Teresa Reviews La Maison du Peril (2009), the French Peril at End House

Fidelity to text: 3 lugers

Source (with English subtitles): Amazon Prime Video

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Lots of changes but Nick Buckley’s corrupted heart and selfish motives remain.

Quality of film: 4 lugers

Fast-paced, funny, the loose ends tie up, and Larosière proves there’s no fool like an old fool.

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

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

I can’t use Agatha’s names here as only Joséphine (Nick Buckley) and Eléonore (Maggie Buckley) have avatars in the novel. The other characters vary from remaining within shouting distance (Ellen the married housemaid transforms into Madeleine the housekeeper, but single with an adult son) to across the channel in France (Maurice, Madeleine’s son who’s Joséphine’s partner in crime). Or they vanish entirely. Or they’re completely new. So, French names all around!

The Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie overhaul of Peril at End House didn’t just transform a Poirot novel into a police procedural. It veered off into territory that Agatha never explored: having her star detective make a fool of himself over a pretty girl.

Poirot may pretend to be fooled and indeed, as in the novel, he is fooled by Nick Buckley, a very pretty girl. But he doesn’t fall head over heels in love with her. That’s Hastings territory. Since Lampion, Larosière’s version of Hastings, is gay, he retains his common sense when faced with Joséphine’s wiles. Fortunately, despite Larosière becoming Hastings whenever Joséphine’s around, he comes to his senses in the end.

He can’t avoid the facts when presented to him by Madame de Saint-Langes’ lawyer. Who? Why she’s the millionaire aviator’s wife who’s had Joséphine investigated to find out who her husband’s latest cookie is and is he serious about divorcing her to marry said cookie. The aviator is a serial adulterer, but this time, he might be serious. That’s what Joséphine implies to everyone, especially Larosière. It’s true love. But according to the private investigator’s report, Joséphine’s story is hogwash.

[reports]
As in the novel, it’s the sweet, demure cousin who the millionaire aviator is in love with, has made pregnant (what? Yes!), and wants to marry. The sweet demure cousin, Eléonore, is also rich enough to fund Joséphine’s failing fashion design business. Did you see any sketches, bolts of cloth, designs, patterns, samples, or a sewing room? I didn’t. In addition, Eléonore pays for Abel’s art photography ambitions. She blows a lot of money on her cousins but her generosity is reaching its limits.

Wait. Back up. A private investigator was checking into the End House household? Yep, that’s Suzanne, the would-be model who’s carrying on with Abel, Joséphine’s brother. Wait. Who? Yep, this version of Nick Buckley has relatives. She and her brother have a creepy relationship but if you watch carefully, you’ll see that despite Abel’s character flaws, he correctly appraises his sister.

To wit: Larosière is just another fish on his sister’s string. Larosière will make a fool of himself over Joséphine, just like Simon the escaped Jewish doctor (and possible murderer if you believe German police), Maurice (Madeline the housekeeper’s criminal son), and a host of other young men who don’t appear onscreen but from the dialog exist. Joséphine is free with her favors, tells each of her paramours what they want to hear, and manages to beat the sexual jealousy down enough to maintain a small reverse harem. Possibly including her brother. I told you it was creepy.

[love]

She’s ice-cold at heart though. Men for her are to be used to get what she wants. The question you may have, assuming you know the novel, is does she know who Larosière is? I’d vote yes, although this wasn’t spelled out. Larosière is a well-known, highly placed police detective in the region, figuring prominently in high-profile murder cases covered by the newspapers. I’d guess that Joséphine, like Nick Buckley, had had her plans in place for murdering Eléonore to inherit all that lovely money and just needed the right lovestruck stooge to come along. Larosière fit the bill admirably. He made an unimpeachable witness and since he was madly in love with her, he’d accept whatever hogwash she told him, thus keeping other clever policemen at bay.

Joséphine already has another lovestruck stooge to carry out her plans, allowing her to keep her own hands clean. Poor Maurice. He adores her, enough to rob banks to fund her ambitions and then cheat his gangster partners. He’s willing to put his mother in danger to win Joséphine’s approval. He’s the one who cuts the lantern rope, narrowly missing her, he poisons the milk that she spills and then murders her cat, and he’s the one who shoots down Eléonore, when she’s wearing Joséphine’s red shawl. He betrays his gangster partners for her to the police. He’s also the one who strangles, drowns Suzanne because she’s begun to figure things out.

Maurice dies without telling what he knows. He fled to Joséphine and then she spurned him because he was no longer useful. Dying in a gun battle with the police must have been a relief.

Joséphine would have you and Larosière believe that Suzanne had it coming because she’d spied and extorted money for silence. That might be true, but Joséphine is a manipulative liar so take anything she says with a few cups of salt.

In case that’s not enough plot for you, Joséphine and Abel have their godfather living with them. Paul Lazare is an antique dealer on the verge of bankruptcy (being incompetent with money must run in the family) but he has a plan to recoup his losses. It’s not a valuable painting. It’s the Eye of Horus, a huge, priceless diamond that Joséphine’s grandfather stole from an Egyptian tomb. Yes, the trio’s grandfather was a tomb raider. Er, archeologist. Le grand-père hid the diamond somewhere in the château. Joséphine and Abel’s father drove himself mad searching for it and after their mother died of neglect and pneumonia, he hung himself. Naturally, ten-year-old Joséphine found his dangling body. She probably dragged her little brother to see it, before summoning Madeleine to cut the body down.

Paul Lazare comes on to Lampion in his efforts to conceal his nefarious plans to find the diamond and cheat Joséphine and Abel, but Lampion displays far more sense than his boss does. Lampion turns Paul down flat and is incensed by his bribe.

[lazare waving money around]

Despite being forced to be a comically inept handyman, Lampion shows far more sense than Larosière about Joséphine. The series has made it plain from the beginning that Larosière is a lady’s man, easily distracted by a pretty face. But this was absurd. He was so smitten that any policeman’s instincts went into the deep freeze. Everyone he spoke to — including her own family and friends! — said she was bad news. But Larosière saw only a beguiling damsel needing rescue.

He was beguiled, all right. Joséphine is so sure she ensnared him that she actually believes he’ll save her from the guillotine even when confronted by the truth. But none of her victims get earthly justice. Like Nick Buckley, Joséphine is able to find her own way to die. She leaps over the cliff. Justice for her will come, but not until after that hard landing.