper, Miss Dove, apparently leads a gang of thieves. After she works in some wealthy house for a year or so, she leaves and a few months later, thieves break in. The thieves know the location of the silver, the jewelry, the fur coats, and anything else worth stealing.

Vivian Edward Dubois comes on stage briefly as Adele Fortescue’s fancy bit on the side. Adele is the much younger, glamorous second wife to Rex Fortescue. She does not get along with her stepchildren. They’re all the same age and it’s hard to look at dad’s new cookie who’s younger than you (that would be Percival Fortescue) and hotter than your own wife (Jennifer Fortescue). Here’s a case where a name change would be worthwhile since no one uses Vivian as a man’s name anymore. Vivian has a darn good reason to murder Rex and then to murder Adele but he vanishes from the scene far too quickly.

Another change that you won’t notice if you haven’t read the book is that Jennifer Fortescue has a bad marriage. The bigger one is that she apparently got Rex Fortescue to will her £40,000 just by asking. Not in the book, folks, but I suppose it let the scriptwriter avoid adding Mrs. Mackenzie to the cast, even though she should have been included.

The biggest change was to Lance Fortescue and the ending. I don’t want to spoil the movie for you (assuming that you haven’t read the novel). No. Just no. It felt so deus ex machina. To make that contrivance even more unconvincing, he revealed to Pat that his upbringing was emotionally abusive and thus fully justified. Everything in the text said he was a bad seed from day one. The ending didn’t sit well at all.

I will agree the ending of the story works in a book. It does not work in a movie and so needed to change. We’re left — in the novel — knowing what the end will be (that certain someone meeting the hangman) but we don’t see it. What we get is Miss Marple receiving proof from Gladys in the mail. Remember the letter that is noticed (by Miss Marple and ignored!) in Gladys’ room early on? This is the letter and it never plays a role in the script again. In the novel you get this, after she reads the letter and looks at the enclosed photograph:

The tears rose in Miss Marple’s eyes. Succeeding pity, there came anger — anger at a heartless killer.

And then, displacing both these emotions, there came a surge of triumph — the triumph some specialist might feel who has successfully reconstructed an extinct animal from a fragment of jawbone and couple of teeth.

You just know that the murderer will swing. But we don’t see it. This is where the scriptwriter could have made a useful, even preferable change, similar to the change we got in the film Crooked House. We could have seen the murderer confronted with the evidence that was mailed to Miss Marple, incontrovertible proof of his guilt.

But we don’t. Instead, we get this ridiculous scene where he’s accidentally run over a random lorry delivered by chance.

No. Just no.

It’s disappointing, particularly since the previous three episodes of Miss Marple were so good. Subtitles would have helped, no question, since I wouldn’t have missed chunks of the storyline. But subtitles wouldn’t save the ending.

They can’t all be gems.

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