Teresa Reviews Four and Twenty Blackbirds (2005)

Teresa reviews Four and Twenty Blackbirds (2005) and found it more static than the Miss Marple episodes.

(Nijuyon-wa no kuro-tsugumi)

Link: DailyMotion

(c)2025 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 4 falling down stairs

Other than adding Maybelle, Oliver, Miss Lemon, and Hastings to do the legwork and removing dentist Henry Bonnington, it’s all there.

Quality of movie: 3 falling down stairs

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

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

Slow and static compared to Maybelle’s adventures with Miss Marple.

Poirot, Hastings, and Maybelle have dinner at the Gallant Endeavour. Oliver’s there too, eating off a plate on the floor. The waitress, Molly, points out “Old Father Time” eating at another table. He’s a regular with regular habits: the same meal at the same time every Tuesday and Thursday.

Except for today. It’s not Old Father Time’s day and that’s not his usual dinner. He’s even having blackberry tart, which he loathes. Poirot is intrigued because people don’t change their habits. When Maybelle later meets waitress Molly on the bus and hears that he disappeared, he really gets interested.

Events proceed as you’d expect. Miss Lemon is dispatched to research recent deaths of old men. Henry Gascoigne turns up, discovered when the milkman noticed the stacked-up milk bottles. Is there money? No, but Henry would have inherited big from his minutes-older twin brother who also just died. There is money! Is there someone waiting to inherit big? Yes, there is.

The puzzle pieces align and Poirot suspects — no, he knows what happened. He and the gang interview Dr. George Lorrimer who is shocked and horrified into spluttering rage when he learns that he may not inherit at all because dear uncle Henry had a secret, long-ago marriage. Some old woman will inherit big, meaning he shoved an old man down the stairs for nothing.

It’s a lie, but Poirot is never above lying if it serves the goal of finding the truth. Oliver helps too, when he picks up Lorrimer’s blackberry-stained napkin from the floor.