Teresa Reviews The Pale Horse (2016)

Teresa Reviews The Pale Horse (2016), an episode from Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie, and wished it handled the supernatural more realistically.

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 3½ knives

It’s all there buried behind the bizarre carnival trappings, with an added evil stepmother scheming to inherit.

Quality of movie: 3½ knives

Marlène shines in a character-appropriate way. I’d have given it 4 knives if it had spent more time at the carnival and correctly addressed the supernatural.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.
Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movie on her podcast.

Once again, Les Petits proves it can hit the marks when adapting Agatha while still involving our three leads in a logical and coherent manner. It makes you wonder why they can’t be more consistent.

This version of The Pale Horse is flawed, but no more so than the other three adaptations. In this case, you don’t spend enough time with the witches, the scheming relatives, or what possessed Marlène, and far too much watching Laurence chase Dr. Maillol, the pathologist.

The carnival where the witches hold court is suitably bizarre but it’s also virtually empty of visitors which made zero sense. I understand that M. Dacosta (Mr. Venables) feels some sentiment towards his first carnival but even the most sentimental businessman shuts down an obvious money-loser like this. Where were the crowds? Was too much $$ spent on set dressing so the production couldn’t afford extras? How about more backstory about his life on the edges of respectable show business, how he got so rich, his dealings with carnies, his creepy, hulking, mute manservant, or how he met his witches?

You only get two witches in this version. Bella the hedge witch and probably the only one with real occult abilities in the novel gets disappeared. Thyrza Grey becomes Sybille (yes, the screenwriter gave Sybil Stamfordis’ first name to Thyrza) and it’s difficult to tell if she believes or not. The trappings of ritual remain the same whether you contact beings on the astral plane or just pretend to fool the marks. Sybille’s reaction to Marlène’s demonic possession was remarkably blasé. If she’s an occult practitioner, she’s sloppy. If she’s playacting for the money, she must have gotten the shock of her life when something responded to her call and spoke through Marlène. But you won’t get an answer either way.

The second witch most definitely has some power. Irène (Sybil Stamfordis) gets possessed and has something speak through her on a regular basis. Moreover, she doesn’t like it. It’s becoming harder to open herself up to an entity from the astral plane and more frightening. If Irène began her occult practices for fun, she’s learning that it involves real peril.

I’d guess Sybille is bright enough to understand she’s involved in some kind of criminal mischief but it pays well so she doesn’t ask questions. Again, it’s hard to tell if she’s real or fake. Irène doesn’t know about the criminal mischief but she does understand that something is wrong.

Which is why she gets drugged and knifed and her body left in a carnival ride. Interestingly, Père François (Father Gorman) gets knifed in the same fashion in his church. This piece of sloppiness gives Laurence something to investigate, proving that Père François wasn’t delusional and his mysterious list of names something to be discarded.

And, in fact, Laurence investigates the deaths of the names on the list but you won’t see the police work. Instead, you’ll waste far too much time with our three chers amis and Dr. Maillol. He assumes much of Mark Easterbrooke’s role, including getting Avril to pretend to be his much younger, estranged wife. Marlène (to her great joy) pretends to be his mistress, whom he’d marry if only the evil wife died under not too suspicious circumstances.

You’ll enjoy two scenes proving Samuel Labarthe (Laurence) doesn’t have to be a first-class, card-carrying evil boss. The script makes him do it. In one scene, as he closes in on the inheritance scheme (assuming policework took place offscreen), he interviews Francine (Thomasina Tuckerton) Marchal’s evil stepmother about her rushing to sell Francine’s ancestral home now that she’s conveniently dead. In the other, he approaches the betting broker (Mr. Bradley) who makes the connection between the would-be heir and the witches. Who else do you ask for help to get rid of an unwanted wife without arousing police suspicions? Sadly M. Bonnet doesn’t get to expound on how betting a rich relative will die is perfectly legal.

You’ll also get the scene when the good priest, Père François, discusses his need for justice with Laurence, the good atheist. It was badly written (or badly subtitled) because Père Françoise didn’t do a good job of explaining why he needed the earthly justice of men instead of the divine justice of heaven. Laurence is, naturally, dismissive of the priest and his claim because why would he, the long arm of the law, pay attention to the ravings of some delusional priest? It must not be his job.

Then, Père François gets knifed in his church proving he wasn’t delusional.

Once Laurence investigates Père François’ murder, we meet Lucien Cornille (Zachariah Osbourne). He’s a dweeby, irritating pharmacist eager to assist the police in their inquiries. He’s also not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, proven when Laurence investigates Dacosta based on Cornille’s tip. Dacosta is on crutches, a result of his muscular dystrophy. He could have never knifed anyone unless they were tied up and drugged, something Père François was not.

Cornille’s behavior is living proof of why so many criminals get caught. But if he hadn’t made a spectacle of himself, Agatha would have written a quite different novel.

There’s a simple rule that far too many criminals don’t follow: shoot, shovel, and shut up. The shutting up is the hardest part of the rule. Everyone wants to brag about how clever they are, how they put one over on the police or their boss or their spouse. Shutting up is the sensible thing to do because the last thing a criminal mastermind should do is draw attention to himself. If Cornille had never come forward as a witness, the investigation would not just have taken far longer. It probably would have failed.

What could possibly be the connection between a dweeby, harmless druggist and a betting ring about the death of rich relatives? Who all died from various unusual ailments but nothing anyone could point to?

And thus — you could say it’s Karma — Cornille seals his fate. He draws attention to himself. And when Laurence points out his mistake in fingering Dacosta, he doubles down and insists he can’t be wrong.

The film does one thing very right. Thallium poisoning is difficult to diagnose because it masquerades as so many other illnesses. The one thing they all have in common is hair loss and indeed, Francine and Avril both lose some hair. Dr. Maillol making the connection is plausible and well-integrated.

The film does one thing very wrong, but again, Hollywood, even French Hollywood, doesn’t handle religion well. Marlène is a believer. She probably also attends church. She knows something happened when she was possessed but she doesn’t have clear memories, which is to be expected. She has been tamped down by an interloper. Laurence is a good atheist, dismissive of anything supernatural or religious. This is a good quality to have when investigating suspicious death because so often the answer is boringly mundane, concealed behind distracting trappings. But when Marlène is possessed right in front of him and denies all knowledge of playacting, Laurence shoves the evidence away.

Accepting that something was there would shake his world view too much. This is exactly like the response in Témoin Muet (Dumb Witness). The supernatural rears up and everyone pretends nothing happened. That may be realistic in real life, but it’s not good storytelling.