Teresa Reviews “Four and Twenty Blackbirds” (1989): Modern Art We Like

Teresa reviews “Four and Twenty Blackbirds” (1989) and finds it picture perfect.

Fidelity to text: 3 1/2 staircases.
Name changes, new characters, new situations, far more background material and eye candy (including plenty of gratuitous nudity, both painted and real), but the overall arc of the story remains, right down to motive and evidence.

Quality of movie on its own: 4 1/2 staircases.
The changes and additions worked beautifully, enlarging and enhancing a short story into something larger. It could have been longer, though.

We open with two minor mysteries: Poirot is dining with his dentist (with whom he has a fraught relationship) and being told by the waitress about a regular who’s eating wildly out of his usual routine. Could these two mysteries be related? You bet they are. I’ll solve the first mystery for you. Poirot is eating dinner with his dentist because — other than professionally — he likes the man. Also, Dr. Bonnington likes to see the results of his work in action.

They’re enjoying dinner and speculating why a regular customer of extremely regular habits would disrupt his routine. Molly, the chatty waitress, is mystified and wants an opinion. She’s waited on this man every Wednesday and Saturday for decades, and he’s never done anything different before. Poirot, being Poirot, has his curiosity piqued. A few days later, he discovers that the diner has died, supposedly from a fall down the stairs. The nosy neighbor ladies noticed the accumulation of milk bottles although the milkman did not.

I thought that was a mistake. The milkman would leave a note and pick up the unopened bottles as they stacked up like dead soldiers. Milkmen, like mailmen, see everything on their route and know their customers’ habits. Like mailmen, they expect notes from their customers about changes in delivery. Don’t miss that the horse hauling the milk-truck is ambling down the street, apparently unattended, while the milkman runs up and down, delivering and picking up the bottles. The horse knows the route just like his master.

I used to have milk delivered to my home decades ago in Norfolk. They collected the empty bottles to reuse them. More importantly, milk left standing out on the stoop goes sour fast so I don’t believe they liked leaving them hanging around. Sour milk discourages other potential customers from signing up. That milk, by the way, was far better than any supermarket milk. I also purchased (from the dairy) an insulated metal box to sit on my front stoop to keep the milk cold. Sadly, having your milk placed inside a metal box ensures the neighbors don’t see a suspicious accumulation of milk bottles and thus they do not investigate to see if you’ve fallen down the stairs.

But anyway, that’s what twigged the neighbors to call the local bobby. They make the dreadful discovery and we’re off.

Poirot discovers that the old man was a good painter who refused to sell his paintings. That leads to the unspoken conclusion that he had money because if Henry Gascoigne wasn’t selling paintings, he had to be paying his bills some other way. If there’s money hanging around unattended, then someone will be looking for it. Among the suspects are the painter’s agent, Henry’s model, Miss Dulcie Lang, his estranged brother, Anthony Gascoigne, and a nephew, George Lorrimer.

The estrangement between fraternal twin brothers was interesting and more could have been done with it. Henry painted his brother Antony’s wife nude. Was that the reason? Or was it something else? Or both? A bit of backstory would be welcome here, just because I’m always curious about these things. This painting added a second nude woman to the episode in addition to Dulcie Lang, nude model.

I always notice when we get nude female models for artists and not nude male models. There’s plenty of nudity in this show, including Miss Lang herself, seen posing from above. Poirot appreciates the view and moves on about his business. Hastings is conflicted; wanting to gape over the railing with his tongue hanging out and drooling over that hot nekkid redhead while at the same time, remaining a perfect gentleman and pretending he didn’t see a thing. It’s an amusing cultural contrast between the Belgian man of the world, accepting what he sees, and the Englishman who needs to act against his nature.

According to the agent and the model, Henry Gascoigne’s paintings were valuable but couldn’t be sold because he disapproved. With him dead, they can be. Since Henry also had a decent-sized estate, then this is evidence that his fall down the stairs might have been helped along.

But the twin brother who hated him is also recently dead, and without a will too. Mrs. Hill, Anthony Gascoigne’s housekeeper, nurse, and companion, is angry and bitter and well she should be. She’s an older woman with presumably no family of her own and now that her employer’s dead, she’s jobless, homeless, and has no legacy to help her in her own old age. She tells Poirot all about it and mentions the nephew who inherits everything.

Miss Dulcie Lang who probably needs the money (how much does nude modeling pay?) is adamant. She won’t sell her Gascoigne paintings.

The trail leads to the nephew, George Lorrimer. He’s a music hall impresario so you’ll enjoy vignettes of a music hall’s rehearsals, complete with nearly nude dancers. They’re actually wearing skimpy (for 1934) bathing suits. You’ll also enjoy the comedy act being rehearsed.

There’s so much to see in this episode. The Art Deco buildings and interior décor alone are worth the price of admission. Then, because the story revolves around an artist and his model, you’ll get fine art, including a Miró that Poirot appreciates but Hastings does not.

There’s also the development of forensics by Scotland Yard, which permits Inspector Japp to enter the scene and comment on how detective work is changing. Poirot uses the forensics department to trap his murderer, or rather, to prove his theory. He knows, with his little gray cells, but knowing isn’t the same as proving.

Hastings and Miss Lemon have their moments in the sun as well. Hastings, in particular, gets to blather on about cricket. His speeches on the subject were unintelligible to me, a non-cricket fan. It reminded me that in Douglas Adam’s universe, cricket is considered by most sentient galactic beings as being in rather bad taste. Poirot has the last laugh about cricket, astounding Hastings and everyone else with his knowledge.

At the end, we return to the beginning with Poirot and his dentist. Teeth have a lot to do with solving the mystery. Teeth are why, after Poirot examines Henry Gascoigne’s body in the morgue, he suspects murder. Teeth are one of the clues used in solving it.

You’ll enjoy this episode. David Suchet is in top form as Poirot, the story is tight and well-paced, and the eye candy is top-quality. My only quibble is it could have been longer; with more about the brothers’ estrangement, more scenes in the music hall, more scenes with Miss Dulcie Lang, hot redhead, and how Hastings didn’t know what to do with himself when she was in the same building.

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