Teresa Reviews “The Yellow Iris” (1993)

Teresa reviews “The Yellow Iris” (1993) and says it’s so good you should watch it twice.

Fidelity to text: 2 poison bottles
While the core of the story remains, the screenwriter made up the other two-thirds of what you see onscreen.

Quality of film on its own: 4 1/2 poison bottles
This episode has everything: firing squads, bribery, government coups, Latin dancing, cabaret chanteuses, and remembrances of things past.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movies on her podcast.

Agatha wrote Yellow Iris in 1937. It’s interesting for two reasons. She reworked it extensively, first as a radio play and then, in 1945, as the novel Sparkling Cyanide. Among the many, many changes, the criminally underused Colonel Race did the honors of solving the murder.

The other reason is that Agatha wrote song lyrics for the story. She wrote two sets, one for the beginning of the fateful dinner and one for after dinner. The film uses the first set of song lyrics twice; first in the Jardin des Cygnes restaurant in Buenos Aires and second in the Jardin des Cygnes restaurant-clone in London.

Wait. What? Buenos Aires? As in Argentina? Since when did Poirot ever travel to South America?

Since scriptwriter Anthony Horowitz needed to pad out a very short story, that’s when. This leads to — if you care about this sort of thing — real issues with timing. The Argentinian president mentioned in the film, Hipólito Yrigoyen, was actually deposed in 1930. He died while under house-arrest in 1933. Not 1934 as the episode claims. That time period was known in Argentina as the Infamous Decade. It was packed with one damn thing after another — civil unrest, military coups, massive economic turmoil, starvation in the streets, you name it — leading to the second issue.

What the heck was Hastings doing running a ranch in La Pampa during this period? And inviting Poirot to visit him when there was rioting in the streets? How could Hastings not have known what the political situation was? Is he truly that oblivious to his surroundings? And if he’s running a ranch in La Pampa, what’s he doing back in London? With what money? More than ever, it seems as if Hastings has no visible means of support, no job that demands he stick around and do it, and exists solely because the plot demands it.

But if you can get past those real-world continuity issues, it’s a darned fine episode.

We begin with a mystery. Two people stare at a grave pinpointing the date and argue over what to do next. Then, it’s off to Whitehaven Mansions. Poirot receives one shock after another, reminding him of unfinished business from the past. Miss Lemon and Hastings demand the truth so we flash back to the hotel in Buenos Aires when Poirot was going to visit Hastings. Social unrest delayed Poirot’s train. Apparently, it also delayed telegraph service to La Pampa so he couldn’t inform Hastings he was trapped in the city. While stuck at the hotel, Poirot spies on the other guests and ends up at the fateful dinner party being hosted by Barton and Iris Russell.

We already know that Barton Russell is involved in nefarious doings. He bribes government officials! The dinner takes place at a happening supper club and cabaret named Jardin des Cygnes. It’s a French restaurant run by an Italian named Luigi. In Argentina. Argentina was obviously far more cosmopolitan than I knew, or at least Buenos Aires was. The dance band is terrific and so is the girl singer (Carol Kenyon) dressed all in yellow, matching the yellow irises on the table.
She sings the song that Agatha wrote for the short story “I’ve forgotten you”, most likely set to music by Neil Richardson who did much of the orchestrations for the show’s first six seasons.

The song ends with

I’ve forgotten you
I never think of you

Oh, what a lie
I shall think of you, think of you, think of you

Till I die

I wonder if Agatha was thinking of Archie when she wrote those lines. They’d been divorced for years and she was happily married to Max Mallowan. Enough time had passed that she could use remembered agony to enhance a story. Whether she did or not, the song works perfectly both as a song that could be sung by a nightclub chanteuse in 1934 and as amplification of the theme that memories never die.

Iris dies of cyanide poisoning at the table, in front of Poirot. He would have solved the murder, except the revolution arrives and he’s arrested, narrowly misses a date with the firing squad, and deported.

Although it’s not stated at the time, careful reflection leads one to believe that Barton Russell’s connections with the new junta might have been behind Poirot’s arrest.

Two years later, those events return with a vengeance. This time, however, Poirot is determined to solve the crime. He and Hastings make the rounds, he sends Hastings off to further investigate, and he ends up at Luigi’s new version of Jardin les Cygnes in London.

Barton Russell has arranged an anniversary dinner to remember his dead wife, Iris. He’s convinced it was murder and it was committed by one of the guests back in Buenos Aires. All of them are present again, including Lola the dancer. She’s conveniently touring in London and so able to attend. Or perhaps she’s reuniting with Barton Russell to resume their hinted-at affair. What was weird about the dinner is no one seemed uneasy about the other guests, the yellow irises on the table, or even seemed to note the date. As though they’d forgotten what happened the last time this group was together.

I don’t know about you, but if my hostess dropped dead of cyanide poisoning in a happening nightclub right in front of me after the champagne toast, I’d remember every detail. You wouldn’t be able to shut me up. Maybe English citizens in 1936 were more discreet.

Events move on, getting weirder and weirder. The same song is sung but the London singer (Tracy Miller) isn’t nearly as good as the Buenos Aires songstress. Then the past repeats itself and Pauline, Iris’s younger sister, dies after the champagne toast.

Poirot performs a fingertip drug analysis and detects cyanide. Who could have done this? Pauline’s body is removed and the shocked group retires to a storage room, complete with a parrot in a cage which was weird because parrots aren’t normally kept in storage rooms. They don’t like it. Poor Luigi. He’s probably wondering if his restaurant is doomed because of a murder on opening night.

But as you would expect, Papa Poirot solves the mystery, redeems his honor, rescues the damsel, and true love is allowed to triumph. The solution is clever as long as you don’t think too hard about how unlikely it was for the murderer’s plan to succeed. He expected to not be noticed but that’s asking for a lot, even in the dark with a great, spot-lighted singer backed up by a great band drawing all the attention in the room. Asking for that situation to work twice was too much.

You, however, should watch the film twice. It’s worth your time.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.