|
By
FRANK BEHRENS
As soon as I learned that
Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot 1941 novel "Five
Little Pigs" was due to come out on an A&E DVD, I
reread the book and found myself impressed with
its organization.
Asked by a young woman to reopen a case from 16
years before to clear her mother who had been
hanged for murder, Poirot spends the novel first
interviewing the marginal characters (lawyers,
police) and then the five people who were present
at the time of the crime. He sees each of "the
little pigs" (the old nursery rhyme comes to
Poirot in a fairly forced way in the book, but in
the film the title is never explained), once at
length when he asks each to put what they remember
in writing, and then a second time to clear up a
few questions. Then the reader sees what each
wrote, and finally Poirot reveals his conclusions.
All the while I was reading, I wondered how this
format would translate onto the screen. For one
thing, the directorial techniques used today are
more cinematic than those in the older Poirot
series and much of this version consists of
extreme close-ups and deliberately hazy
flashbacks. Sticking remarkably well to the book
despite the necessary cuts so the video will fit
into a 90-minute (the label says 100-minute)
timeslot, the tale is told clearly by a cast of
excellent actors (most British mysteries are well
acted, you know); but the close-ups do pale after
a while. On the other hand, the suspense is kept
up and the final solution will really surprise
you.
Maddeningly, A&E has elected to give us a
full-screen version of a presentation originally
shown in widescreen; and in many scenes, you see
only half of each of two speakers standing at the
far edges of the picture. Could someone at A&E let
me know why, please?
While not quite as much fun as some of the older
Poirot episodes, "Five Little Pigs" is still a
must for mystery buffs. |
