Have you ever had something uh suddenly be redefined for you in a way that
you're shocked you never realized before. Let me let me extrapolate. I'm talking
about it. I'm going to need an example. Our listener Michael reached out
and he said he was shocked that we didn't get into the lyrics of into
the Groove when we did some Desperately Seeking Susan and I was like, why
are we getting to the lyrics? I'm thinking of them right now. Get
into the groove. You're going to prove your love to me? Hey yeah,
yeah, he says, because it's about sex. Hey boy, get
into the groove. You've got to prove your love to me. It's like
I never thought about that once. It was always about dancing to me,
because I look I like a man who can dance. I do want my
man to get into the groove on the dance floor. But I guess you
can also get into the groove in the in the boudoir in their something about
set You Free. Now, I'm forgetting the lyrics and I'm like, wait,
what that is some good dick if he can set you free? Speaking
of like lyrics, have you listened to I'm so excited by the Pointer Sisters
lately. I was in the car the other day and that's always that right
fucking Sylphie, and I was like, Pointer Sisters, look at you.
I'm about to lose control and I just can't hide it. I was like,
Pointer Sisters, just putting this fucking filth out into the world under all
of our noses. Good for you, ladies, good for you wearing pumps
and Laura Ashley dresses singing about orgasms, singing about rubbing one out. Fuck
yeah, Pointer Sisters. Hey, I'm Paul in America and this is not
aged well. Yesterday's pop culture. Today it's the finale of Murder Mystery March
Erica. The Grand Final, the Grand Final, though the final mystery,
right, is about to be unveiled, unveiled, unveiled. That's not a
word unveiled. You got copied, unveiled and revealed. I was trying to
sound posh, I think, and I fucked it up. You were trying
to be as funny as Victoria Adams and you just couldn't be. There's simply
no there's simply no one who's going to be as funny as Victoria Adams.
And you know what, I'm sorry. I tried. Frankly, no,
I was trying to sound fancy and it did. I failed, and I
failed because I'm not fucking fancy. I'm also amazed at for some reason,
my poll was Victoria Adams not Victoria Beckham. I don't know why that was
the name. You are an OG fan from the beginning, as we all
know, because you've been following her career since since she was just a little
girl in a Rolls Royce like a bloodhound. I've been. I've been on
the Victoria Beckham bush Erica. We have a five star Apple podcast review.
Shall I read for you? Yes? Please? Okay? So this is
from Lauren h nineteen eighty two and they write lo this podcast. I put
out a request on Reddit for oh, Reddit, Reddit. I'm frightened of
Reddit? Are you frightened of Reddit? I can't say that I've ever really
been on Reddit. Okay, God, and I feel so old and we
have these conversations I feel so I'm like, what's the Internet? I sound
so fucking old. I think I have been online. I think I've like
read through a couple of Reddit forums when I've googled something and actually I did
find them to be sort of useful and not hateful or whatever, so sure,
yes, yeah, I don't know how to use it, certainly okay,
so, Lauren H. And Icnitty two writes, I put out a
request on Reddit for recommendations of podcasts that recap movies. I have a five
year old, and I don't have time to actually watch movies anymore. Sy
Oh, I'm so sorry. Can you now is five years old too late
to return them? It's I think it is too late to return It is
five years old too young to watch pulp fiction with them? That's my question.
Probably bring them into the fold, show them all, show them the
wonders of cinema, show them basic instinct. Why not open their eyes?
Lauren writes this recommendation was gold, being around the age of the presenters.
Their recaps totally bring me back to all the amazing and questionable movies of my
youth. I laugh out loud every time I listen. Thanks for a great
show. Heart emoji, well heart emoji right back at you. Thank you,
Lauren H. Your five year old will grow up to be as great
cinophile one day, and they'll have you to thank for it. That's right,
because you have excellent taste. If you would like a that age wel
tope bag? Can you throw a five year old in a tope bag?
Is that how big they are? It's like a dog in the subway?
Right, you can just put them in a toe bag? Yeah? Yeah,
They're like the size of a cantalope with a couple of sticks taining out
of it. Right, that's a five year old. I'm very confused,
Lauren h. If you would like a that age well tope bag, please
let us know this is you. We would love to send one to you.
Erica, What is the murder mystery that we are uncovering today? Today's
film is the nineteen eighty eight Agatha Christie mystery Appointment with Death. This was
requested by Brandon and Kelly and also our patrons this month. This is the
Patreon pick we pulled. Appointment with Death against the last of Shila and Agatha
Christie took Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins over her knee and she spanked them.
