Teresa Reviews “Mystery of the Blue Jar” (1982)

Teresa reviews “Mystery of the Blue Jar” (1982) from “The Agatha Christie Hour” and finds it amusing but forgettable

Fidelity to text: 2 1/2 thieves

Uncle George became far more prominent, the village suddenly gains residents, but most of all, the ending … shifted.

Quality of movie on its own: 3 1/2 thieves

Light and amusing, but not amusing enough. It needed to be more madcap.

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

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

Agatha knew her spiritualism. She could hardly avoid it as the culture around her was steeped in it. She had a boyfriend who introduced her to theosophy and the writings of the astonishing Madame Blavatsky. She used the supernatural frequently in her short stories. She even had Hercule Poirot comment on the power of superstition in The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb.

None of that means she believed in it herself. She used it, like any good writer does. Recall that Larry Niven said “there is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is ‘idiot’.” People run face-first into this issue all the time with Agatha’s prose. They confuse her characters (venal, petty, bigoted, or small-minded) with her. She wasn’t any of that. Similarly, she used the occult in her stories but don’t you believe for a minute that means she read her tarot cards every morning, studied her tea leaves every afternoon, and practiced automatic writing in the evenings.

For her, the supernatural was interesting and made for a damn fine story. Especially if she could turn it on its head, something she loved doing. Our Agatha liked her twists.

The Mystery of the Blue Jar, published in 1924, is a case in point. It appears to be pretty straightforward. A young man, old enough to have served in the Great War, is learning the law by day but he really wants to play golf. When he’s not studying, he spends every waking moment on the golf course. He even moved to a hotel next to a golf course so he can play daily at dawn and on weekends. An interesting tidbit buried in the story is that Jack Hartington is required to spend 5 and 1/2 days out of 7 imprisoned in the mahogany tomb of an office in the city. Unlike today, he doesn’t get all of Saturday off! Only Sunday, which he spends entirely on the golf course, with no time for church.
While he’s early-birding on the golf course, he hears it: A woman screaming for help. She’s being murdered. Startled rooks fly from the trees. The damsel he meets, while trying to find out who to rescue, asks him if he’s suffering from shell-shock.

The film greatly expands upon this set-up other than on one point. Sadly, the damsel Jack meets doesn’t ask about shell-shock, although she should have because it provided another reason for Jack to fret over his sanity.

Otherwise, everything else was better in the film. We meet Jack and his uncle George. We learn about their family, particularly Mad Harry, George’s grandfather. Mad Harry was a wastrel and a gambler. We meet the local innkeeper, the local antiquarian bookseller, and the maid at the hotel where Jack lives. An improvement on the story is that the hotel — once a grand mansion — used to belong to George’s family until Mad Harry lost it gambling.

Uncle George is bluff and good-natured. He also primes Jack with discussions that things are not always as clearcut as they seem. For example, he’s not the least bit unhappy about losing the ancestral mansion and all the obligations that went with it. On the contrary; it’s a huge benefit.

Sensible – but not very bright — Uncle George goes off meet his wife in Italy. Jack continues to study law by day and play golf every possible moment. Then it happens. At 7:25 a.m., he hears a woman scream in panic as she’s murdered. There’s only one cottage nearby in the woods surrounding the golf course. The damsel in the cottage’s garden hasn’t heard a thing. Jack endures a few more mornings of being the only person who hears anything and worries increasingly about his sanity.

Lucky for Jack, Dr. Lavington, another guest at the hotel, comes to his aid. Uncle George knows Dr. Lavington (a character reference if you will) since George didn’t say “beware of that quack.” Dr. Lavington takes Jack’s concerns seriously. He discusses the possibility that Jack has unusually keen senses, that one-in-a-thousand ability to detect something that’s out of the ordinary. Something supernatural, in fact.

The damsel from the cottage shows up at the hotel asking for Jack. She’s Felise Marchaud, living in the cottage with her invalid father. She’s been having mysterious and frightening dreams. The dreams involve a terrified woman and a big blue jar.

Dr. Lavington investigates while Jack’s in the city. He reports back to Jack that there were charcoal burners in the woods. That Mad Harry had a dreadful reputation, including admitting to murdering his mistress on his deathbed. The mistress had lived in the cottage, and she had come into money before vanishing. They meet Felise, and she tells them of her dreams about a beautiful woman holding a mysterious blue jar.

Dr. Lavington asks Jack if he knows anything about it. Why yes, there is. Uncle George has a big blue jar in his cottage he uses to hold umbrellas and walking sticks. But since George is off in Italy, Jack can’t ask George about the jar.

Dr. Lavington decides they must hold a séance in the cottage. He arranges for Jack to bring the jar. The three of them commune over the jar in the dark, waiting for the spirits to speak.

And speak they do. Jack falls unconscious.

Did the spirits really speak? Not exactly! In one of Agatha’s signature twists, Dr. Lavington is a fraud in league with the lovely Felise. Worse, her invalid father is another young man, a brother or lover perhaps. We aren’t told.

Is all hope lost for Jack? No, in one of the improvements to the short story, Uncle George comes home early. He’s thinking about what Jack had told him and suddenly realizes — thanks to a completely unrelated suggestion made to him by the antiquarian bookseller — that while people lie all the time, rooks don’t. If Jack heard the woman screaming, the damsel claimed she didn’t, but the rooks rose up into the sky in a fright, then the damsel lied. Rooks don’t hear ghosts.

The ending was improved over the short story too. In keeping with Uncle George’s personality makeover, he’s not that concerned about losing a priceless piece of ancient Chinese porcelain as long as Jack is safe. He’s got another big blue jar in the spare room! Plus, it’s difficult to smuggle big pieces of porcelain out of the country so the first jar may come home.

My real complaint with this episode was it should have sparkled more. This needed to be frothier. There are great moments, especially where Uncle George works out what happened with the bookseller who knows his village history. It’s good entertainment but you probably won’t watch it twice.

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