Teresa reviews Dead Man’s Folly (2013)
Teresa reviews Dead Man’s Folly (2013) and wishes it had speeded up the pace and lost the new ending.
Fidelity to text: 4 nooses
The usual compression of characters, text, timing, and date changes you expect. The tacked-on Hollywood ending implied special people are above the law.
Quality of movie on its own: 3 nooses
This dragged. Too many long, lingering shots of Poirot being pensive amidst the rhododendrons, intrusive music, and not enough action, and that ending.
Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.
Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movies on her podcast.
It’s from Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene, Book One, Canto Nine, Stanza 40. I’ve updated the spelling and included the previous seven lines to set the stage:
He there does now enjoy eternal rest
And happy ease, which thou doest want and crave,
And further from it daily wanderest:
What if some little pain the passage have,
That makes frail flesh to fear the bitter wave?
Is not short pain well borne, that brings long ease,
And lays the soul to sleep in quiet grave?
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,
Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.
Amy Folliat, despite being one of the grandest ladies in the country, endured many challenges. Her husband was an alcoholic gambler, her dutiful older son went down with his ship, and her younger son was a greedy, cheating, lying wastrel. Three rounds of death duties left her bankrupt. She’s reduced to living in penury, renting the lodge from social-climbing Sir George Stubbs, but still allowed to walk in the gardens of the estate she once owned.
After Amy Folliat quotes Spenser to Poirot, she tells him that the world is full of wicked people. She should know. Younger son, James, was a shining example.
Poirot says repeatedly in the novel, not so much in this adaptation, that Amy Folliat is key to understanding the crime and its motive. That’s why he returns to her, over and over, to chat. She knew what might happen when she introduced dim but gorgeous Hattie to Sir George and of course, it did. Leopards don’t change their spots.
Underlying all of Agatha’s novels is a sharp understanding of human nature. Who is the most likely person to murder a wife? Her husband.
Agatha also liked to play with mistaken identity. Is someone who they claim to be? In A Murder Is Announced (1950), Miss Marple states that because of the disruptions of the war, when someone new moved to a village, you had to take it on faith that they were who they claimed. If someone local vouches for them, that means immediate acceptance. Thus, in Dead Man’s Folly (1956), if Amy Folliat — the grandest lady in the district — accepts the parvenue Sir George Stubbs and his halfwit, foreign wife, then so does everyone else. Amy Folliat may be penniless and alone, but she’s still the lady of the manor.
Why does this woman who traces her ancestors back to Edmund Spenser’s time accept Sir George so willingly? It isn’t just because he lets her live in the lodge and walk through the gardens, pruning the rhododendrons. It’s because, as old Merdell says, there will always be Folliats at Nasse. Sir George is her worthless son, James, wanted by the police in several countries, fled home to mom and seeking sanctuary.
The film gives a bit of verbal detail. They met in Paris where Amy Folliat was chaperoning beautiful, dim, orphaned Hattie. Hattie, as Poirot later discovers, was not destitute as Amy Folliat claimed. Oh no. She was an heiress. Even better, she was a docile heiress who would sign anything put in front of her if someone she trusted — like Amy Folliat — told her to. Amy Folliat thought Hattie should marry James, renamed Sir George Stubbs, and so she did.
Amy Folliat convinced herself — against all evidence — that with a new name, a new background, and a rich new wife, her worthless younger son would become a new man. As if.
No, as soon as the opportunity presents itself (a dark and stormy night!) he and his Italian criminal wife murder dim Hattie and Italian wife steps into Hattie’s shoes. All the servants are new, it’s been years since anyone in the village saw him, and Amy Folliat accepts him. Thus, James Folliat becomes Sir George Stubbs, using swindled real Hattie’s money to pay for Nasse.
A big mistake in the film was not having Sean Pertwee wear a beard. Sir George’s beard was mentioned several times in the text. A beard at the time was unusual but a beard disguises a man from villagers who might otherwise remember him. It was hard to believe that no one other than Old Merdell recognized him. Any of the older residents could have.
The film looked great. Much of it was shot at Agatha’s estate, Greenways, so you get a chance to peek at her house. I’m unsure if those banks of rhododendrons were hers or not.
The music was off-putting. While better orchestrated than a typical TV movie by far, it made sure you knew when something ominous was about to happen, when to jump, when to swoon, and when to worry. It was intrusive, unusual for a series that usually does the music quite well. The brass band at the fête was a nice touch.
Etienne De Souza has a gorgeous sailing yacht, and I wanted to see a lot more of it.
I couldn’t discover which vintage ship played that role but she’s a beauty. A tiny added bit of plot had Sir George framing De Souza which worked. A bigger added bit of plot that didn’t get exploited was having De Souza arrested for murder instead of sailing back to the Caribbean. While Poirot is investigating, De Souza’s cooling his heels at Wandsworth awaiting trial, but we don’t see them speak and we should have.
The ending was tacked on and wrong, wrong, wrong. I understand Sir George needs to play the bereaved and grieving husband in public, but why is he sobbing in private? Wrong! He’s gotten away with murder. He’s fooled everyone in England, thanks to his mother aiding and abetting him. All he has to do is wait a decent interval and then he’ll meet an Italian beauty and marry her.
While he’s carrying on in drunken tears, Poirot confronts Amy Folliat with her complicity. She demands and gets a private interview with Sir George. Although it happens offstage, it’s evident a murder/suicide takes place, saving the Crown the cost of a public trial. And Poirot approves.
Wrong! I couldn’t accept that. Three people died because Amy Folliat refused to see her son for what he was and Poirot let her take the easy way out. There’s no justice for Marlene Tucker or Old Merdell. Maybe that’s why the interview with the Tucker family was dropped. Aristocrats like the Folliats are above the law and peasants like the Tuckers don’t deserve equal treatment.
Should you watch? Sure, why not. But the Peter Ustinov 1986 version is better.
Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.
