Teresa Reviews Murder on the Links (2015)

Teresa reviews Murder on the Links (2015), an episode from Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie titled Le Crime ne paie pas (Crime Does Not Pay), and disliked the inane subplot involving graft and an incompetent investigation.

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 2 stranglers

The central plot is buried under mountains of useless padding and poorly-thought-out changes.

Quality of movie: 2 stranglers

Way too much was going on, yet at the same time, nothing was going on. It all took place offscreen.

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

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

Well. The opening episode of Season Two of Les Petits promised indifferent plotting and annoying leads. The subsequent five episodes demonstrated Les Petits could deliver a reasonably coherent plot while remaining somewhat faithful to the text. The leads remained annoying, and the better I get to know them, the less I like them.

So here we are with episode seven. Theoretically, this adaptation is based on Murder on the Links. If you haven’t read the novel (especially our annotated edition!), it won’t matter in the slightest. Very little of it remains and what does is buried under unnecessary complications and obscure writing.

If you have read the novel, you won’t recognize most of what’s onscreen. You can boil what survived in this episode down to “A man’s hidden past returns, with deceit, blackmail, and murder on its heels.”

If the film hadn’t wasted so, so, so, so much time on an idiotic subplot and Laurence being an unmitigated (and often wrong) ass to everyone, there would have been time to explain exactly what was going on in that nightclub, who the dirty blonde in the matching fur coat was, and why it mattered to the Deboise family.

Because the novel’s convoluted story didn’t offer enough scope to the producers, they added a subplot with enough material to fill an entire film on its own. Laurence, who’d fill entire advice columns about coping with toxic bosses and operates under the loosest interpretation of responsible policing that will stand up in court, finally runs afoul of Internal Affairs. Someone higher up in the Sûreté accuses him of taking bribes from a Paris nightclub owner, well-known for prostitution, drug trafficking, and other, similar crimes.

Inspector Hubert Petitpont shows up. If you’re French or you do needlework, you’ll get the joke at once. He’s the shortest person in the room, even shorter than Avril. Marlène towers over him, enabling him to keep his eyes focused directly on her bosom at all times. If you’re not French and you don’t do needlework, the Petit Pont (Little Bridge) is a very small bridge over the river Seine. Petit point is a fastidious, miniaturized version of needlepoint, worked with a finer needle, using finer yards, on fine mesh canvas, 22 threads to the square inch. Like counted cross stitch, petit point is designed to make you go blind and crazy.

Petitpont behaves as though he’s already on the take. He insinuates that if Laurence plays along, he’ll make the charges go away. Who has made these charges? A shadowy figure named Le Belge. You never see him, nor do you meet the nightclub owner/drug trafficker/pimp.

Instead, you meet Gilbert Bourdet, Laurence’s friend from shadowy wartime activities. Laurence was, as you’d expect, a member of the Resistance. After the war, everyone claimed they were. Gilbert tells Laurence that several known collaborators (who’ve regained their positions) have made it their business to eliminate him. They are behind the accusations. Do we meet these collaborators? We do not. Will this plot point ever arise again? That’s equally doubtful, given Les Petits total lack of interest in continuity. Each episode to date acts as though the three principals just met and their attitudes to each other are set in stone.

This is why, when Avril receives a letter to her “Marie-Chantel” agony column from a young woman claiming to have seen a murder at a local nightclub, Laurence dismisses her instantly. He solved six murder cases with her already, yet he treats her as though she’s some unknown loon from the street. He’s too busy telling off Petitpont to ask for details.

Avril, channeling her inner Nancy Drew but incompetent as always, shows up at the nightclub and walks into a job as a replacement waitress. When the body of the missing waitress is discovered, strangled with her face bashed in, does Laurence seek out Avril’s information? No, but he does insult her at the nightclub. He’s there taking pictures, because it might be connected to the accusations made against him? This was decidedly unclear. He makes a point of telling her she looks like a sack of potatoes. She does not. Avril is Hollywood plain and dumpy, which means in real life, she’s ravishing. Laurence is insulting to her and to us.

You’ll watch Laurence take pictures of the nightclub with his mini spy camera and never once understand why he took them. In particular, he snaps the dirty blonde matron in the fur coat who turns out to be critical at the climax. Bill worked it out because I completely missed the rationale, other than Laurence’s voyeurism. He spotted that the blonde had come and gone from behind the scenes at the nightclub. That is, she went backstage where the customers never go. Why was she allowed? Because, possibly, she was connected to drug trafficking? At any rate, what actually happens is Laurence got lucky and took a photo of someone who turned out to be important.

It took some time for me to work out who was who, since so much of the film was wasted on Petitpont’s subplot. Paul Deboise (Paul Renauld) runs the nightclub with his wife, Dolorès (Eloise Renauld). They’ve got a son, Miguel (Jack Renauld). They’re from Argentina and recently moved back to France because … Well. You won’t learn why.

Miguel is madly in love with Eloïse Bonin (Marthe Daubreuil). Eloïse is the girl singer at the nightclub. She’s also pregnant with his baby. Mom doesn’t like Eloïse and she doesn’t know about her impending grandchild. Paul may or may not be involved in organized crime and drug trafficking. There’s also a second-rate magician and emcee, Stanislas. He’s not much of a parallel to Gabriel Stoner, if you’re keeping score at home. There’s a weird relationship going on between Stanislas and Eloïse but you won’t learn why.

Then Paul gets murdered, his body found with his face bashed in out in the woods (the same woods where the waitress’ body was found? They don’t say.) Dolorès tearfully ID’s him as her husband. Where’s Miguel? Sent back to Argentina, but he didn’t get on the boat. Dad was clear it was critical Miguel return to Argentina, but — communications issues! — refused to tell Miguel (or the audience) why it was life or death.

At no point do we see Paul, Dolorès, Miguel, or Eloïse interact with the blonde in the fur coat. We don’t see why she’s allowed backstage. Instead, we watch Avril live out her dream of becoming a nightclub chanteuse. Twice. Everything important, including complicated motives, is summed up in the last five minutes.

How? Because Laurence, being preternaturally gifted and lucky at slapdash policework solves the case from inside his prison cell. A bum tells him his sad story about his fellow hobo getting murdered, along with his dog. Laurence puts it all together. At the same time, Gilbert — while offscreen —makes the entire Internal Affairs investigation go away.

Bleah. Inane writing, overacting, and dog murder. Bleah.