She spanked them until they begged her to stop. Appointment with Death won seventy
eight percent to twenty two percent. WHOA And as we get into this movie,
if you think man I Bet The Last of Shila was better than this
movie, well then you should sign up for the Patroon and get yourself a
vote, because we could be doing a Stephen Sontaim Anthony Perkins movie. Today.
It's dead. We have to tiptoe around the Israeli Palestine conflict. Thank
you, listeners, We'll get into it. But this film brings that up
way more often than you would think a movie would correct. Correct. All
right, So, Appointment with Death is a nineteen eighty eight mystery written by
Michael Winner, Anthony Schaeffer and Peter Buckman, based on the novel of the
same name by Agatha Christie. Honestly, this this movie having three separate authors
makes complete sense. Three separate writers makes some sense. It was directed by
Winner and it stars Peter Ustinov, Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgood,
Hailey Mills, Jenny Segrove and David Soul. Lauren Bacalled, she of
Great Coffee fame, was not happy with the producers of Appointment with Death as
she took the role expecting another shoot Allah murder on the Orient Express, which
was shot mostly in Britain on sound stages. But unfortunately the producers decided to
set Appointment with Death in Israel in the height of summer. You know what,
she wasn't a young woman at this point. Yeah, that's not fair.
That's over one hundred degrees weather every day to be like kudos, because
I don't think I saw a single sweat stain on a single person in the
entire film. Yeah, I don't know how they kept these people from sweating.
Every time they called cut there was someone out there blotting people's foreheads.
How did they keep Peter Ustinov from sweating through his fucking wool suits in the
fucking desert. I do not know, but that is the true mirror.
I don't film, Uh, Erica, we have a first today a first.
Ooh. Appointment with Death does not have a critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It has not accumulated enough professional reviews. WHOA was this released in the
United States? Do you know? Yeah? They must exist, they must
exist, but they just haven't like put them on the site because it's it's
a fairly it's a lesser known movie. Certain Yeah, I was on the
Wikipedia page for this film, and like they do name check The New York
Times reviewers as giving it like a middling review like that, not a pan
totally, but like a middling review. So at least the New York Times
reviewed it. That means you know what this means. It means The person
of Rotten Tomatoes was like, really, literally, who cares? Who cares?
I'm not doing it. I'm just I'm gonna wait for someone to call
me out on this. And today is that day. Today is that day,
person, person who was supposed to collate the reviews of Appointment with Death.
I just decided to hit the beach that day. Instead, we're calling
you out. Your day has come. It's time for you to pay the
piper. Okay, we don't know, we don't know what the critical rating
on this says. It does have a forty two percent audience score. Okay,
let's say you were going to give it a critical rating, what would
you give it? I would go forty percent. I think that's fair,
and you know, I actually I think critically I would go like thirty,
But I think audience score, I go like fifty. Like I think,
like I didn't not enjoy watching it. It's just as critically watching it.
I was like, this is simply is not a very good movie. No,
I'm honestly with kiper Laurie and Lauren Bacall are bringing it so fucking hard
that it's it's worth watching just for those two. Yeah, agreed. Okay,
Erica, when did you first see Appointment with Death? Yesterday? Okay,
here's my journey with Agatha Christie. This is only the second Agatha Christie
film I've ever seen. I saw that, well, to be fair,
third, but I'll put an asterisk ness to that. The third one I
saw was The Hunting in Venice. The recent Canada Bran now one, which
I found out after the fact, is not truly an Agatha Christie story because
he kind of like took an amalgam of a bunch of her stories and made
a movie. Right. Yeah. The only other one I've ever seen is
the original nineteen seventy something Murder on the Orient Express. Ooh, okay,
ostensibly the best one, and now I've seen the worst one, and everything
between is is gonna be gravy. Everything's going to be amazing. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely, Although I heard those first two Kenneth Brana ones were not
great, That's what I've heard. I've only seen the Venice one too.
I you know, I love him for trying. I love that he's doing
out here to make an Agata Christie movies in twenty twenty four, for God's
sake. But yeah, so this is this is my second, my second
ag At the Christiane movie. How about you, Paul, When did you
first see Appointment with Death? I first saw this yesterday. I had never
seen it. I have seen a fair amount of Agatha Christie stuff I've read.
I read Murder on the Orient Express, I've read And Then there Were
None, famously a title that has changed a lot from its extremely racist story
which are shocking. Yeah, I can't wait. I'm going to google that
when we get off this. The original title of And Then there Were None
was ten Little n Bombs. Yeah, yeah, holy shit. And I've
seen Death on the Nile, the one with Peter Ustinov, and I've seen
a couple of TV adaptations of And Then there Were None and stuff like that.
