Teresa Reviews “The Veiled Lady” (1990)

Fidelity to text: 4 thieves (no murders occur)

It’s close, right down to dialog lifted wholesale from the short story. The additions flesh out the story beautifully, add a suspicious housekeeper, and provide much more interesting settings to stage chase scenes than Poirot’s flat.

Quality of movie on its own: 4 1/2 thieves

One of the best; fast-paced and very funny. It’s loaded with great lines. It’s so good that you won’t question the gaping, wildly implausible plot hole until afterwards and maybe not then.

A daring, daylight robbery of a jewelry store takes place. The story makes it into the newspaper for Hastings to use when Poirot bemoans the lack of crime to stimulate the little gray cells. He discounts it as clever, but beneath his skills. Similarly, Poirot discounts the mysterious death of a British citizen in Holland as due to tinned fish. If only Poirot had been born without moral scruples, he goes on to say. He’d become the genius of crime, a real-world Moriarty, known to police everywhere but invisible and uncaught.

It’s at that point the mysterious veiled lady shows up and, if you’ve read your Conan Doyle, you think you know where the story is going. The damsel is in real distress, being blackmailed over scandalous letters that will prevent her marriage to the duke. Only Poirot’s genius can save her from the blackmailer. She insists on meeting him and Hastings at the Athena Hotel, to avoid being watched. There is someone watching, carefully staying out of view of Poirot and Hastings.

Hastings is smitten by Lady Millicent. Such grace! Such charm! Such a lovely flower of the aristocracy, no matter how impoverished! Lady Millicent’s face is her fortune, explaining how some destitute Irish peer’s fifth daughter managed to snag a duke. Since Hastings reads the society columns, he knows all about Lady Millicent’s good fortune in marrying extremely well although he, like Poirot, has never actually seen her.

Lady Millicent tells them a mournful story about the letter being hidden inside a Chinese puzzle box which is then hidden again where no one can find it. Only the great Poirot can possibly save her from the wicked blackmailer.

Poirot summons the blackmailer, Lavington, to his flat. As would be expected, Lavington is unmoved. He wants his money. Hastings is incensed at his crude and louche behavior to such a delightful lady, so much so that Lavington, staring right at Hastings, comments about excitable office boys. Poirot, on the other hand, pays close attention to information Lavington carelessly reveals.

This sets up a great comic sequence that the short story dispenses with in a couple of sentences. Poirot, normally the most fastidious of men, combs out his mustache, changes from his morning suit into work clothes, and bicycles to Lavington’s house.

He informs the housekeeper, Mrs. Godber, that he is a locksmith, hired to install burglar-proof locks. She is suspicious but lets him work on the locks.

Then, that night, Poirot and Hastings burgle the house. Yes, Poirot emulates a common housebreaker to save Lady Millicent’s reputation. They search the house and, as dawn nears, finally discover the Chinese puzzle box cleverly hidden in the kitchen’s wood supply. Poirot points out how safe a location this is, in July. At that point, Mrs. Godber summons the local beat constable and in another great scene, he tries to arrest Poirot and Hastings as common thieves. Hastings escapes by leaping through the French door (previously rigged by Poirot) because he can’t get it open. Poirot gets frog-marched off to jail.

The comedy ramps up still further when Inspector Japp arrives to bail out Poirot. Notice how cleverly Inspector Japp never uses Poirot’s real name in the police station and how little Poirot appreciates the courtesy.

Poirot also doesn’t appreciate Hastings making a run for it, but Hastings’ hasty exit is why he got bailed out.

Can this episode get better? Yes, it can. Lady Millicent meets Poirot to get back the letter but insists on the Museum of Natural History. Wow. What an entry hall, complete with a giant dinosaur skeleton. Poirot fences with Lady Millicent over who gets to keep the Chinese puzzle box as a souvenir (costing all of two pence in Limehouse). She grabs it, her accomplice shows up (it’s Lavington!) and you get another great chase scene in the museum, ending up in the closed-off Hall of Mammals.

Is it possible to vanish in thin air? Why yes, it is, because the mammals — an astonishing display of the taxidermist’s art — are draped in holland covers. Lady Millicent and Lavington conceal themselves under the drapes, hoping to go unnoticed.

Unfortunately for them, the museum’s cat notices Lady Millicent’s shoes peeping out from under the sheets and decides he needs petting. This is the only reference to the short story’s explanation of how Poirot recognized that Lady Millicent was not who she claimed she was. In the story, he spots her cheap, shoddy shoes right away and he knows that a real aristocrat would never wear dime-store junk.

There’s no explanation in the film as to when or how Poirot figures out her deception, other than her insistence on keeping the Chinese puzzle box as a souvenir. Yet obviously, he did know or he wouldn’t have arranged to have Inspector Japp on hand to arrest Lady Millicent. Was it Hastings? If Hastings believed her story, then the woman had to be a liar. But if that’s true, I would expect Poirot to acknowledge his reliance on Hastings always being wrong.

But that’s not the gaping plot hole.

At the very beginning of the film, a gun-wielding bandit robs the jewelry store in a posh shopping arcade. We watch him snatch several ostentatious, gaudy necklaces consisting of what look like thousands of diamonds strung together. Those necklaces look like something Marie Antoinette would have worn at Versailles. Subtle, they are not. Some of those diamonds are dime-sized. I did not notice any of the stolen necklaces containing dime-sized colored gems. They glittered like ice, gorgeous and colorless. The bandit is apprehended in the arcade by concerned citizens and when he’s searched, he’s got his gun but no stolen jewelry. Where did the jewelry go? One of the concerned citizens (or all of them) was an accomplice and stashed the jewelry in a pocket.

Then Poirot reveals the contents of the Chinese puzzle box. One side contains the letter. The other side contains a handful of gemstones, colored and white.

Um, what? Where are the rest of the diamonds? Those necklaces would have filled a jam jar. Plus, they were all diamonds! I don’t remember any rubies or emeralds, just glittery ice. Yet Poirot spills out a small handful of colored gems in various sizes. So who switched out the stones? And when? And most importantly, where are the missing stones?

Like how Poirot knew Lady Millicent was a fraud, this question remains unanswered. It’s still a great, funny episode. Watch it twice to catch all the snappy dialog. Everyone shines like a diamond, from Miss Lemon’s all-to-brief scene to the suspicious housekeeper who can’t believe Poirot is Chinese.