Teresa Reviews “The Kidnapped Prime Minister” (1990)

Fidelity to text: 3 ransom notes.

Plenty of changes, including updating motivation to match the changed date. All the changes worked, enhancing a slight story.

Quality of movie on its own: 4 1/2 ransom notes.

I really wanted this to be longer; it needed more detail about motivation. If you’re not up on British history, you’ll miss the nuances.

This is a complex episode, deeply involved with old sins of the past running smack into politics of the present-day setting (1935). If you don’t know your history about British and Irish conflicts over Home Rule, much of the story won’t make sense. It’s too subtle; the film needed to be longer to spell out why everyone cared so much for us clueless, ahistorical Americans. I had to look up Lord Asquith and the Home Rule bill, and I’m still not sure what happened.

As near as I can figure out, Lord Asquith introduced a bill in 1912 to permit the Irish more self-governing powers. However, other people didn’t think that bill went far enough. That is, the opposition saw it as a sop to get Irish citizens to shut up and roll over and be grateful to their British masters for allowing them an 1/8 of an inch of wiggle room. I think. I’m probably wrong. It’s a very complex issue. Unless you’re really motivated and have plenty of time, I don’t recommend you dive into that snake pit either.

Suffice to say Commander Daniels, the former Mrs. Daniels, and the driver, Egan, had deep-rooted historical and emotional reasons to loathe the Prime Minister and everything he represented. They had come to believe, with war coming and everyone remembered the catastrophe of WWI, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is a very dubious proposition, on par with making deals with the devil. In the short term, those deals seem to succeed. In the long term, the devil always wins. He’s got time on his side, something we mere mortals do not.

Back to Poirot. For a serious episode with even more serious undertones, it begins and ends with humor. Poirot, as we all know, is a very snappy dresser. Naturally, he has his suits tailor-made for the perfect fit.
So we see him arguing with his tailor, Mr. Fingler, about the suit not fitting perfectly. Mr. Fingler tells him that his tape measure did not stretch. No, Poirot’s own girth stretched so the new suits had to be cut to accommodate the weight gain. Why does Poirot patronize a Jewish tailor on the less stylish side of London? Because Mr. Fingler trained the boys at Saville Row and Poirot’s concern is with acquiring the best suit, not the most fashionable one. He has his priorities.

Remember this: Poirot always keeps his priorities straight. Whatever sympathy he may feel toward Irish nationalists wanting self-rule, he’s Belgian. He was a war refugee who found refuge in England when he had no other place to go. He’s got a good idea of what the approaching storm will do to Europe and Great Britain.

When he is summoned to investigate the mysterious kidnapping of the Prime Minister, he leaps into action. Or rather, Poirot leaps into mental action. He thinks about what actually happened when the Prime Minister was kidnapped as opposed to what Lord Estair and Sir Bernard believe happened. Or what Chief Inspector Japp wants. They want, nay, expect him to race around France sniffing for clues. The idea of him sleeping when there is no time to spare (32 and one-quarter hours to be precise) is anathema.

But this is a case where thought is demanded and not racing after escaping divorcées in motor cars. Although that does happen because what else is Hastings for if not to race after hot redheads in his Lagonda? He lives for those moments and, God knows, we can’t have a Poirot episode without some kind of car chase.

Poirot works out what no one else noticed. If someone wanted to shoot the Prime Minister, then why did they kidnap him after the assassination attempt failed? Successful shootings result in death. If the Prime Minister was kidnapped in order to assassinate him, then why wasn’t the body dumped at once? To sow confusion and dissent? That possibility exists. If the Prime Minister is in the same state as Schrodinger’s Cat, then the British government has a problem. They’re missing an important government official but he can’t be replaced because there is no body laying around proving which state he is in, dead or alive.

Poirot also notices the important fact that after the near-miss shooting, no one actually sees the Prime Minister’s face. What I find hard to believe is that if the Prime Minister was shot, followed an hour later by a kidnapping, why didn’t Scotland Yard investigate where the Prime Minister got his face bandaged up? That helps develop the timeline, narrowing down exactly where he was, who he saw, and possibly, unearthing clues to valuable witnesses. But no, Scotland Yard did not apparently perform this basic task. Poirot wastes precious time (32 and 1/4 hours, remember) interviewing matrons at local hospitals himself. Chief Inspector Japp should be worried about losing his pension and his job!

It was also difficult to believe that Poirot could so quickly unearth Egan’s address book and turn to the “X” page and discover a clue. But that’s fiction for you; compressing a search that would take hours into a single dramatic minute. The clue does lead to the clue that ties the case together for Poirot. As he’s dialing Commander Daniels’s telephone, he sees the photograph of Commander Daniels’s wife. Estranged wife. Divorced wife after the kind of vicious, no-holds-barred divorce that made all the papers. The kind of divorce that everyone read avidly in all the worst gossip rags. Why did Commander Daniels keep a picture of his evil ex on his desk?

A very good question, Poirot would say. With some help from Miss Lemon, he works out where to go to rescue the Prime Minister. As you would expect, he is correct. Sadly, the rescue still ends in tragedy albeit not for England. The Prime Minister is proved alive and goes off to the conference as scheduled. Other people, however, will pay and pay and pay.

This is a great episode, subtle and complex. It’s a lovely example of old sins having long shadows.