Teresa Reviews “They Do It With Mirrors” (1991): For Completists Only

Fidelity to text: 3 1/2 guns.
Minor characters get removed, Inspector Slack replaces Inspector Curry, a name change here or there. The big change was the ending. It was far more dramatic than the novel — necessary for a film — but badly thought out. There’s also the weird addition of modern dance, Walter’s horse, and a survivor of murder who died in the book.

Quality of movie on its own: 3 guns.
This was one flat film. It never came to life, allowing me plenty of time to ask why this murder was so hard to solve. It was obvious! And not just because I read the book!

Up till now, all the Joan Hickson Miss Marple films have been good to excellent. This film is fair, at best. It was flat, flat, flat; flat like the surface of the pond at the climax but without the sparkle.

I can’t tell why exactly, but here goes.

Was it the mysteriously added scene where Miss Marple and her old friend Ruth van Rydock watch a bizarre performance of modern dance set to a modernistic, challenging, virtually atonal score? The three dancers wear what looks like body paint (one rather Satanic) and roll around on the stage with enthusiasm. It’s not Swan Lake. I’m not sure what it was. The only explanations I can come up with are padding, the director’s friends needed jobs, or to prove that Alex Restarick is an avant-garde theatrical type.

Could it be Walter Hudd’s mysterious purchase of a horse for his wife, Gina? At no point are we given a reason why Walter buys the horse. Gina doesn’t ask for one. We don’t see Gina pining over horse paintings or wearing clothing suitable for horses. But suddenly, Walter buys Gina a horse with … money from some unknown source. By the movie’s end, they agree to relocate to the United States and … leave the horse behind?

What about Walter Hudd’s accent? He’s supposed to be from Iowa; an American G.I. that Gina met, fell madly in love with, and married after about a three-week courtship. His accent was all over the map. Deep south? Yep. Texas twang? Heard that too. Midwestern nasal? You betcha. Middle-of-the-road Mid-Atlantic like a TV reporter? Well, sure. This might be due to Todd Boyce’s (the actor playing Walter) own upbringing. He was born in Ohio, then raised in upstate New York, Germany, Chicago, Brazil, and Australia. Even so, when actors attempt accents, they should stick with one for the duration of a given film and not demonstrate their voice acting range.

How about Inspector Slack’s suitcase of magic tricks? I’m guessing that Inspector Slack is preparing an act for some charity function or holiday pantomime. But since we’re never given an onscreen payoff, it’s just a guess. Perhaps the sole purpose of Inspector Slack’s collapsing top hat, brilliant artificial flowers, and magic wand was to provide Miss Marple a clue.

Why did Gina decide to relocate to Iowa with hubby, Walter? She comes across as much more interested in the Restarick brothers despite her husband being the only man on the estate who knows how to fix something or do anything practical. Then he buys her a horse and suddenly — against every bit of evidence we see on screen — she’s madly in love with him all over again?

What was the relationship between Carrie Louise, her three husbands, her daughters (one by birth and one adopted), multiple stepsons by two marriages, and granddaughter? A scoresheet would have been handy. I had to return to the novel to figure out the relationships since the movie didn’t bother to clarify the connections.

Why is a school full of delinquent, socially maladjusted boys who must have at least one 1952-equivalent of an ASBO apiece putting on Romeo and Juliet? I understand theater as therapy. I do not understand any sane director choosing a play where whoever is forced to play Juliet or her nurse is going to be teased to the point of suicide. Or homicide.

Why was the pond so small? This concern sounds like I’m looking for something to carp about but I’m not. In the novel, Edgar Lawson runs for the lake (not a pond!), steals a boat to row across the lake and escape. The boat’s bottom is rotted, he falls into the lake and drowns. Dear old dad dives in after him and drowns too. A lake can be much too big to swim across for an average swimmer and far too large for pursuers to run around it and meet the escapee on the other side. A boat makes sense. However, every time we see this body of water, including when we see delinquent students cleaning out water weeds as a bit of foreshadowing, it’s small. Like small enough to run around it easily and meet an escapee on the other side. Like small enough to swim across.

In the novel, Edgar Lawson’s death is related in a letter. That won’t work for TV. It lacks theatrical drama. Instead, we get a hot pursuit of fleeing Edgar through the woods of the estate and up to the edge of the pond, where he plunges into the water despite not knowing how to swim. At the water’s edge, the police round up the boat and go after him. He still drowns as does dear old dad.

Of all the ridiculous scenes in the film, this one was the most ridiculous. We watch young and agile Edgar run through the woods pursued by old and fat Lewis Serrocold and Lewis is able to keep up! Yet the police, presumably fit even if not young, are unable to keep pace with old, fat Lewis and are left in the dust. At the pond’s shore, they behave like Keystone Kops, getting in each other’s way and permitting Edgar to escape and then drown. I can’t believe the local constabulary would be this incompetent. Nor can I believe that they’d stand idly by on the shores of the pond and watch a fleeing murder suspect and his dad drown without someone diving in to save them.

The novel made more sense here. Edgar escaped in the only boat and the bottom fell out in the middle of the lake, too far away for anyone to quickly mount a rescue. Here, the pond was small and the police had the boat.

Then there’s the first murder. Anyone who thinks about the crime for thirty seconds could solve it. It takes place while everyone else is watching an antique film dating back to 1905 or so.

Two people are out of the room, not counting the victim. It’s a locked house. The delinquents are in their supervised and locked dormitory. Who kills victim number one? It can’t be anyone watching the vintage film footage, so that leaves the two people out of sight since the mansion has no servants that I saw, other than the housekeeper, who was watching the film.

When the screenwriters added the bizarre modern dancing, Walter’s soon-to-be abandoned horse for Gina, and the extended chase scene at the climax, we lost details about Gina and Walter and how most of the family would have been happy to have Walter be the murderer. More importantly, we lost the complex backstory of what Lewis Serrocold was really up to with his delinquent students and his accounting background. He was robbing the trust blind and, thanks to placing his graduates in various positions in London, robbing other firms blind too. All that detail gone to watch dancers in striped tights roll around on a stage.

Watch They Do It With Mirrors for one reason: completeness.