Then I saw Hunting in Venice, So I'm fairly conversant in the genre,
although I'm not a super fan either. How does this land in the
cannon? So far? For you? Very low? No one in this
movie acts like a human, like they all are like like like chess pieces
that they're moving around, and like the plot has to happen, so people
have to act weird to make the plot happen, and they don't really justify
any of the weird actions in the moment. And then some of those actions
are kind of justified in the big explanation at the end you learn why this
person was acting like this. But it's like, but here's where I'm a
dumb dumb I did not guess the killer. I thought I was gonna know
the killer fast because I was like, how hard can this be? And
I did not guess the killer until like seconds before the movie revealed who it
was, and I was like, oh, I had it narrowed down pretty
quickly. But again, I've also seen a lot of ac at the Christie
stuff. Okay, Erica, the tagline for appointment with Death was okay,
And another first, I'm gonna have to give you the actual grammar that is
in this tagline so you understand how weird it is. Okay. The tagline
is an invitation to murder exclamation point, and then ellipsis someone put their head
on the keyboard and fell asleep and dot dot dot came out and they were
like and the poster maker didn't know any better. They were like, I'm
just here to make posters. I'm not here to judge anyone's grammar. I'm
here to make my money and to go home and enjoy my two and a
half children in my white picket fence. I'm just here to print posters.
Ah, I don't want to deal with this shit. I am Jebediah B.
Kinko, and this is my store right and I shall be put to
this poster. The fact that it's Jebediah be Konko and Jebediah to me makes
me makes me think Amish, and I'm like, the one thing the Amish
won't do, one of the many things, they definitely won't own a printing
a printing store with all the technology. That's what happened is during Rumspringa,
he went rum stringer, and he walked into He walked into a library,
saw the coffee machine, fell in love and never look back. Yeah,
and was like, I shall open I Jebediah be Kinko shall open a chain
of copy machine places forever. I shall take over the Xerox Company. A
heavenly choir saying when he saw the Xerox machine. My entire life will be
the gentle hume of copy machines, and that that weird, faint smell of
ink that's everywhere in one of those places, that shall be my whole life.
I shall be the first person to photo copy my own butt. I
shall give it to my Amish family to say, look at what you are
missing. Join me, Join me on the other side. You have no
idea how great it is. Jebediah Bee can go all right, Erica,
do you want to read the twob synopsis of this because this movie is on
tub and nowhere else. This movie is on TWOB and I had to watch
a lot of commercials during it. The Leemu Emu commercial like popping up in
the middle of like Lord, Butcall's line is very jarring. The fact that
they didn't bother to resurrect those High Point Coffee commercials and stick them in the
middle of the is a frankly, Just because I don't think that company exists
anymore doesn't mean we shouldn't get commercials for them. I don't know. Maybe
High Point Coffee still does exist. Who knows. Are we gonna look it
up? No? No, we're not. We're just gonna move on.
No, we're not. It got bought by Sanka a long time ago.
That's it. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about them.
Why are you drinking decafine? Jebediah B. Kinko brought got his got
his copy earnings, and he bought the the the high Point decaffeinated coffee.
He partnered with Horatio El Sanka and they created they created a monolith of coffying
machines and coffee. Yeap, what do you want when you're copying something?
You want to make a coffee. Yeah, that's just natural, that's the
American way. And who spots talent better than Horatio el Sanka? I ask
you, I ask you, Paul, not Horatio Alger. I'll tell you
that much. No, no, no, moving on. This is deeply
stupid what we're talking about. Also, no one under forty knows what Sanka
is. Everyone's like, what are they talking about? Get on board?
Oh my god, No one under thirty knows, But no one under thirty
will know what Kinkos is. Actually, I just realized that's so sad.
Kinkos is still around. I don't know are they have you did Jeppeediah beat
Kinko's empire fall when he died? Was it the real life succession with his
children fighting over and it crumbling after him? We'll never know. There's no
way to find out. We could walk out of our houses and look around
and see if we see one, but we're not going to do that.
Frankly, we're not going to do that. We're here for We're here for
the listeners today. We're not here to find out about Jeppediah beat Kinko's legacy.
Okay, this has gone on too long, all right toov synopsis who
planned the demise of Missus Boynton. Only the gifted sleuth EQ has the skills
to solve this murder based on the novel by Agatha Christie. I love that.
It's just aircule didn't even bother. Do you think they couldn't spell check
it? And they were like, fuck this, I don't care whatever.
