Teresa Reviews “The Man in the Brown Suit” (1989)

Fidelity to text: 4 guns.
It’s amazingly close. The main changes were shifting the time to the present day and moving to Cairo and the east coast of Africa. The film was shot in 1988 so what was then contemporary is now an 80s celebration of big hair, shoulder pads, and aerobics workout clothing. The ladies (and the gentlemen) looked great, just in time to avoid the ’90s and the dreariness of grunge.

Quality of movie on its own: 4 guns.
Don’t believe what you read elsewhere; believe me instead! I was expecting to hate this movie and I didn’t. Not at all. If you can relax and accept Rue McClanahan reprising her role as Blanche Devereaux from The Golden Girls, er, I mean Suzy Blair, you’ll have fun.

I sat down for this film not knowing anything other than the cast (the girl detective from Remington Steele? Blanche? The Equalizer? The White Shadow? Felix Unger? Really?) and the date change. I’m very familiar with the novel and was expecting a painful movie.

The novel (which you should read) is one of Agatha’s forgotten books, yet it shouldn’t be. It’s as much a romance as a thriller, involving murder, stolen diamonds, political intrigue, mistaken identity, and that’s just for openers.

Anne Beddingfeld is alone in the world, highly romantic, and desperate for adventure. She’s also prone to lengthy internal monologues where she works out the troubles she’s placed herself in. This works in a novel because when you read, you’re permitting other characters to take up residence inside your skull. In the movies? Not so much. Movies don’t go in for lengthy internal monologues or narration; they want snappy dialog and action. Yet the scriptwriter (Carla Jean Wagner) managed to make it work.

Anne (Stephanie Zimbalist) talks to herself, keeping the viewer knowing what’s going on in her head. She talks to everyone else. She wears her heart on her sleeve. She wants to live and not go back to her boring, lonely job working at Blockbuster Video (the late 1980s, remember?) in the mall in Buffalo. She’s such a romantic wannabe adventuress that she gets her and her best friend, Valerie, stranded in the Cairo airport. Valerie flies back to Buffalo in a huff. She leaves Anne behind and trying to discover who just killed (on purpose?) a stranger by frightening him enough to run out into traffic.
We’re off to the races, yet it’s oddly plausible. Of course Anne still has her luggage consisting of mix and match casuals; Valerie threw the duffel bag at her in the Cairo airport. She gets into trouble with the Egyptian police so who else but a representative from the American Embassy would show up to bail her out and put her on a flight back to Buffalo? It’s natural that Anne is broke so when adventure calls, she cashes in her Buffalo plane ticket and maxes out her credit cards to buy a ticket on the Kilmorden Castle in steerage. Well, not really. As the travel agent says — remember those? — it’s called tourist class these days.

The Kilmorden Castle is a smaller cruise ship of the type designed to travel from Cairo, down the Suez Canal, around the Horn of Africa to Mombasa and back. Not every cruise ship is designed to carry 2,000 passengers plus captain and crew. Many are considerably smaller to serve smaller routes, but they all have steerage, er, tourist class accommodations. Every ship has space below the waterline so why not rent those berths? Otherwise, they sit empty, not bringing in any money.

Thus, Anne’s onboard the Kilmorden Castle at last and who should she meet but Blanche Devereaux, the guy from the American Embassy who tried to ship her off to Buffalo, Sir Eustace Pedler, and some other, more suspicious passengers. She also meets the man in the brown suit. Their meeting is right out of the novel as well as tens of thousands of other torrid romance novels that followed in Agatha’s footsteps: he’s handsome, studly, injured, escaping from danger, and his injury requires him to show off his manly bare chest so Anne can treat his wounds.

Yes, folks, Agatha Christie developed a classic romance trope back in 1924.

She didn’t describe his manly chest. She didn’t even state that Anne stripped off his shirt, but every careful reader knew: you can’t bandage wounds over top of clothing. His clothes have to go. Agatha was a romantic at heart, seething with passion, and knew very well how compelling an unsuitable man can be. Your brain shuts off, the hormones take over, and you’ll believe the most ridiculous story because, well, it’s him telling you the absurd story and not the boring guy from Accounting talking about his golf game.

This is why, gentlemen, you should lift weights. Then when you take off your shirt, you’ll get noticed in a way you didn’t think would happen. Ladies do notice a manly, chiseled chest and well-shaped biceps. This is an achievable goal, no plastic surgery needed; just time, effort, and pushups.

But back to the ship. The film follows the novel pretty closely, other than simplifying the plot and moving from South Africa to the east coast of Africa. There’s still the mysterious Colonel, a Moriarty of crime involved in gunrunning, drug-running, and gem smuggling. All the political stuff, economic fallout, and worker riots vanish. The scriptwriter didn’t feel the need to add more plot to a storyline that’s already stuffed full.

The mysterious Colonel has his own henchmen. This gives Tony Randall the chance to appear as four characters, two of them in drag. Yes, folks, Agatha Christie was once again at the cutting-edge way back in 1924. I will agree that cruise ship passengers back in 1924 or even 1989 would be more likely to be fooled by a man in a dress than they would be today. Back then, well, you were looking at a tallish, ugly woman because what else could it be? There are a lot of us around. Tony Randall is 5 foot 8, so it worked. It wouldn’t have worked if, say, Ken Howard (6 foot 7 inches) tried to play the same role. He plays Colonel Race instead.

I must single out Edward (the Equalizer) Woodward’s performance. He plays Sir Eustace Pedler and he’s perfect. Think Bertie Wooster all growed up and in a position of authority. His secretary, Underhill, isn’t Jeeves, having a secret life of his own and Jeeves had none, but there are undercurrents. As in the novel, Underhill’s intense respectability ends up causing trouble for Sir Eustace. Sir Eustace was based on a real person, Major E. A. Belcher. Major Belcher sponsored Agatha and Archie’s yearlong, round-the-world cruise in 1922. That cruise sparked the novel as well as numerous short stories she wrote while at sea.

Equally good and equally not able to be replaced by some other actress, Rue McClanahan did a marvelous job as Suzy Blair. In the novel, Suzy comes across as a woman who adores the company of men. Who better than Blanche Devereaux to portray her? She lights up the screen.

Yes, there are some slow spots here and there. Anne can be annoying at times but she also never magically transforms into Wonder Woman or G.I. Jane, capable of mowing down entire armies all by herself. She’s a real young woman using her own resources to rescue herself. You’re left unsure as to what happens to Sir Eustace (did he escape to South America? Let’s hope so!).

The movie worked for me. I enjoyed myself when I did not expect to. You may enjoy The Man in the Brown Suit too. But read the novel first, recognizing that Agatha developed an entire subgenre back in 1924 even though the novel was never marketed that way. The Man in the Brown Suit was a romantic thriller before anyone knew what they were, right down to the meet cute, enemies to lovers, and dramatic and improbably well-timed rescues. That way, you’ll know that after Valerie flies back to Buffalo, the screenwriter didn’t make any of the plot up. It’s all Agatha all the way.