Teresa Reviews “Problem at Sea” (1989): Instant Divorce

Fidelity to text: 3 knives.

Captain Hastings appears to arrange clay pigeon shooting competitions on board, along with several additional passengers. Subplots to further confuse the mystery are added to pad out the story. The altered ending, implausible as it is, is far more plausible than the short story.

Quality of film on its own: 4 knives.

This is another short story that would have benefited from expansion. I was particularly interested in General Forbes and his unrequited love for Adeline Clapperton going back decades. There’s also Miss Ellie Henderson who pines for Colonel Clapperton. She deserved a happy ending and Colonel Clapperton wasn’t it. And what were those two jolly sorority sisters, Kitty and Pamela, doing on a small cruise ship without chaperones or a stated reason like going to visit extended family? Young ladies like them wouldn’t have jaunted off into the unknown for no reason, not even in 1935.

This was a good episode, clearly shot on a real, vintage ship out at sea. The filming took place right after Triangle at Rhodes was produced. This allowed the director to transform the island of Rhodes into Alexandria, Egypt. His set designer did a terrific job since I didn’t say “I saw that building last episode!”

This does beg the question of when Captain Hastings joined Poirot since he wasn’t present at the last port of call, Rhodes. Nothing is said, so I’m assuming Hastings’ trip to shoot animals in northern England (referred to in the opening of Triangle at Rhodes) didn’t go well. Thus, he joined Poirot at some exotic port of call and is consoling himself by setting up clay pigeon shooting competitions onboard the ship. Maybe clay pigeons are easier to shoot, even onboard a ship at sea. I was impressed that such a small ship had the launching apparatus, along with clay pigeons, shotguns, and plenty of ammo. I’ve no idea where the purser stowed all that gear when he had to find space for the much more important mountain of luggage along with linens and groceries needed by the passengers. Ships don’t generally have a lot of room to spare. That was not a roomy, flat-bottomed cruise ship capable of carrying hundreds of passengers. I suppose the crew hot-racked to make extra space.

The cruise ship is real: she is the Motor Yacht Madiz, built in 1902. A ship of her class was likely cruising the Mediterranean in 1936. She’s still in service today and still has many of her original fittings, so you aren’t seeing a film set. You’re seeing the real thing. I would have liked to have seen more of her, including the bridge, but there’s only so much time in a 51-minute episode. When you’re watching, notice that, based on the size of the portholes, Kitty and Pamela’s stateroom is barely above the waterline. They’ve also got bunks to conserve space. Poirot paid for a more luxurious, spacious upper cabin as did the Clappertons.

I wanted to see a lot more of Mrs. Clapperton. She’s rich, entitled, sarcastic, and used to having her own way. She’s desperately fighting off age and resents her husband’s close attention to the much younger, much jollier Kitty and Pamela. You can tell she doesn’t consider Ellie Henderson to be a threat. Mrs. Clapperton is an unhappy, bored woman with too much time on her hands. The story implies that she was very happy running her hospital for wounded soldiers during World War I. She was married before, widowed, and then met Colonel Clapperton.

It’s readily obvious who holds the purse strings, and it’s not her husband. We know why he married her. The question is why did she marry him? And why is she still married to him? She snipes at him constantly, reminding him of his lowly status, yet he’s still hanging around. She doesn’t reserve her vitriol for her husband either. One of the other passengers tells Poirot that it wouldn’t be surprising if a woman like Adeline Clapperton got a hatchet smashed through her skull. She doesn’t. She gets a knife in her heart.

So why did General Forbes keep the flame burning for Adeline? He tells Poirot that she was a much different woman when she was younger. Disappointed in love, I suppose, and naturally, she doesn’t notice the older general pining for her. All she sees is the jolly young misses flirting up a storm with her despised husband. Kitty and Pamela lack money, sophistication, high-status connections, and savior faire, but they have something Adeline no longer enjoys. Youth. Watch Adeline singing a popular song of the time to herself in the mirror. No one sings that to her, not anymore. I would have liked more of General Forbes and Adeline’s backstory.

So Adeline dies in a locked cabin but to Poirot, the solution becomes clear once he gives the little gray cells time to work. Who is the most likely suspect? Who had the most motivation built up from swallowing years of contempt while accompanied by a driving desire to remain rich? Divorce doesn’t lead to riches, not when one partner used to be a music hall performer who married way above his allotted station in life. Poverty doesn’t draw jolly young ladies like moths to a flame, not when significant other assets, like youth and virility, are missing. But wealth does.

The climax is the other major change. In the short story, Poirot manages to locate — on this 187-foot-long cruise ship, the actual length of Madiz — a nearly life-sized ventriloquist’s dummy. Sure. That’s even less likely (unless a ventriloquist is a passenger) than finding a clay pigeon launcher, shotguns, crates of clay pigeons, and cases of ammo stowed in the hold. An average-sized cruise ship is about 1,000 feet long or five times the size of the Madiz. Maybe there, but not onboard the Madiz.

Instead, we and Poirot are introduced early on to the youngest passenger onboard, Ismene. She’s the niece of two other passengers, and she plays with dolls. Ismene graciously agrees to lend papa Poirot both a doll and her voice to capture the murderer. It’s plausible, made more plausible by the fact that her two aunts, ladies of a certain age, enjoy entertaining the company with singing and recitations. Ismene is following in their footsteps with her performance; a performance that doesn’t just entrap a murderer. It executes him, so the hangman doesn’t have to.

You’ll enjoy A Problem at Sea from stem to stern. It could have been longer to fill out all the subplots but you can’t have everything.