Teresa Reviews “Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan” (1993)

Teresa reviews “Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan” (1993)

Fidelity to text: 3 1/2 thieves

The screenwriter added plenty, but most of the additions were based on hints in the text or accurate — but weird! — period details

Quality of film on its own: 4 thieves

I’d have given it another half-thief but the solution is wildly implausible. Sadly, it’s Agatha’s solution so I can’t blame the script.

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

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

This was a nice finish to the fifth season of Poirot, particularly after disappointments like The Case of the Missing Will and Dead Man’s Mirror.

The episode was fun and frothy; there’s a play within the play, a Brighton Beach-style brass band playing the soundtrack, and period horse racing scenes. There’s even some silent movie footage referencing Salome, a 1922 flick based on the play by Oscar Wilde. Oscar gets namechecked twice more, with Hastings asking if the play where Celestine and Andrew Hall met was Lady Windermere’s Fan. It was not. It was The Importance of Being Earnest, which gave Poirot’s memory a jog and let him make an important correlation. He recalled seeing Worthing, the limping man with the elephant-headed cane at the front desk of the Grand Metropolitan Hotel.

This was also a lovely rewrite of a scene in the short story. In it, Poirot observes the hotel staff’s changed behavior and deduces that Mrs. Opalsen’s pearls were stolen. Similarly in the film, he notes Worthing’s limp, then observes him climbing the stairs instead of taking the lift. Something’s off-kilter but it wasn’t until later that Poirot saw the connection.

What was Poirot doing at a hotel in Brighton? Taking a much-needed two weeks rest so he could fully recover from his detecting labors. He’d overworked and taken ill.

But Brighton turns into a busman’s holiday— you expected otherwise? — which was good for Poirot. He got to exercise his intellect rather than waste time wondering why he was staying at a cold seaside resort, sitting in a deck chair in what looked like 45° weather.

He’s bundled up with a blanket over his clothing, muffler, and overcoat. Hastings, made of hardier stuff, also looks chilled. The weather remains indifferent, with actual rain, a rarity in Poirot episodes where it’s normally sunny and warm.

When the weather isn’t being typically English, Poirot endures one annoyance after another. He closely resembles Lucky Len, a man in a local newspaper publicity stunt. If a citizen identifies Lucky Len and says the special phrase, Lucky Len is supposed to award his finder with money. Think of it as Where’s Waldo, only with an actual financial reward.

This is based on reality, believe it or not. Back in 1927, the Westminster Gazette invented Lobby Lud. If a citizen correctly identified Lobby he earned a quick 5 quid, worth about £300 today. With that kind of money at stake, it’s no wonder the locals harass Poirot whenever he steps outside the hotel’s central heating to take the air and endure the cold.

That’s when he’s not being harassed by theater entrepreneur, Ed Opalsen who understands that no publicity is bad publicity. Opalsen is producing a new play called Pearls Before Swine, starring his wife, Margaret Opalsen, and a priceless necklace of pearls once given to Salome’s actress by the tsar. Margaret is draped with pearls. She must be wearing several pounds’ worth.

You may wonder why the audience is gasping at those pearls. Today, pearls are cheap and readily available, but that wasn’t true in 1936. The cultured pearl industry was in its infancy so virtually every pearl anyone saw was natural, born from an oyster and plucked from the bottom of the sea by a pearl diver. Natural pearls are anything but standardized. They’re rarely perfectly spherical nor are their colors uniform. Some are positively baroque; misshapen lumps of nacre.

A string of pearls, especially if they’re large, perfect orbs with the same hue and luminosity, was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. A quantity of pearls — all large, and perfectly matched in color, shape, and size — could run into the millions. Margaret Opalsen wore a king’s ransom around her neck and an audience in 1936 knew it.

They were literally pearls of great price, equaled in value only by the kingdom of heaven. It makes you wonder about Ed Opalsen’s choice of names for his play. He’s displaying his pearls before his piggy audiences and praying they’ll grunt with applause and ticket dollars.

Naturally, pearls like this would be a prime target for thieves. Yet they’re only guarded by a lady’s maid, which is right out of the text. There’s nothing to stop a thief from barging into the hotel room, overpowering Celestine, and stealing the jewel box so he can open it later at his leisure, but then we wouldn’t have a locked jewel box mystery.

It’s a nifty little mystery too, since there are only two suspects. There’s Celestine, overworked and underpaid lady’s maid with a gambling playwright boyfriend who’s in hock to suspicious thugs. She’s desperate for money.

There’s also Grace, overworked and underpaid chambermaid at the Grand Metropolitan. We don’t know anything else about her travails but she’s probably desperate for money, too, since chambermaiding doesn’t pay well.

If Celestine didn’t steal the pearls, then it had to be Grace. Except the two women, strangers to each other, are each other’s alibis since neither left the room where the box containing the priceless pearls are left in an unlocked dresser drawer. As grand as the Grand Metropolitan hotel is, it apparently isn’t grand enough to have a hotel safe. But again, if the Opalsens used the hotel safe, we’d have a very different story.

The solution is clever but it’s also wildly implausible since it’s dependent on not only split-second timing but Celestine needing to leave the main suite twice to get sewing supplies from her adjacent room. There’s no way that the thieves would know she’d be conscientious enough to get the mending done while the Opalsens were at the theater.

The other issue is the room next door to the Opalsen’s suite. The rooms have a connecting door, an invention of the hotel industry allowing guests to rent the rooms they need instead of putting up with a suite that’s too large or too small. They let suites expand and contract as required. Connecting doors have deadbolt locks on both sides so both sides are guaranteed privacy, a must if strangers are renting the adjoining rooms. Connecting doors figure prominently in bedroom farces since, as you can guess, they allow discreet passage between bedrooms without having to go out into the hallway and risk being seen by staff or other guests.

How did the thieves ensure they booked the adjoining room? In the short story, the villain was Opalsen’s valet. Agatha’s choice was plausible since a valet could act as his employer’s personal secretary, making hotel arrangements. In the film, the villain is the chauffeur. Chauffeurs take care of the limousine, not the hotel.

But if you can stomach that unlikelihood, you’ll enjoy everything else from start to finish. Season five ended on a high note.

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