Teresa Reviews “Dead Man’s Mirror” (1993)

Teresa reviews “Dead Man’s Mirror” (1993) and finds it a pale reflection of Agatha’s story.

Fidelity to text: 2 guns
The core of the story is there, but after that, the scriptwriter ran hog-wild.

Quality of movie on its own: 2 guns
Too many of the changes took a good story and made it slow, stodgy, and, at times, remarkably stupid.

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

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

Did you know that “Dead Man’s Mirror” (1937) was a completely rewritten version of “The Second Gong,” published in 1932? I didn’t either. It’s not contained in my supposedly complete-in-every-respect tome of short stories, Hercule Poirot’s Casebook.

When Agatha rewrote “The Second Gong,” she added, enhanced, lengthened, and changed it; all the usual things a writer does when they file off the serial numbers and rewrite a story to sell it again.

The core means and method remain and so does Poirot.

The scriptwriter for this episode did much the same, except that he didn’t spend nearly as much time thinking the mechanics of means, method, and motive through as he should have. Agatha did. Her plot made sense. This one didn’t.

Changing Gervase Chevenix from an aristocrat to a wealthy art dealer was remarkably stupid. His motivation and behavior stem directly from the security of 400 years of history proving he’s better than you and everyone else under the sun. In the short story, Poirot reads the Debrett’s entry and learns the Chevenix baronetcy was granted in 1694. 1694! That means King William III awarded the Chevenix founder with a title. It’s not as grand as your title coming over with William the Conqueror in 1066, but a family name like Chevenix implies that Gervase’s ancestors were part of that invading army. It took them another 600-some years to earn the title, but earn it they did.

That kind of background is unfathomable to most of us. Unless you’re a genealogist, I doubt you know any family stories about your relatives and what they did in 1694.

Without that motivation of continuing the family lineage above all, it doesn’t make sense for Gervase to insist that Ruth (adopted daughter) marry Hugo (his sister’s son). The hidden reason — despite the fact that Hugo can’t inherit the title since he’s not in the male line of succession — is that Ruth isn’t merely just another orphaned baby. Oh no. While her mama was some low-rent typist, daddy was Gervase’s younger brother and that makes Ruth special. That also makes Ruth and Hugo first cousins, even though they think the genetic relationship is further apart. Thus, Gervase keeps the family bloodline going and on both sides! The title will be lost to some extremely distant collateral male relative, but since the property isn’t entailed, Ruth and Hugo would inherit everything else. They could even, possibly, persuade the crown to award them another baronetcy.

Aristocrats are bred to want this. It’s one of the reasons they’re able to cling to power. If you aren’t indoctrinated while still in the womb and build the appropriate social structures to make it happen, you’ll watch your family go through the three-generation cycle of shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves over and over. Assuming of course that you know what your great-great grandparents were up to and you have a plan for your great-great grandchildren.

Another bad change was Vanda, Gervase’s wife. In the short story, she’s batty for the occult, but the local police inspector and Poirot both know that while she seems nuts, she can be surprisingly observant.

Not here. No, we get Vanda, channeling the spirit of an Egyptian queen and spouting ominous premonitions. Vanda’s preoccupation with ancient Egypt also lets the set designer reuse the warehouse of Egyptian gimcrack they built for The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb. That stuff is everywhere. The Cairo airport giftshop doesn’t contain as many cheap knockoffs. The real Chevenix family has no need to fill their mansion with tawdry statues. They own the real thing.

There was the casting choice for Hugo Trent (the nephew) and John Lake (the architect). They looked so much alike I had trouble telling them apart.

They also got rewritten. Hugo suddenly became a modern furniture designer, constructing uncomfortable tubular steel chairs and benches suitable for airport passenger lounges. This is historically accurate. The Bauhaus School began designing those unpleasant chairs in the 1920s (i.e., sculpture that shouldn’t be sat on) and manufacturing them for waiting rooms soon followed.

John Lake also got a makeover. He’s still Ruth’s boyfriend. He’s also an architect. The fraud plot thread originally assigned to Gervase’s secretary (disappeared from the TV episode) is handed to him. He comes off as a dumb and trusting idiot, used by his partners to defraud Gervase. Demonstrating his incompetence, he sets fire to incriminating files, the incendiary device goes off early, he’s caught in the flames, and Poirot, Japp, and Hastings (on the spot because the plot decreed it) rescue him from certain death.

It is a change from Hastings’ usual car chase.

There’s Chief Inspector Japp. I understand the series is named Poirot and not Japp, but this episode went out of its way to make Japp stupid. He’s not a stupid man. He’s worked with Poirot for years.

In the short story, Chief Constable Riddle examines the locked room evidence indicating suicide, looks at Poirot, and says, “If you’re here, it could be murder.” At least one other character says the same thing.

Yet Japp — whom we’ve seen investigate dozens of murders with Poirot — instantly discounts everything Poirot says as though the great detective is a local loon and not the man who’s made sure Japp has a perfect conviction record with Scotland Yard. Oh, stacking stupidity upon stupidity, Poirot deliberately conceals evidence from Japp that would prove it was murder!

The murderer was made extra evil in a totally unbelievable scene near the end. No house has acoustics like that, especially a huge pile of stone with surprisingly fragile doors installed in those foot-thick walls. Agatha was very sympathetic to Miss Lingard in the short story. A lot of Miss Lingard’s plot was spur of the moment, as she dug her hole deeper and deeper. Miss Lingard loathed Gervase Chevenix for what he’d done to her. The story made it clear that Gervase and Vanda adopted a newborn whereas the film implied that Ruth was perhaps a toddler. It also addressed name changes and the changes in appearance brought on by age. Miss Lingard knew what she’d done, she was glad she’d done it, but she didn’t try to save her neck by incriminating anyone else.

Finally, in one of the stupidest scenes I’ve seen in a Poirot, Miss Lingard uses Vanda’s superstitions to cajole her into writing a confession and hanging herself. Really. She manages to throw her voice into Vanda’s bedroom, down the halls, and in the drawing room too! All from inside some sort of cupboard.

I couldn’t buy this episode and you won’t either. Watch it for completeness’ sake.

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