It was the same it was. It was the same person who was on
on staff the day they were supposed to be collating the reviews for Rotten Tomatoes
and he was like, I am not dealing with this movie. That is
truly the worst synopsis we've ever read ever. Yeah, that actually wins.
It is three sentences. One of them is just facked and the other two
are just bunkers and dumb. John Gielgood is in this fucking movie, Like,
Yeah, there's some extremely famous people here, name check them. Why
not just write Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgood, and Peter Ustinov's
star and adaptation of Agatha Christie done. You'll get way more buyers. Actual
synopsis for this movie. Guys, it's the Kardashians if Chris Jenner was a
raging bitch and the kids figured out how to murder her. Do not show
this movie to Chris Jenner. She won't sleep. She won't sleep after seeing
that, She's like, oh my god, Yeah, Missus Boynton is inches
from getting one of her daughters to fuck Ray J on camera to get a
career. She is inches from that. Honestly, I think I think Chris
Jenner's a little too afraid of her children to ever pull the shit Missus Boynton
pulls. Oh, I don't think Chris Jenner is afraid of her children.
I think the fear goes in the other direction there. Oh really, I've
literally never seen a single episode of this of that show. I should mention
that right now, But I have a feeling that Kim runs that family.
You know what. I think it's a I think it's a smooth, working
relationship between all of them. Also, isn't isn't the youngest one now the
billionaire, the makeup billionaire. Isn't she the one that's actually like got the
real power in the family now? And she's dating Timothy Chalomaye? Oh what
if they remade this movie with them including Timothy's actual Kardashians, the actual Kardashians
remaking Appointment with Death, Timothy Shall in the in the lawyer role, in
the doctor Cope role. Call Kenneth browna, we have a hit, A
palpable hit a palpable. I don't know who the rest of them are dating
right now, but I'm sure it's all famous like basketball players and rappers and
shit. Put them all in the movie. Next season of Keeping Up with
the Kardashians is a season long remake of this movie, and turns out one
of the killers is one of the grandkids, one of the forty five grandkids
that woman has. All right, stick around, We're gonna come right back.
We're gonna take you through Appointment with Death after just a few a few
ads, a few audio ads. Unless you're a patron, join the Patreon,
skip the ads. That's the deal, hopefully an ad for High Point
Coffee. It's decaffeinated, and we're back. Appointment with Death opens on the
Boynton Residence, New Jersey, nineteen thirty seven on a dark and stormy afternoon.
Aha, didn't see that coming. We're already having twists. Newly widowed
Emily Boynton played by Piper Laurie. She is known for Bonker's performances. Though
I don't know, you've definitely never seen Carrie. I was literally about to
be like you've seen Carrie, right, No, of course you haven't.
She needs the evil mom and Carrie and oh waw, like just no,
does evil mom like Piper Laurie does. G you know that that whole phrase
now where like she ate, she left no crumbs. This woman ate dinner,
left no crumbs, then ate the plate and then like I don't know,
stabed the butler with the knife as she was walking out of the room.
Like she is so big And I only wish the rest of the movie
had risen to this level because it wouldn't have made it a good movie,
but man, it would have made it like Valley of the Dolls. She
eats everything, eats the crumbs, stabs the butler, grabs the tablecloth,
makes a cape out of it, and swans out of the room. That's
what she does in this film, all right. So she's conferring with the
family attorney, Jefferson Cope played by David soul I like this performance to just
smarmy and evil enough. What yep. So she's conferring with her attorney on
the contents of her late husband, Elmer's will. So I just want everyone
to know, buckle up. We are going to have to refer to a
man named Elmer. And it's never a joke ever ever good call. It's
his glue. That's where they got the fortune from. Ah, that's the
fortune in which the Point in Residency is built upon. Is the Omer glue
fortune, That's right. So, unfortunately, the late husband's will is not
the one she was aware of, but a second will that he drew up
and signed days before his death. Scandalous twist. This new will doesn't leave
his entire fortune to Emily, but instead divides it equally among her and his
four children. He gives them each about two hundred thousand dollars in nineteen thirty
seven, which I looked up and is about four point four million dollars in
today's money. That's a lot of glue. It's a lot of glue,
a lot of horses. I'm gonna say, Paul, it's not enough glue.
It's not enough horses for what is it for what this family is doing
to themselves. Yeah, Like, if you told me I had to tether
myself to a gorgon on the chance I might book four million dollars, I'd
be like, no, you want me to risk Medusa, It better be
a lot of fucking money. Better be a lot of It's you know,
it's funny. It's that conversation and succession where Greg is inheriting five million dollars
and they're all like, ooh, sorry, that's just not enough to live
off of. It's enough to make you feel rich, but you're not rich.
