Teresa Reviews “The Theft of the Royal Ruby” (1991)
Fidelity to text: 3 thieves
To which version? The 1923 very short story or the 1960 greatly expanded one? And there’s the date change to 1935. Whichever story you choose, the movie remains true to the spirit.
Quality of movie on its own: 4 1/2 thieves
A charming, clever, good old-fashioned English Christmas with romance, derring-do, faithful retainers, and kids out of school on holiday who enjoy some murder.
Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.
Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movies on her podcast.
The story has a complex history. It started when Agatha wrote “The Christmas Adventure” in 1923. Poirot had recently lost Hastings to marriage to the hot babe he picked up during Murder on the Links so he’s all alone. He spends Christmas at King’s Lacey, ostensibly to experience a genuine English Christmas. But he’s really there to retrieve a priceless, stolen ruby. Christmas puddings are involved, as are lovelorn damsels and mischievous school kids who see a chance to fool the famous detective.
Agatha rewrote and expanded the short story into “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding,” sometimes titled “The Theft of the Royal Ruby.” She moved the date to 1960, allowing her to reflect on the passage of time and how much things change such as old-fashioned English Christmases.
But not everything changes, as Mrs. Lacey tells Poirot. Girls are still fascinated by unsuitable young men. Tell them a man is bad for them and they swoon, same as in her day. There’s also a lot more backstory about the ruby and the feckless royal who gave it to a tart to wear and got his just desserts for being a fool. Once again, Christmas puddings are involved as are mischievous school kids fooling the famous detective.
Then we come to the film. The date changes to 1935, but there’s no snow. The feckless royal gets a major role. Some minor characters are deleted. There’s the obligatory chase scene, and King’s Lacey (the house) gets urban renewaled. Which was fine! Except a major part of both stories involve Poirot’s fear of enduring the winter in a magnificent English mansion built in the 14th century. Drafts and cold and freezing water, you know. He’s reassured that King’s Lacey has had central heating installed to save guests and families from seeing their breath in the drawing room.
When you see the house (a modernist horror) you know central heating was installed when it was built and not retrofitted 600 years later. You can also foresee how the white facades will stain, the roof will leak, the single-pane glass windows with no draperies will be drafty, and thanks to modern construction techniques, the house won’t hold up nearly as well as 14th century piles of stone do.
I will admit the modern kitchens are a huge improvement over what Mrs. Ross (the cook) would have endured in a 14th century pile of stone while making Christmas puddings.
Meanwhile, Colonel Lacey is contemplating which of his wonderful, valuable Egyptian treasures he must sell to keep his estate going. Of course, if he hadn’t bulldozed his 14th century pile and built that modernistic horror, he wouldn’t need the money so badly. He and Prince Farouk are loosely connected, although the episode could have done a better job bringing this out.
While these men suffer, Poirot sets himself up for a comfortable, cozy, quiet Christmas at home; it will be just him and a demi-kilo (about a pound) of exquisite chocolates, his radio, and his books. It’s time to rest and catch up on his reading. Alas, he’s dragged off, literally, by men in beige to the Foreign Office and coerced into aiding Prince Farouk. News of the ruby’s disappearance would make the natives restless, and British access to the Suez Canal depends on Prince Farouk recovering the royal ruby.
Thus, Poirot finds himself settling in for a good, old-fashioned English Christmas at King’s Lacey. Everyone is very excited to meet the famous detective. Within minutes of arrival, he gets to stir the puddings, bringing good luck in the new year. The kids on holiday (Bridgit, Colin, and Michael) are particularly enthusiastic and plot how to fool Poirot.
It was fun. It was enjoyable. It was a romp. But there were questionable choices on the part of the director and the scriptwriter that keep me from adding that last half thief.
1) It was never made clear about the connection between Prince Farouk and Colonel Lacey.
2) I didn’t understand why the thieves had to go to King’s Lacey. They had all of England to hide in and that’s where they went? The 1960 short story did a better job of explaining this. Couldn’t they have left England right away when the theft wasn’t known and the police alerted? They could have taken the next ferry across the Channel and disappeared in France.
3) Poirot observes Desmond dropping something in his coffee cup. To avoid drinking it, he switches cups with Colonel Lacey. It had been a sleeping powder, but why was he so sure it was that and not poison? He would have killed his host!
4) Colonel Lacey was desperate to keep King’s Lacey going. He was forced to sell some of his treasures to pay the bills and then suddenly, he no longer has to? Why? Because he hosted Poirot who retrieved the royal ruby and caught the thieves and Prince Farouk was suitably grateful? Something happened, but it wasn’t explained.
5) Annie suspected that someone intended to poison Poirot with an added ingredient in the Christmas pudding. She writes him a warning note.
She also drops the Christmas pudding but that was an accident; the boys ran into her while she was getting it down from the shelf. So, it was bad to poison Poirot but it was okay to poison the family she worked for? Annie could have said something along the lines of she didn’t know what to do and when the boys ran by, she deliberately dropped the pudding to save Poirot and the family.
6) How come Desmond didn’t feel Bridget’s pulse? In the short stories, she was wearing a tourniquet to slow down her blood flow. If she wore a tourniquet in the film, a word or two or rubbing her arm would have sufficed. Or, Poirot could have said he knew Desmond wouldn’t bother with her pulse once she dropped the ruby so no tourniquet was needed.
Those are minor points in an otherwise great episode. Look especially for the scene of Poirot demonstrating how to peel a mango. When he was asked how he learned it, he replies, “A duke taught me.” That would be Prince Philip, the duke of Edinburgh. He taught David Suchet at a formal dinner in Buckingham Palace and Suchet asked that it be included in a Poirot script.
