Teresa Reviews “Triangle at Rhodes (1989): Poisonous Relations

Fidelity to text: 3 and 1/2 poison bottles.
There are the changes you’d expect: Pamela Lyall’s friend Sarah Blake vanishes, and Major Barnes becomes a younger, more interesting man with his own subplot. There are also the changes you wouldn’t: Poirot is accused of spying by the Italian authorities, and he gets an action-filled boat chase. Other parts of the short story are likewise amped up for film purposes.

Quality of movie on its own: 3 poison bottles.

I often had a hard time following the story. I can live without English subtitles, but having characters yacking away in Greek and Italian without explanation makes for an incomprehensible movie. This issue contributed to feeling like Poirot pulled his solution from his boutonnière vase.

This episode was the first Poirot filmed in an exotic location: the island of Rhodes, 11 miles from the Turkish coast. It is drop-dead gorgeous. The director took full advantage of the historic buildings and glorious scenery so this movie is worth watching for that alone.

There were also great 1936 vintage ladies’ fashions too, from swimwear to eveningwear. Check out those beach pajamas! The gentlemen looked good too, particularly Commander Tony Chantry in his vintage one piece.

You can see why Pamela discussed his resemblance to a gorilla. That was more polite, I suppose, than calling him Black Irish.

We open at Whitehaven Manor on a typical English morning: rainy, dreary and dank. From the postman and the porter, we learn no one’s home in 56-B. Captain Hastings is off shooting unfortunate animals, and Miss Lemon is communing with her sister. Even the “Frenchman” Poirot is somewhere foreign. The porter says: “Sent me a postcard with goats on it.”

Cut to Rhodes with its brilliant sunshine and blue skies, but there are dark clouds there, too. If you pay attention to what’s happening in the background, you’ll see plenty of Italian Blackshirts marching around, catcalling the women, and expecting everyone to get out of their way. Italy seized the island in 1912 from the Ottomans and settled down for a long stay. The locals don’t like them. There’s at least one huge portrait of Mussolini in the police department. The newspaper is blaring about unrest in Italian-occupied Abyssinia. People are afraid of what might be coming.

Only the English tourists seem oblivious. Well, except for Major Barnes, who spends his time annoyingly mooning after Pamela. It turns out he’s using his doofus persona to cover up the true reason he’s exploring Rhodes. We only get hints, and that’s a shame. His story would have benefited from a longer film. When everyone leaves at the end, he heads off to go ostrich hunting in Abyssinia. Sure. Why not.

At the hotel, Poirot overhears Marjorie and Douglas Gold. They had trouble getting to the hotel, and Douglas is unhappy about coming to Rhodes. Poirot learns Marjorie was the one who insisted they visit Rhodes rather than someplace closer to home. I think this is what happened, but again, poor enunciation and no subtitles.

This scene is important because the next morning, Marjorie tells people that it was Douglas’ idea to visit Rhodes; not hers. Marjorie also ruminates about how awful it is when people divorce at the drop of a hat. She is, naturally, referring to the wealthy and glamorous Valentine Chantry. Commander Chantry is her fifth husband, and it’s doubtful that even in 1936 a woman would have been widowed four times.

Pamela, sitting at beachside with Poirot, can’t help but notice Valentine. She has a more interesting take: that women like Valentine don’t remain married because their husbands eventually get sick of their drama. They watch Valentine order Commander Chantry around like a flunky. To Marjorie’s distress, Valentine seduces Douglas Gold into becoming her lacky as well.

It’s Pamela who draws the triangle in the sand, illustrating typical human nature. Poirot silently draws a more subtle conclusion from the mismatch between what he overheard the previous evening with what he hears today. It even leads him to warn Marjorie Gold, in a classic Christie bit of misdirection, that if she values her life, she’ll leave Rhodes.

The triangle in the sand and in the title might remind you of the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Rhodes remains a crossroads in the Mediterranean, hence the presence of Italian Blackshirts and potential spies.

A lot of what you should notice about the inconsistencies in Douglas and Marjorie’s story — and thus understand Poirot’s deduction — was not presented well. Douglas is apparently a devoted Catholic; he crosses himself at an icon-laden altar. Devout Catholics didn’t divorce casually in 1936, unlike what Marjorie claims she fears. Poirot comments that his faith will sustain him in difficult days to come.

Marjorie isn’t afraid of a six-foot long venomous snake, yet later on (I think) she claims to have been frightened by a bug. Again, murky dialog.
***Poirot and Marjorie and snake***

All the sideways glances, innuendo, and browbeating of unhappy spouses culminates in Valentine drinking her husband’s pink gin cocktail and dying in agony.

(I didn’t know that gin could be pink, but I learned that adding a dash of Angostura bitters makes the difference between a low-class sot in the East End swilling plain gin and a tuxedo-clad aristocrat in a resort in Rhodes imbibing a gin cocktail.)

Commander Chantry accuses Douglas of trying to poison him, so Douglas can run off with Valentine. Marjorie is even more distraught.

Poirot would have stepped in, but he checked out of the hotel and he’s arguing with customs over their spy accusation. Unlike in England, he gets no respect from the local law, and this is one of the rare scenes where you’ll see Poirot furious.

Pamela frantically searches for him and since justice must be done and his boat left without him, Poirot takes the case.

Just like with customs, he gets nowhere with the police. Fortunately, Major Barnes knows the local coroner; an Englishman who’s gone native. The coroner tells them that the poison was rare and made locally. With no official help, Poirot and Pamela search the souks of Rhodes looking for the source of the poison.

This is where subtitling the Greek dialog would have saved the movie. We meet the same Greek girl who had helped Pamela avoid Major Barnes at the beginning of the episode. Greek girl speaks a few words of English and leads them to her blind grandmother who doesn’t. I couldn’t understand what was going on, and I couldn’t figure out why the Greek girl helped Pamela at the beginning, just that she did.

Poirot saves the day using the Greek grandmother’s information. Sadly, he does not ask why she was selling snake venom to English tourists in the first place. We also don’t get a good summation of the case, leaving me to guess how he made his deductions.

It’s still a good episode for the scenery, costumes, and the scenery chewing. Listen carefully to the Easter egg concealed in the music: it’s the Poirot themes played on Eastern Mediterranean instruments. It only needed more explanation and better enunciation to make it a perfect episode.