"Hercule Poirot is a detective, not a bodyguard."
Hello everyone!
Tonight, we're taking a look at another slightly less Christmas-y entry, although it's STILL just festive enough to warrant being added to our list on here.
I seem to be on a detective kick lately, and who can blame me?
You gotta have some of the nitty-gritty alongside all the fluff that usually surrounds the holidays!
Hercule Poirot is just the right man for the job, too, if you can't get your hands on some Sherlock Holmes (although come to think of it, I might dig up one of Jeremy Brett's entries into the series and see if HE made a Christmas one ...).
And you just can't say no to the tiny detective, really, you can't.
He's impossible to resist.
Which is why we're having a look at Hercule Poirot's Christmas.
Once again, Poirot (played by the absolutely incomparable David Suchet) has just the one wish for Christmas: to stay home, have some peace and quiet, read a good book, eat Belgian chocolates.
Alas, because 40 years ago, this dude named Simeon Lee killed his diamond-seeking partner, then slept with a woman, swindled her, and ran off into the night, it's not to be.
See, even as Poirot discovers that his radiators aren't working, he gets a call from said Simeon Lee in the present day, inviting him over for Christmas, because the man's life is in danger. Poirot immediately dislikes the guy but, well, central heating is a massive lure, so off her goes.
On the way, he meets up with Harry Lee and Pilar Estravados, both of whom are also going in the same direction, one being Simeon's son, the other his granddaughter.
Arriving at the estate they meet the rest of the family, Simeon's other two sons, Alfred and George, their wives, the head butler, and of course Simeon Lee himself, who's obsessed with the uncut, rough diamonds from South Africa that he dug up from his very first mine.
He's also a despicable and disgusting old man, who plays pretend that he's weaker than he actually is, pretends he's calling his lawyer to change his will so that it might include all the family members, not just Alfred and George, and generally creates situations with his micro (and macro) aggressions to pit the family against each other.
Then, after a visit from the police inspector, and after everyone's about ready to tear at one another, there comes a horrible, grotesque cry, some furniture crashing about, and by the time Harry and Alfred batter the door to the old man's room down, they find him dead and the room in chaos.
Oh and also, the diamonds are missing, says Pilar, discovering the empty safe.
The inspector, who'd returned for a forgotten notebook, immediately declares this a crime scene, and is thankful to have Poirot about (which, if you've watched any of the initial episodes, is a refreshing change from the usual dismissive attitudes), and Poirot does him one better by hopping over to Wales and bringing Chief Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard over as well.
Japp, more than happy to leave his wife's singing relatives behind, pounces, and together our duo starts uncovering little truths, one by one, because generally speaking in these cases most everyone seems to be lying about something or other.
Turns out, one of the servants is a petty crook, but the head butler's been feeling queer, having the sense of déjà vu a lot, a thing Poirot notes down.
Then of course, George lies about what he was doing after the telephone call, his wife lies about making her own telephone call when she was actually hidden away in a nook by the coat rack, Alfred's wife lies about being first to her father-in-law's door when he didn't answer her knocks right before that sound escaped the room, and Pilar lies about who, exactly she is.
This comes out later on in the episode when she gets attacked and clubbed, though luckily she screams the house down and everyone comes running, so she's okay with just a broken bone or two.
And it turns out, she's not actually Pilar either, but Conchita, Pilar's best friend, who decided to come to England and have a little fun with the relatives, though she never imagined they'd want to settle money on her as being Simeon Lee's descendant, at which point her deception proved to be a lot less fun than before as the girl has morals.
But what Poirot discovers is this: the diamonds were hidden in one of the abstract miniature gardens that Alfred's wife creates as a hobby, their case in the luggage of George's wife, indicating someone's trying to frame them.
The answer, as always with Poirot, lies in the victim, and Simeon Lee was a deeply unpleasant character who'd committed plenty of crimes along the way to his riches. People generally didn't like him, and who's to say that it hasn't always been this way? Combined with the butler's assertion of déjà vu, the strong resemblance between all the male descendants of Simeon Lee, and the finding of a wooden peg and part of a pink balloon at the scene of the crime, he can slowly start piecing things together.
Plus, he purchases some fake mustache to put on a portrait of Lee, just to test out a theory.
And so, after proving how easily he could send each family member to jail because they haven't been honest with him from the start, he takes them on a trip into town and introduces them to an elderly woman who was Simeon Lee's second victim: and is, conveniently, the mother of their police inspector.
See, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so she literally raised her kid on her own hatred, and they waited forty years to exact their revenge.
The dude came up to "collect alms" but actually killed Simeon Lee on the spot, stole the diamonds, and set everything up for his later return, when he pulled the furniture with the rope he'd attached previously, unleashing a balloon that sounded like killing a pig which created all those noises, and then ran into the house to pretend to be solving his own crime. Uniquely placed to slip evidence here and there, he also wanted Poirot around for an official source to confirm what he was setting up.
Unfortunately for him, Poirot notices all the little details and discrepancies, which means that he was cataloguing all the facts that didn't seem to fit the puzzle until he solved the entire thing and, thanks to Japp, lived to see another day after the inspector tried to attack him.
The movie comes to a close with Poirot and Japp exchanging gifts in the car returning to civilisation, and while Poirot got Japp some nice imported cigars, Japp gives Poirot hand-knitted mitts that his wife had made, not exactly the detective's style but, ah well.
It's all for the comedy of course!
Festive despite its theme, filled with psychology and different personalities clashing over what's what, Hercule Poirot's Christmas is another one for the books.
The funny thing is that both him AND Japp want some peace and quiet, and they're 0 for 2 at that in the season.
But David Suchet can't be beaten as Poirot, I'll keep saying it until I'm blue in the face, and combined with his partner-in-crime Japp, they lead us through this rather confusing family drama and the scene of the crime. Always, always be on the lookout for little things that don't fit when watching these (or when reading them!) and just remember: nothing is worth sacrificing your personal relationships over.
Not even diamonds.
xx
*images and video not mine
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