Teresa Reviews Chupi Chupi Aashey (1960)

Teresa reviews Chupi Chupi Aashey (1960) and found it a slow moving and very Indian adaptation of “The Mousetrap.”

(c)2024 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to play: 4½ stranglers

You’re trapped in a flooded health resort in India, but you’ll still recognize almost everyone.

Quality of movie: 3½ stranglers

The added opening sets up the story nicely but it also really drags in spots.

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

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

The Mousetrap has a convoluted past. Agatha wrote a radio play called Three Blind Mice for Queen Mary in 1947. Agatha’s inspiration for a terrific murder motive (never forget that she was a well-read woman who paid close attention to current events) was the horrific tragedy of the O’Neill boys, Dennis and Terrence. They were placed into foster care with Reginald and Esther Goudge in 1944. Their luckier, younger brother got placed with a different family. The Goudges starved and beat Dennis and Terrence from the beginning and eventually murdered Dennis. The trial riveted England and brought major reforms to their child welfare system.

In 1948, Agatha transformed her radio play into a short story of the same name. Later, she rewrote the story again in the play we know today, the one’s that been running continuously — other than during the worldwide Covid shutdowns — on the West End since 1952. Just as you should remember that Agatha didn’t live her life inside an isolation bubble, you should also remember that she’s a famous, prolific, and successful playwright. She routinely converted her stories into plays, rewriting as she saw fit.

The Mousetrap was far, far more successful than anyone expected at the time. It holds the lead for the longest-running play ever. And, decisions made way back in 1952 affect how you see, or hear, or read The Mousetrap, the radio play, and the short story today.

Until the play closes on London’s West End for at least six months, it can’t be filmed without being in violation of copyright. The radio play has not been performed since its original broadcast in 1947. The short story has never been printed in England. The play and short story are available in U.S. editions.

This is also why See How They Run (2022), a film loosely inspired by real-world events happening around the stage play’s 100th performance never shows you much of the play itself. That might reveal the twist ending.

Then how did Bill and I watch a filmed version of The Mousetrap if one isn’t supposed to be filmed? It’s because many film industries are not based in the U.K. or the U.S. and are unconcerned about copyright violations. Their opus, after all, isn’t in English. The short story was filmed for TV five times, all between 1947 and 1956 and never again.

The play has been filmed six times between 1954 and 1990. None of those films are in English. Sometimes, a version appears on YouTube, but if you don’t speak the language, you’re out of luck.

But occasionally, English subtitles appear. I want to thank Brad Friedman, a longtime Agatha superfan. He blogs about Golden Age mysteries at and in a discussion of Indian films including Chorabali (2016), someone pointed out a link to Chupi Chupi Aashey with English subtitles.

And here we are. For now.

I’ve read the play (in the aforementioned U.S. edition) although I haven’t seen it. Does Chupi Chupi match up? It sure does. It fits neatly into category 2 of Agatha adaptations: faithful but adapted to the local Bengali culture. Thus, a hotel surrounded by flood waters named Kalyaneshwari Health Resort stands in for the snowbound Monkswell Manor. The married Mollie and Giles become unmarried business partners Kanika and Prabir, leading to, at the climax, an Indian solution to their unmarried state. The Longridge farm of horrors becomes the Chapa Khola orphanage of horrors. The guest with a past (Christopher Wren) becomes the equally mysterious and strangely behaving guest Madhusudan Dutta. Like Christopher, Madhusudan is named after a famous person and like Christopher, Madhusudan does not live up to his namesake.

Of the remaining guests, Miss Casewell disappears entirely. You can find easy parallels between the other three guests to Agatha’s play.

To add to the sense of reality a movie can give as opposed to a more static play, there’s a prologue lifted from the short story. A whistling man, bundled up in a raincoat against the storm, is seen by a workman and his son. While cadging matches for a light, the stranger in the raincoat drops a critical piece of paper. When the workman sees the newspaper story about a woman’s strangulation on the same night in the same area, he races to the police. None of these people appear again. Their purpose is that of the radio in the play, to let you know that a strangler is stalking the streets of Kolkata.

Like Mollie and Giles, Kanika and Prabir have opened a health resort/hotel with high hopes and zero experience. They need to succeed with their first set of guests. Ms. Dhar (Mrs. Boyle) is not happy with the accommodations or Kanika’s obvious youth. She’s not keen on the other guests either, particularly Madhusudan Dutta who comes across as a potentially dangerous loon. And those two weirdos who show up in the storm, soaking wet, only one of whom is a registered guest? The horror! But like Dr. Bajpai, she’s stuck.

Of the two newest guests who arrive in the storm, one of them is a sick old man who hides in his room. The other guest is weird, and like Madhusudan, given to saying strange things. Dr. Bajpai who ostentatiously shows off his cane, moves around far more nimbly than he should, making you wonder about his secrets.

And then, when everyone has arrived and the hotel is completely isolated by the monsoon, Inspector Ghoshal arrives on a small raft. Ms. Dhar takes his measure at once: he’s far too young to be an inspector. Nonetheless, Inspector Ghoshal takes command. He’s there because he’s on the trail of the strangler of Kolkata, whose victim was the evil headmistress of the Chapa Khola orphanage and he knows the next victim is waiting to meet his fate at the hotel.

But who is it? No one admits to being connected to the Chapa Khola orphanage, until the truth is squeezed out of Ms. Dhar. Bad subtitles made her connection obscure but it’s there.

Events proceed as you’d expect and at the height of the dark and stormy night, the strangler strikes again.

Am I tapdancing around the central plot so as to not reveal the famous twist ending? You bet I am! This is the only film version of The Mousetrap you’ll see. Despite its slow pacing, the hotel which is obviously a model sitting in a pool of water, sometimes odd subtitles, added bits of soap, and nods to Indian mores, that’s why you should see it and be surprised.