And Greg's like, oh no, yeah, you better do some belt
tightening. Yeah basically basically, so yeah again, I'm joking. Four million
dollars is an enormous amount of money. It is, however, not enough
for what these people put themselves through. I'm just going to state that right
out loud. That is correct. Emily is appalled that Elmer's irresponsible. According
to her, kids are going to inherit the same amount as I am.
I'm not going to get all now, granted, if she gets all of
it, where she's looking at like twenty to twenty five million, I understand
where she's coming from. Now. She's so upset that she takes a few
drops of Digitalis, which is a medicine that has been prescribed to her for
her heart condition. Yeah, and it comes in a bottle labeled in enormous
letters poison. Do you think that's gonna come back in the movie? No,
I'm bringing this up for my health. And then the bottom of the
bottle says it is dangerous to exceed the stated dose. I mean, I
mean that you can put that on Thailand. Although can't you like ask for
it is dangerous to exceed in the stated dose? Yeah? Yeah. Emily
rallies quickly, as we will find Emily is wont to do. She stands
tall and she blackmails mister Cope with some information she gleaned during her years as
a matron in a Woman's penitentiary. She will later be referred to as a
wardress, which I have never heard before. She refers to herself as an
administrator at first, and I thought she meant like secretary, and then I
found out later No, No, she's the fucking warden. I'm like,
all right, that's more intense than I thought than I thought it was.
It turns out that Cope and his former partner were involved in illegal stock pushing
scheme, and he turned on her and had her take the fall for both
of them. Emily was the wardress of the prison where his ex partner took
I know, it's actually interesting. I didn't quite put this together. But
his ex partner was a woman, So a woman was somehow involved in Like
was a lawyer in nineteen thirty seven. I bet she was cool. Yeah,
I bet she was cool. I bet I bet she's more interesting than
everyone else in this movie one hundred percent. One hundred percent. So Emily
knows all about it, and she can prove that he deserved to be in
prison too. And she says, this room has gotten a little chilly.
Why not get a nice, cheerful blaze going, And just like Karendon,
Crittenden in Casper. They take the will and they throw it into the open
fire and they burn the second will of Elmer Boynton Glue Impresario, Glue Magnet.
Now, question Paul, our copies not made when you when you draw
up? Or interesting? I've never trusted ale will because I'm poor and dirty
and gross. But like, aren't you supposed to have at least all copy
out there on the in the world. My husband and I do have a
will, and it's not one copy. There's like seventeen copies with different people.
Everyone has a copy. Now, follow up question, Paul, what
am I getting? What am I getting your will? What's my what's my
take? You're getting the cat? Oh no? And also a genuinely ridiculous
endowment for the care of the cat, Like you don't need to spend all
the money. There's no way the cat's gonna live long enough for you to
burn through that endowment. I look forward to the cat and I in are
matching Gucci sweat pasts. Yeah, like I didn't realize the cat needed a
country home. This is awesome. I also love that you think I'm gonna
outlive that cat anyway. So Emily and Cope gather her children around her teenage
daughter Geneva. Can I can? I? I know you're not a Harry
Potter fan. Okay, but today I learned that Genevra is not a name
that JK Rowling made up. Oh, because Ron Weasley's little sister, Ginny
is named Genevra, which I always thought was a really weird name that jk
Rowling decided to just throw in, like one made up name, and that
with like Fred and George and Bill and all the normal names in the Weasley
family and the never we're gonna throw in Geneva. It's like, this is
weird. Nope, apparently it's just a name. Do you know. I'd
never heard the name Hermione, and I thought that was made up for the
movie too, And then someone had to actually tell me, no, no,
that's a name, you ignorant slut. Have you never read a Winter's
Tale? I thought you went to theater school. Oh you know what,
I didn't put that together. Did not put that together. Also, No,
I've never read a Winter's Tale. Follow up? No, I haven't
follow up. No, I haven't. Anyway, moving on, so they
bring in Genevra, which is such a great name and her three adult step
children, Lennox, Raymond, and Carol, into the study for a reading
of the original will, the one in which Elmer gives his entire fortune to
Emily, along with full discretion over how much money his kids will inherit.
That is, until her death, dun dun dum. On her death,
her kids will inherit everything equally right. Really really puts a fucking target on
this woman's neck. Thanks. Olmer was like, you know what, I
don't like my wife. I would like my children to hunt her for sport.
