Teresa Reviews Hallowe’en Party (2015)

Teresa reviews Hallowe’en Party (2015), the French version of Murder at the Kermesse from Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie.

Episode: Meurtre à la kermesse

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 3½ drowning victims

Despite new characters and our heroes getting in the way, you’ll recognize the plot beats.

Quality of film: 3½ drowning victims

Added small-town politics are always a pleasure and so was seeing Laurence attempt to kill himself.

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

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

The word “Kermesse” in the title is not a French term. It’s a Dutch word that spread throughout Europe centuries ago. It means a festival. It’s derived from “kerk” (church) and “mis” (mass) and denotes the foundation of a church or parish which is always a cause for celebration for generations to come. Despite what you learned in history class in school, people’s daily lives revolved around their religious beliefs. They were not atheists. Festivals were a chance for socially acceptable fun.

Thus, when you see everyone in costume (including the mayor, Madame Dravignan (Rowena Drake), wearing a cowgirl outfit) it’s not because of Halloween. Halloween has got nothing to do with this adaptation, even though the kids bob for apples. I’d guess every apple-growing culture plays games with them and what could be simpler than floating an apple in a bucket of water and trying to grab it with your teeth? And more fun for the observers, watching you flounder and get soaked while you flail?

And what could be easier than drowning a child who already trusts you as an authority figure, doesn’t suspect a thing, and conveniently is face-down in a bucket of water.

Easy. Not non-messy, you understand, but easy.

Hallowe’en Party is one of the last novels Agatha wrote. Her powers were failing and she desperately needed a good editor. Nonetheless, she told you who the murderer had to be and you probably missed the blatant clue hiding in plain sight, one more apple in a bucket full of floating apples. And so it proves here. Laurence is eventually told the critical fact and realizes who had to be the murderer, because that person was the only person (besides the victim) who was soaking wet. There was a reason this person was soaking wet, one Claire Arial (Judith Butler) swallowed because she had no reason to be suspicious. But Laurence was suspicious and he’s always the smartest man in the room, despite there not being enough reasons spelled out onscreen for him to suspect this person other than wasting taxpayer dollars.

He’s so smart that he manages to do his detecting while blind. He was shot at in a gun battle with smugglers of some sort and, according to the eye doctor, the trauma made him go blind. His eyes work but his brain refuses to process the information.

Time might heal him, time which he doesn’t have when Luisa Ortega (Joyce Reynolds) is discovered head down in a bucket of water at the local school. The smugglers plot thread vanishes, having served its purpose of setting up Laurence needing to rely on Avril to be his eyes. He can’t admit he’s handicapped in any way and he certainly can’t let another commissaire on the Lille police force locate the murderer. His ego won’t let him.

Laurence’s psychosomatic blindness sets up a variety of ridiculous situations in which he looks like a fool. It doesn’t make him any more sympathetic to anyone, especially Avril whom he treats worse than ever. She, sadly, remains incompetent to the point of falling into bed with the sweettalking sculptor, Xavier Tremens (Michael Garfield), despite his creepy relationship with the much younger Miranda Arial (Miranda Butler), who was Luisa’s best friend.

Miranda remains a gullible, wide-eyed naïf, eager to believe anything anyone tells her. Other than her mother, naturally. Mom distrusts Xavier and dislikes Miranda spending time with him, learning to be an artist. Xavier claims it’s strictly a platonic, artistic relationship. Since any hint that this Miranda is his daughter with Claire Arial vanished, it’s hard to buy his statement. Louche artists have no scruples and Xavier isn’t any different.

Other plot changes were made. Some worked, some didn’t, mainly because the script didn’t devote enough time to them, preferring to dwell on Laurence being a horrible boss, Marléne a lovelorn incompetent secretary, and Avril wanting to be a journalist without doing the tedious work it takes to become one. And the two women seeing to Laurence’s needs while he’s blind.

M. Milou, the hapless handyman and chess savant, was an added character. His purpose seemed to be as a red herring and to demonstrate that Laurence can be humane to dumb animals. Similarly, Benoît, a French rebel without a cause, was added to show … something. He and his little gang of leather and denim-clad juvenile delinquents tease and harass M. Milou into confessing to Luisa’s murder but why? And why did Milou go along with it? They also seem to have some connection to Miranda but that was unclear. They don’t like Luisa, or her brother, Pablo (Leopold Reynolds).

Benoît’s gang could have served to integrate the opening smuggling plot thread into the main story but no such luck. They were so clueless, they accepted Avril as one of them, once Marléne performed some makeover magic on her. You never learn what Avril learned from them while getting drunk and taking off her bra to prove her bona fides.

Dr. Petit’s story was more interesting. He has no real parallel to the novel, combining Dr. Ferguson’s crustiness and Rev. Cottrell’s interest in assisting refugees (largely borrowed from the Poirot version of Hallowe’en Party). Being French, he conducts affairs with the prettiest refugees, much to his wife’s distress. One affair turns out to be with the mysterious woman Luisa claimed she saw being murdered. That’s an expected subplot and handled reasonably well. The unexpected subplot was his adversarial relationship with Madame Davignan.

She’s the mayor and he’s on the city council. He wants to move up, replacing her as mayor and for a sensible reason too. She’s wasting town money on expensive civic projects such as bad modern sculpture provided by Xavier Tremens and his even more expensive idea of which we only see a model. It’s a lavish public garden.

This right here is why you should attend your municipal meetings, subscribe to your city’s newsletters, and read the boring town council reports in your city’s newspaper. If you do, you, dear reader and citizen, have a chance to stop your elected officials from building the Taj Mahal of community centers, paid for by your tax dollars. Whether you want one or not.

Whatever else you can say about Dr. Petit’s motivations, adulterous affairs with women who are in no position to refuse, professional jealousies, and political ambitions, he is not wrong about disapproving the mayor’s desire to build a huge civic monument to herself while claiming it’s for the good of the community.

Maybe it is. Maybe this northern French town needs a lavish public garden, despite the acres of ruins that we watch characters wander through along with the public buildings crying out for routine maintenance. But maybe it doesn’t, and he’s a civic-minded doctor doing his best to save his fellow residents from onerous tax burdens.

Dr. Petit is proved correct at the climax. Civic projects should always be inspected closely and not just to make sure tax dollars aren’t wasted.