Teresa Reviews Three Act Tragedy (2018)

Teresa reviews Three Act Tragedy (2018) and thought that despite the character doubles, change of location, and butt-kissing, the story held together.

(Drame en trois actes)

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 2½ poisoned cocktails
A famous actor falls madly in love but needs to keep his hidden past hidden. You’ll recognize much of Agatha’s plot.

Quality of movie: 3 poisoned cocktails
Be forewarned: It’s wildly uneven. We laughed a lot and then groaned in derision when the script wasted time going nowhere.

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

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

Considering how fast and loose Les Petits Meurtres plays with Agatha’s texts, this one hews fairly close to the source novel’s structure, even though it doesn’t seem like it at first glance. Not all the novel’s characters made it to the screen. The setting, even though it’s not a mansion on the coast, works perfectly with the novel’s theme of theatrical people and deception. It’s a drama school that Avril is attending since she can’t afford a summer vacation at the beach like she told her coworkers.

She’s learning the basics of acting but a fellow classmate, Léon (Stephen Babbington but only in his manner of death), is harassing her. She knows he’s a snoop for their boss at La Voix du Nord, although you’ll never enter the newsroom in this episode. Avril being Avril, she threatens Léon in front of Tricard at the police station.

Soon thereafter, Macha, the heavy-drinking, has-been owner of the acting school, invites the famous Herbert Michel (Sir Charles Cartwright) to prove to her provincial students in backwater Lille that she used to be a star. She helped make Herbert the star he is. She still has connections! Macha’s got more issues than her alcoholism, age, and complete loss of status. Someone is haunting her dressing room, planting nooses and dead crows. The cruel jokes have nothing to do with the stuffed housecat you’ll see in the background. That’s just atmosphere.

When Herbert Michel arrives, Avril is shocked to see that he’s a dead ringer for Laurence. When she reports back to police headquarters with this fascinating gossip, the script forces her to sound as stupid as possible to ensure she isn’t believed. Naturally, Laurance threatens her with being locked up in the asylum.

If you recall the novel, you’ll see how Sir Charles’ craziness (in the American version of the novel) and his insane wife (in the British version of the novel) gets repurposed. A mental illness theme also shows up in Monique, another student in Avril’s class. She spent her own time in asylums for murderous behavior.

Hijinks ensue when even after encountering him, Laurence refuses to believe they are dead ringers. Marlène, meanwhile, is smitten. Herbert isn’t Laurence, but since she’ll never marry Laurence, his doppelganger will do. Herbert is equally stunned. At last! The woman of his dreams! To Laurence’s dismay, Marlène quits her job to marry Herbert. To increase his dismay, he gets a no-nonsense tank of a policewoman to replace her. Tricard and Glissant are equally destroyed when Marlène leaves to marry. It’s hard to believe that the stunning Marlène can’t find a man who loves her, but that’s what the series insists upon. Think of it as insanity on the part of the scriptwriters.

With Herbert in place, Macha (think of her as the hidden wife in the British version of the novel) and her sponsor Richard Nobel (Dr. Strange) host a party to celebrate him. The cocktails are handed round and Léon chokes to death after drinking his. There was some byplay with Léon and Avril over who got the cocktail, but it was unclear. The climax makes it clear that Léon was targeted, but why would Avril take his cocktail?

Anyway. Laurence is thrilled when Glissant decrees Léon’s death to be due to a poisoned cocktail. At last! A murder to solve.

The acting class goes on, leading to Richard staging a grand party at his estate. As part of the entertainment, he stages (with Macha’s acting students) a classic French one-act farce, Mais n’te promène donc pas toute nue! by Georges Feydeau (1862-1921). Literally translated, it means “don’t walk about stark naked.” Most English productions rename it Put some clothes on, Clarice.

Georges Feydeau became famous for his sparkling, acerbic, comic plays, was forgotten before his death, and then received a revival in France in the 1940s and ’50s so the in-series timing for this production is correct. What was especially interesting was thinking about his connection to Agatha Christie.

Agatha did not live in a vacuum. She read current novels, kept up with the news, and went to the latest plays, including revivals of classic French bedroom farces. It’s possible she saw productions of Georges Feydeau plays. It’s almost probable that she saw Put some clothes on, Clarice when you think about her own play, Spider’s Web, written in 1954. It’s a sparkling farce involving a bright, bouncy, living-in-her-own-world woman named Clarissa. Her husband is bringing a major VIP to their home for high-level diplomacy while she must cope with keeping a corpse out of sight and finding out who the real murderer was.

Here’s the summary of Put some clothes on, courtesy of Concord Theatricals:

“The troubles of Ventroux, parliamentary deputy, begin when his wife Clarisse insists it is so hot that she can only wear a negligée around the apartment. Hochepaix, a former political enemy, visits; Clarisse is stung in a most unfortunate place (her rear end) and pleads with Hochepaix and her husband to suck out the sting for her. When a reporter from Le Figaro kindly administers first aid in full view of the President it seems doubtful that poor Ventroux’s political career will survive!”

Sound familiar? Hot, crazy wife, political career at stake, one absurd situation after another with complications piling on complications? I don’t know if Agatha saw this particular play, but I can speculate with the best of them. It wasn’t unheard of for her to take an idea like the Lindbergh baby kidnapping (1932) or Marguerite Steinheil’s (1869-1954) murder trial and transform the bare bones into a completely unrelated novel.

Watching Avril prance about on a stage within a stage playing Clarice and behaving absurdly sure made me remember Glynis John in The Spider’s Web (1960). So, maybe?

Back to the film. On stage, Richard dies after drinking a cocktail. The play’s over at once, and Laurence must solve the second murder. It’s followed soon afterwards by the third death, that of Macha. This one looks like suicide, but he’s suspicious. Unfortunately, his suspicions aren’t based on good policing reasons.

No, Laurence spends the second half of the episode trying to pin the blame for the murders on Herbert. Why? For the temerity of looking like him and stealing his secretary, Marlène. Not because there is a logical reason based on, you know, facts. It’s speculation.

Luckily for the reputation of French police work, Laurence is correct. As in the novel, Herbert was the murderer. He poisoned Léon because he was getting too close to the truth. He poisoned Richard because he knew the truth. He poisoned Macha because she refused to divorce him. It was fine with her if he carried on multiple affairs, but for him to fall in love with Marlène? And marry her? Unforgivable. So like Sir Charles Cartwright with Egg, Herbert had to murder three people to get his happy ever after with Marlène.

Even in France, bigamy remains a crime.