Please, thank you. Let's play the most dangerous game with this,
harrodin. I've yoked myself too. The step kids, particularly the eldest Lennox
played by Nicholas Guest, are furious about the will. He is convinced that
there was a second will. He's like, my father told me there was
another will. And then also Geneva, the little one, was told by
her father that she was getting two hundred thousand dollars when he dies. What
a weird conversation to have. What a weird fucking thing to tell your teenage
daughter, good night, sweetie, sleep tight when I die, You're getting
two hundred thousand dollars. Don't worry about it. Did he die because his
lips were glued? His lips and nose were glued. Shot one night?
Because then we think we should look at Geneva. I think we should look
at the family horse actually just finally getting their revenge. Fuck you, fuck
you Elma. Emily tries to mollify everyone with assurances that she will take care
of all of them. Then she surprises them with a family vacation to the
Holy Land. There's a twist. Yeah, in case the listeners are wondering,
like, hey, how did that come about? That's literally how it
happens. She's like, don't worry, I'll take care of all of you.
And also vacation to the Holy Land. That's it. My husband died
two days ago. We cut to the family on vacation in London, in
Florence, in Venice. Presumably they're on a European tour before reaching Israel,
right or well, present day Israel. It's not Israel in nineteen thirty seven.
In nineteen thirty seven, let's just call it the Holy Land, the
Holy Land, that's what these people are day out of it. Yeah,
Oh, by the way, let's let's go ahead and talk about that right
now. We are ignorant buffoons who talk about movies on a podcast. We
are not scholars, we are not politicians. We will be tiptoeing around this
conflict as though it is a literal, fucking time bomb that can kill us
both instantly. Correct. Okay, So over the credit sequence. By the
way, did you notice how insane the score of this movie is. How
jaunty and cheerful it is. It sounds like like the theme music to like
Family Ties Like it sounds like an eighties sitcom themes song. Dude, believe
it. We'reout love and it's like this the family where we know one of
them is going to murder someone, like taking pictures in themselves in front of
the like in front of like the doma with Florence Westminster Abby. Yeah.
Okay, so they're enjoying each other's company while sightseeing. Emily leaves the administration
of her digitalist to her daughter in law, Nadine played by Carrie Fisher.
Nadine is Lennox's wife. The eldest son's wife is Nadine, right, We're
gonna find out later in the movie that Nadine is a nurse, a registered
nurse, which is which is why she is like the nurse to Emily.
And in fact, she came to this family as the nurse for Elmer,
and then she fell in love with Lenox and the two of them got married.
So that's how she's involved in this family. Everyone seems copastic, but
as we know, listeners, that's a facade. We see the family in
Trita, Italy, and once the children are away from Emily, they immediately
complain about the will. Lenox assures them that there was a different will that
named all of them as inheritors, and genevra Ginny played by Amber Beezer,
spots mister Cope that's the lawyer. That's the lawyer that Emily blackmailed arriving in
Italy and suggests that they ask him about the second will. Hey, there
was a second will. Wouldn't mister co know about it? And they're like,
who cares? He's all the way in New Jersey and she's like,
no, he's not. He's right there, he's twenty five feet away from
us. I think part of the problem of the movie is that the four
Boyinton children. Look, I've seen a couple of these people and other things,
and they're decent actors, but they are doing an excellent job of not
being decent actors in this movie, Like all four of them are very not
compelling to watch. Well. They're also like the characters are clinically stupid,
and I'm going to give the actors a little bit of grace it. It's
a little hard to play these people because it's like, just do anything that
makes any sense, ye why would my character do that? And they're like,
I don't know, I Guessa Chrissy wrote it that way. Just do
it, and you're like, oh, yeah, okay. Meanwhile, Emily
is walking alone on some embankment and suddenly she has a dizzy spell and nearly
falls over. A young woman, a young British woman like rushes over to
help her and says, I'm a doctor, let me help you, and
she pushes her away and yells out for Nadine to bring her her medicine.
Raymond, the second oldest son played by John Leski, I'm assuming, he
runs up to the woman and he tries to give her a lira like one
tip, like a little tip to like thanks for helping his mother, and
she's like, I can buy my own coffee. Thank you. I'm a
doctor, and she is so obviously annoyed with him. Yeah, and he
catches none of that. He is so smitten that She's like, I'm a
doctor. I just graduated, and he goes, I'm sure you did.
