Teresa Reviews Am stram gram (2009) (Eenie Meenie Miny Moe)

(Am Stram Gram) the French version of Ordeal by Innocence

WHERE TO FIND IT: Amazon
(Note: This is the only version I found with English subtitles. We found our copy through the public library’s interlibrary loan department)

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 3 pokers

Arthur Calgary becomes a minor witness in a 1930s police procedural but the story’s all there.

Quality of film: 4 pokers

Tense, compelling look at frantic rats, I mean people, trapped in a maze of lies and self-deceptions.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movie on her podcast.

I’ll stick with Agatha’s names wherever possible.

Agatha’s plots — when handled by a competent screenwriter instead of some grandiose hack — can be transformed into something new and compelling. In this case, Ordeal by Innocence has been given the Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie treatment. It’s Season One, so the plot is not just recognizable. It’s morphed into a police procedural.

In the novel, an unknowing witness discovers that he caused the death of an innocent man because he wasn’t around to testify that the man’s alibi for murder was true. That witness, Arthur Calgary, arrives on the scene two years too late but he’s determined to give justice to Jacko and ease what he’s certain is Jacko’s family’s agonized grief.

Arthur Calgary, do-gooder, is proved wrong. When he plays amateur detective to ferret out the real killer, he keeps finding out how wrong he is. He’s the driving factor behind solving the case and the local police have little to do with it.

Am Stram Gram keeps Arthur Calgary but he becomes an average citizen instead of a crusading boy scout, determined to right a wrong at all costs. He picked up hitchhiking Jacko during the critical time window, dropped him off at 7:30 p.m., and — instead of haring off to the Antarctic for two years — crashes into a lorry. Being busy with other things, including memory loss, he didn’t pay attention to the sensational murder trial. But then, it happens. He’s back home, recovered, getting on with his life, and brings home newspaper-wrapped fish to his cat. While kitty eats the fish, Arthur spots the newspaper story and sees the picture of the hitchhiker he’d picked up and it all comes back.

As a concerned citizen, he rushes to the police station to announce that he could prove Jacko was innocent of murder as he’d been in his car during the time of the murder. Commissaire Jean Larosière is nonplussed. He’d solved the open-and-shut case two years ago. The jury agreed with his investigation, as did Jacko’s family. Jacko was always a bad seed and the family had no doubt he bashed Rachel’s head in.

Inspector Émile Lampion, still young and eager, pushes Larosière to reopen the case. It seems plausible to him and perhaps there was something that Larosière missed? Difficult as that is to believe? Larosière is dubious but a nightmare convinces him that justice must be done so the trio end up at the estate and confront the Argyle family.

To Arthur’s surprise, but not Larosière’s, no one in the family is happy with the news. He was familiar with Jacko’s police file and it made perfect sense to him whodunnit. A hated, adoptive mother; a crying need for money; a complete disregard for laws and conventions demonstrated by routine run-ins with the law; a family that didn’t argue with the police verdict, but were, in fact, relieved. Easy. Open and shut.

But Lampion pushes and odd things happen. When Kirsten the housekeeper is trapped in the greenhouse and nearly burned to death, Larosière accepts that something else may have happened.

The Argyle family follows the novel. Patriarch Leo is a scribbling scholar who’ll never sell a single book. He’s living off Rachel’s money. He’s planning to marry his secretary, Gwenda. Gwenda’s been in love with her boss for a long time but according to her, Leo never cheated on Rachel while she was alive. That could be true, but the Argyle adult children might disagree.

There is no scene showing Rachel telling Gwenda that’s she’s merely the latest cookie, one in a long series of sugar on the side. Nor is there a scene where Rachel confronts Leo over his infidelities. But Leo confronts Rachel over their sexless marriage, so… Perhaps Gwenda isn’t lying. Or perhaps she is.

As always, Leo is utterly unlike his namesake. When suspicion falls upon the family as they realize Rachel’s murderer is still living in the house among them, he and Gwenda fight about their upcoming marriage. When Gwenda realizes what a spineless weakling he is, she walks away and he doesn’t stop her. She’s better off, even if it doesn’t feel that way to her at the moment.

Mary is an even colder fish in this adaptation than usual. She and Philip, paralyzed from polio, live elsewhere but Arthur’s revelation pulls them back to the château. She likes being in control and, despite being adopted and hating Rachel, she’s just like her. She wants what she wants and she likes controlling Philip. But he doesn’t want to be controlled. He proves it when he lets 17-year-old Hester — his sister-in-law — come on to him.

Mickey seems to be deeply closeted, flirting with Lampion in a highly suggestive manner. But when Tina’s threatened, Lampion falls of his radar. He, like Mary and Jacko loathed Rachel. He still remembers his real mother, who sold him to Rachel against his will.

This Hester is crazier than usual. She’s bulimic, has violent fits, and chases after Philip. No one walks around naked except for high heels and a silk bathrobe without planning seduction. Not in the real world, at any rate, leading to some gratuitous nudity and my comment to Bill about how ridiculous it looks to wear heels with a bathrobe in what must be a freezing cold château.

Tina, thankfully, was not whitewashed into one of the crowd. She’s the sanest, calmest member of the family and the only child who cared for Rachel. She’s still in love with Mickey and her faith is finally rewarded but only after she nearly dies at the hands of the killer.

Kirsten is fully fleshed out. She’s the put-upon housekeeper whose entire life is the Argyle family. She’s Hollywood plain so she looks normal, despite the script claiming she’s ugly. For the first time, you’ll see Jacko seducing Kirsten. He feeds her the love and attention she craves so badly, she forgets who he is. Not just the child she helped raised and now an adult. But the child, now man, who was nothing but trouble for everyone. He uses her, just like he uses other, lonely older women.

Maureen Clegg, tawdry in pink, tells Lampion all about how Jacko takes full advantage of those women and brought the money back to celebrate with her. It’s not spelled out in this film, but I’d guess that, as in the novel, the family and Kirsten didn’t know that Jacko married Maureen until she showed up at the front door after he was arrested for Rachel’s murder.

For a sad tragedy, this film has some funny moments. They lighten the mood and let you know that Mickey and Tina will recover, walk away, and be happy. The other Argyles gets the fate they’ve been courting for years: loneliness, isolation, and craziness.