Teresa Reviews Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2022)

Teresa reviews “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” (2022) and thought it was the best adaptation of the three attempts.

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 4 cliff shoves

Bobby toughened up, Roger got softened up and caught, and the carnival came to town with roadies, drunken aristocrats, and scary goons.

Quality of film: 5 cliff shoves

This doesn’t just zip along, covering all the plot beats. It also plays fair, setting up clues for the audience’s deductions.

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Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is a convoluted novel. It contains hidden couples, faked identities, murders disguised as suicides, wills gone wrong, resentful younger sons, opium addiction, adventuresses disguised as ingenues, the class divide, feckless youth triumphant (they put off growing up for a few more glorious weeks), and at long last, requited childhood love. If you’ve never read it, hunt up an edition with a cast list; it’ll help you keep everyone straight.

The complexity doesn’t stop it from being fun. Published in 1934, it was one of Agatha’s last “high-spirited young adventurers take on the world and have fun doing so.” No grimdark here, with old sins casting long shadows. Bobby (our hero) doesn’t know what to do with himself since leaving the Navy and he needs to do something as every day, he gets older and his father the vicar despairs more. Frankie (our heroine) doesn’t know what to do with herself either and the social whirl of gaiety is becoming forced and stale. Her parents probably fear she’ll become a bluestocking spinster.

How do you adapt a sprawling novel? You can be so faithful to the text that you, dear audience, feel every moment crawling by (the 1982 version). You can throw the text onto a slow boat to China and go gothic, weird, and extra-complicated (the 2009 version). Or, you can do what Hugh Laurie did here.

He’s a multi-talented threat. He wrote the script, directed the film, produced the film, and acted in it as Dr. Nicholson, creepy headshrinker with a collection of mental health gizmos that got banned a long time ago because of how they traumatized the nutcases into catatonia. But in 1936, those gizmos were just fine to use. If the patients recovered, they paid well. If the patients died, their heirs paid double.

Laurie did that rare thing in an adaptation: He trusted Agatha’s source material. He made his changes to simplify the story. He amplified characters so they all got time onscreen. He made updates to suit a modern audience’s need for spectacle.

Most of all, he played fair with audience. He layered in clues so if you were paying attention, you knew something mattered. Those clues paid off at the end.

Most amazing of all, his version clocks in at 2 hours, 54 minutes and that time zips by like you’re cruising down English lanes in your Lagonda. The 1982 version takes 3 hours and you’ll feel every single minute crawl by. That version has its charms, but this one is better.

You’ll note the subtle changes from the beginning. Bobby is out playing golf, but he’s no duffer. He’s Dr. Thomas’ caddy, advising him how to play. He could become the local golf pro but that’s not a suitable career field for a vicar’s son and ex-naval officer. When he hears a scream, he doesn’t dither or waste time. He climbs down to the missing man and hears the fateful dying words. Bobby checks the man’s pockets and discovers the alluring photograph, along with an unusual keychain and a fancy fountain pen.

Moments later, Roger Bassington-ffrench shows up. He’s concerned and helpful and blathers on about how he’s in Marchbolt to look for a house and he’ll stay with the body. Since Bobbie’s got to get back to the church to play the organ at the service, he accepts the kind stranger’s offer.

He’s late, but as he slides into his seat, Bobby spots Frankie in the pews. She’s all grown up and she’s a beauty. They played together as kids when the social divide didn’t matter as much. Vicars’s kids, because of dad’s job ministering to the peasants and the local gentry alike, develop a wide range of friendships. He hasn’t seen her in years but he recognizes her instantly and she does the same.

Frankie reads the newspapers (unlike Bobby) and, eager for something to break up her boring routine, questions him closely about the body at the base of the cliff. They gradually become aware of larger undercurrents swirling around the dead man. That woman who claimed to be his sister? Mrs. Cayman didn’t look like the fresh young damsel in the picture. Then Bobby is handed a poisoned beer. He’s saved because he’s running the traveling carnival’s tilt-a-whirl and gets seasick enough to throw up most of the morphia.

Something is up.

He really knows something is up when Dr. Thomas proves that the sudden and mysterious job offer from Argentina is a fraud. The plot thickens when Dr. Thomas commits suicide. It’s both wildly unexpected and it’s the exact method that Dr. Thomas said he’d never use.

Meanwhile, Frankie goes sleuthing about Bassington-ffrench and discovers where he lives. A plan involving a car crash is concocted and rehearsed that will get her inside Merroway Court where she can spy on Bassington-ffrench.

The plan works, and she finds a dysfunctional household. The lord of the manor is a junkie, his wife is traumatized, they’ve got a son (the heir) watching the show, and Roger is the worthless brother on the couch.

Hugh Laurie toughened up Bobby; he’s still calm and considered but he’s no pushover. Yet he also softened Roger. In the novel, Roger isn’t just in cahoots with Moira and a murderer. He’s the one who introduced his brother, Henry, to the joys of morphia when Henry suffered an injury. Need more villainy? Roger really, really, really wants to inherit Merroway but as long as young nephew, Tommy, is alive, he’s got no chance. Novel Roger arranges for a series of near-miss accidents for Tommy, setting him up as an accident-prone doofus. Then, when Tommy inherits after his father’s death and dies soon thereafter, it won’t look nearly as suspicious.

Novel Roger also gets away with his schemes. He writes the truth to Frankie while safely in Argentina, leaving Moira and probably the Caymans to face justice. This Roger shares adjoining jail cells with Moira. He won’t get away with murder, Tommy remains alive (if fatherless). Roger loses all around.

I’m not sure I agree with this choice. Why make a villain, even one as charming as Roger, less villainous? This Roger also isn’t intent on inheriting Merroway Court, which would be a motive totally in keeping with his character and how younger sons of the aristocracy feel. They’re spares, kept on ice until needed, but otherwise ignored to find their own way in the world.

Still, this was a fun movie. Watching how Bobby, Frankie, Knocker, and Dr. Arbuthnot practice wrecking the car without wrecking Frankie was a pleasure all by itself. There’s also the snake pit of a loony bin next door to Merroway Court. Brr. It will make you appreciate modern pharmaceuticals as much as this version over the other two all the more.