She looks at him the way you should look at someone who just says something
that stupid to you, and walks away. Her name, by the way,
is doctor Sarah King, and she's played by Jenny Seagrove Nadine. Hears
the others say that Cope is in the piazza below, and she scampers off
to find him. By scamper, I mean Emily Boynton. Piper Laurie is
bellowing her name as Carrie Fisher in a sun dress and pumps sprints across the
cobblestone streets to get to Jefferson Cope. Yep, she is activated. She
runs into his arms and the two of them embrace in full public like they
passionately kiss. I mean, I suppose they must have gone around a corner
or something, but not safe. The movie does not show us them going
around a corner. Correct. The movie shows them kissing in the open public
square. The fuck is it? Happening. There's gonna come a point in
this movie where I write down in my notes if these two are not in
some kind of thrupple by the end of the movie, I don't know what's
going on. Does not make any sense. The way these three people behave
with each other. I can't tell if it's sophistication mm hmm, like honestly
like nineteen thirty seven, like high brow sophistication, or just bonkers like levels
of denial and stupidity, because it's like like they all know they're all fucking
each other, like all of them, all of them know they're a thrupple
without ever acknowledging they're in Apple. Did I ever tell you that my great
aunt was in a thropple? Yeah? No, No, My grandfather's older
sister had two men that she lived with, like Tilda Swinton. Yeah,
And like I don't know because it was on it's not on my mother's side
and my dad is I don't think my dad even really knew much about it.
But like she she had a throttle and then her sister was a lesbian
and had like a friend that lived with her, a companion, a companion.
Yeah, were they flappers in Paris in the twenties, because I am
blown away. Was was one of them, Josephine Baker. That is the
fucking coolest story I've ever heard. Yeah, Yolanda and Flora, that was.
That's where their names. I only wish I could have met them.
By all accounts, they were fucking nuts. But man, do I I
wish I could meet them, my ancestors. I bet they're not nuts.
I bet people just didn't understand them in their time. They just they just
were misunderstood. Do you know if they were in America or in Italy?
They were in America, escandalo, Okay, I love this for you.
I love this for you. From stock. Yeah, you just got so
much more interesting. Yes, we're really skating around boring. For a while,
you were circling the drain. You go to bed at ten thirty.
But this your stock is raised, My friend, twenty five years later,
I finally find you interesting. When you do a DNA test is a come
up thirteen percent free, I hope you know what. I've never done one,
but now I'm gonna fucking incredible in your own lifetime. Yeah, yeah,
all right, So Nadine and Jefferson are making out in public, and
she pulls him into a slightly more obscure location, like next to a wall.
She kisses him again, and she asks is it true about the second
will, and Cope kind of kind of obfuscates, and Nadine's smiles and posits
that Cope wants to keep Lennox poor so that Nadine will leave her husband and
run off with him, and Cope smiles rakishly and he says he thinks she'll
run off with him anyway, and he gives her a cigarette case with the
inscription to my dearest Nadine, maybe be together, Always love Jefferson. Now,
mm hmmm. You know how they say about people who have an affair
deep down they want to get caught. Yeah, yeah, this is proof
positive of that. You know, why not just say with all my love,
don't sign it, don't engrave your name in the medal, give her
a fucking bracelet like literally anything else. This is a straight man peeing around
what he thinks he belongs to him. That's what's happening. He wants this
shit to come out in the open. This is some Winona Forever tattooed on
your back bullshit that that's correct, will age, Well, it just won't.
It just won't. The two of them rejoin the Boynton family and mister
Cope explains to Emily that he's decided to join the trip in case they need
their lawyer. Yeah, a totally normal thing, Paul, that people do
is travel around the world with their family lawyer. I cannot believe how many
films have this premise. That's right. Whenever Elmer went on his international trips
to buy up more horses for undisclosed reasons, he always brought his lawyer with
him. It just makes sense. Okay, I don't even go to Orlando
without my fucking lawyer. Do you know what I mean? My lawyer lives
in a servants quarters in my apartment. I don't want I don't want them
to get too far away. I am very opinionated, and the world is
litigious. Your lawyer is your cat wearing a suit. That's right. How
cute would Oliver be in a suit with a law degree? Oh? Oliver
Goyle Caola jd Esquire with little tiny glasses, little tender reading glasses that he
puts up when he does not reading. He thinks he's a real lawyer.
He does all of his work on one of those old timey typewriters. Yes,
that is two million follows on the Instagram account. If I had the
time, the energy, and the skill to make that happen. Okay.
So Emily is immediately suspicious and angry that he's there, and she tries to
brush him off and ask you to come here, mister cope away with you.
Meanwhile, across the piazza we see famed Belgian detective and good pau That's
right, that is exactly how that's pronounced. Don't even bother to look it
up. It's it's Hercules Peru. He is played by Peter Ustinoff. He's
sitting across the piazza. He's on vacation. He's enjoying a trip around the
world. He greets his old friend, doctor Sarah King when he sees her
walking by. These two know each other. No explanation as to why.
