Teresa reviews Hickory Dickory Dock (2015)

Teresa reviews Hickory Dickory Dock (2015) from the French “Little Murders of Agatha Christie” series and thought this episode was better than usual.

Pension Vanilos 2015 French Little Murders Hickory Dickory Dock
Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie, Season Two
Episode: Pension Vanilos

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 3 poisoned tea cups
Surprisingly close; the plot’s there, so are most of the characters, and Inspector Japp puts in an offscreen appearance via long-distance telephone call to Scotland Yard!

Quality of movie: 3½ poisoned tea cups
Better than usual. The complicated plot and Marlène’s death meant the usual toxic interoffice relationships stayed offstage.

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

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

Whenever I sit through an episode of Les Petits Meurtres, I wonder how Commissaire Laurence gets away with his slapdash approach to police work. I know French policing is very different from English (or American) policing. Their justice system is equally different. (Bill did a lengthy essay on the differences in The Complete, Annotated Murder on the Links which is how I know.)

Even so, watching Laurence seduce Mary Patterson, drug trafficker, to get information on her gang seems wrong. Would evidence gathered this way be admissible in court? I keep thinking of the legal concept of “fruit of the poisonous tree.” For you non-lawyers, that means evidence illegally gathered can’t be used in court no matter how good it is. Seducing a drug trafficker and making her fall in love with you seems to fall into that area. Actually, plenty of what Laurence does falls into that category.

But this is France in the late 1950s so maybe it’s okay?

But I don’t see how it can be because I doubt if your typical commissaire is incorruptible, the smartest man in the city, and conveniently speaks four languages fluently: French, English (like an Oxford don we’re told), Chinese, and Turkish. I won’t comment on Laurence’s flawless Chinese or Turkish because I don’t speak either language. But based on his command of English, I’d bet a native speaker would be impressed by his perfect diction, posh accent, and impeccable grammar.

What does Laurence’s seduction of a suspect have to do with Hickory Dickory Dock? Drug smuggling is at the core of the novel, carried out largely by unsuspecting students hiking hither and yon over the continent using cheap, anonymous, identical rucksacks, and so it proves here. Laurence is working closely with Scotland Yard. Drugs are being smuggled from Lille to Brighton but no one knows how or by whom. None of the usual suspects seem involved.

Thus, to get evidence at his end, Laurence seduces Mary Patterson. She’s a person of interest. She knows more than she’s telling. She refuses to spill the beans on her gang until Laurence points out the danger she’s in. He sets up a sting operation and, at the last moment, Mary flees in front of an oncoming train rather than rat out her friends. She’s more afraid of them and well she should be. She gets shot and ends up in the hospital under guard.

Meanwhile, we learn Marlène has an older, dowdy, sour, unpleasant sister named Solange (based on both Mrs. Hubbard and Mrs. Nicoletis). Both ladies are played by the same actress, pointing out a French truism. There are no ugly women but there sure are plenty of lazy ones. Marlène makes every effort to be glamorous. Her sister, Solange, does less than nothing. Some of what you see is movie magic but it’s still startling to see the two versions side by side. You’d never know they were the same woman underneath hair, makeup, and wardrobe.

This becomes an important plot point.

Because Laurence has important policework to do, he pays no attention to Marlène’s sister’s problem. She, the manager of a youth hostel, has a petty thief making mischief among the students. She wants it stopped and complains to Marlène. Marlène asks Laurence but is rebuffed. She ends up with Avril agreeing to investigate the petty thefts at the youth hostel in exchange for Marlène’s inside information on Laurence’s police investigation into continent-wide drug smuggling.

Avril smells a front page-worth news story. If Marlène spilling the beans about a confidential inquiry interferes with a successful investigation and prosecution of the criminals, well who cares? Not her. And not Marlène, either.

Avril goes to the hostel undercover as a typist. As she’s settling in, Louise (Ceila Austin) asks her if multiple passports mean anything. That evening, Celia drinks coffee laced with cyanide. Anyone in the roomful of students could have done it, but why? Marlène’s sister’s problem gets Laurence’s attention.

Laurence slowly learns that there may be connections between the hostel, its foreign students, their identical rucksacks, a beauty salon, and his drug trafficking case.

When a mysterious doctor strangles Mary Patterson in her hospital bed with a stethoscope, he really gets interested. A stethoscope had gone missing at the youth hostel and lo and behold, it turns out to be Pierre’s (Leonard Bateson). Pierre has major anger management issues, demonstrated when he attacks Avril. You get a brief explanation, but no explanation for his affairs with N’Daye (Elizabeth Johnston) who has terrible taste in men, and with the police chief’s wife (which arrives from left field to provide an alibi for the murder.)

Solange needs Marlène’s help more than ever. She must see a confidential police file. Marlène obliges, because hey, it’s her sister.

Laurence is called out on yet another murder (the third in his already busy schedule) and discovers Marlène, knifed in an alley.

Laurence and Avril are devastated. Marlène! The sweetest woman who ever lived. He refuses to permit an autopsy of the body, and temporarily resigns the drug trafficking case to track down Marlène’s killer. While he and Avril are drunkenly bonding over memories of Marlène, Avril mentions how well-turned out she always was. Laurence suddenly realizes the body on the slab may belong to someone else.

Short, unglamorous fingernails give away Solange. The blonde hair is revealed to be a wig. I did wonder about that, because wouldn’t a wig have come off while the police were getting her body out of the alley and into the morgue? The autopsy would certainly have revealed a wig. Anyway.

They race back to the hostel and discover Marlène, alive, bound, and gagged. Who could have helped dowdy Solange impersonate her glamorous sister? Why, Rose (Valerie Hobhouse), the beautician. No one else on site had the skill set. While investigating Rose’s salon, Laurence recalls that one of the big hair dryers doesn’t work. Why would a beautician keep a nonfunctional hair dryer around? To stash drugs in, naturally, and yes, there’s the stash.

Then it’s back to the police station. Jean-Baptiste (Nigel Chapman), another student at the hostel, shows up to denounce Avril as a fraud. He knows she’s not a student typist because she didn’t register for classes. While he’s carrying on, Marguerite (Patricia Lane) calls the stationhouse in a panic. She needs rescuing. Everyone races back to the youth hostel, only to discover they are too late.

While on the phone, Marguerite had her head bashed in with a heavy glass paperweight. Clearly, Jean-Baptiste — despite being unsavory in various ways — couldn’t have committed this murder. But he did and in exactly the same way as in the novel.

Despite the many changes and unanswered questions (such as why the petty thefts were committed), this version of Hickory Dickory Dock is considerably better and closer to the novel than the Suchet version. It’s also not full of mice running rampant all over the place. Yeah, I can’t believe it either, but what can you do?