Who gives a shit. He is thirty to forty years older than she is.
To be clear, my guess is he helped her father out with the
murder that he was involved with. That's that's my guess. That works for
me. Sarah says with him, and then they spot lady Laura Westall played
by the great and good Lauren Bacall. Hyper Laurie and Lauren Bacall are the
twin pillars in which this movie stands like it will fit crumble to the ground
without the two of them giving these gargantuan performances. There is a moment very
late in the movie from Lauren Bacall that is, and I don't think I'm
exaggerating when I say this, the largest reaction shot I have ever seen in
a modern in a modern movie. And it is so funny that it will
be on Instagram. It's it's gonna be the only Instagram post this whole week.
I'm just gonna keep posting that and laughing at it. So she is
just she, She karened for like she was the og Karen. She walked
so Karen's could run. She Karen, so Karen's could Karen. That's what
I'm saying. Like she is Karening times a billion follows. You say,
anyone whose actual name is Karen, we know you're a good person. It's
not your fault. It's not your fault. I have a lovely cousin named
Karen. You could not have known that that was going to be a thing
in the zeitgeist. It's not fair to you, and we're very sorry.
That's correct. So she's trying to get her tour guide arrested, ostensibly for
stealing her companion's cigarette case, which I really thought was going to come back
but absolutely does not, but really for not knowing the difference between Romanesque and
Gothic architect She says, confusing Romanesque and Gothic is not a mistake, it's
ignorance. Lady Westme turns out, is a very combative American who married into
the British aristocracy and within ten years became a member of British Parliament. You
know what I love to see it. I love to see a lady breaking
the glass ceiling. Frankly, good for her? Is she the hero of
the film. She's so racist. She can't be because they gave her all
the racist lines. Oh yeah, she says so many racist things in this
movie. You say it is It is actually upsetting. It's actually upset,
it's true. And she is traveling with her mousey companion, Miss Quinton,
played by Hailey Mills of Saved by the Bell Fame. Wait, Hailey Mills
wasn't Saved by the Bell. She was, So there's two saved by the
bells. There's the Save by the Bell that most people know when they're in
high school. But before that, there's a TV show with the same almost
cast, except I don't think Mario Lopez was in it. She was their
teacher, Miss Bliss, which is why the original title for Saved by the
Bell was good Morning, Miss Bliss. Oh, I know. Hailey Mills
is the original parent trap child. That's right, also that, but more
importantly, she's Miss Bliss for the gen xers. She is Miss Bliss right
right for the older souls. She is the original Baron Trap. We cut
to the ship to the Holy Land. Later that night. Poawa is sea
sick. He misses, didn't it. It's probably a good thing because he's
been seated next to the truly intolerable Lady Westlom at the captain's table. We
find out that Miss Quinton is on her way to the Holy Land to oversee
the excavations at Kumran. Will the fact that Miss Quinton is like a lady
archaeologist ever really feature into this plot? Not particularly? Doesn't really matter?
Is she low key the most interesting person in the whole movie and they do
absolutely nothing with her one hundred percent. This is about to discover the dead
Sea scrolls over here and the rest of them are like, what's two hundred
thousand dollars? And I'm like, fo this story, that's the interesting one.
You're gonna run into Indiana Jones, come on, yes. Uh.
The Boynton family is also at dinner. Mister Cope comes over to their table
and asks Nadine to dance. There's an obvious tension between mister Cope and Lennox.
As they dance. We hear whispers from the table at how brazenly Cope
and Nadine are behaving. The table is not wrong. We cut to the
next day. Everyone is relaxing on the ship's deck. Lady Westolme is berating
the crew. Raymond flirts with Sarah. That's the doctor, right, that's
that's the second son and the doctor and Plola over here's Nadine and Lennox complain
that they'll never be out from under Emily's thumb, not until she dies.
That is two points about this. Two points. Number one, is Poirot
a great detective or is he simply someone who constantly overhears conversations and investigation throughout
this movie. May he someone who, during the course of naps just solves
a crime? Maybe yep? Possibly? Number two is she's not our mother
a good reason to kill somebody? Yes? Seems like a pretty oh yes,
Okay, we're solidly on yes there. Okay, did you want to
offer a counterpoint? Because everyone who's not my mother deserves to die? Frankly,
just gotcha. That's my That's how you gotcha? Okay, asked and
answered, asked and answered, but never anyone dies. I'm like, well,
they weren't my mother, so shrug back. In Emily's cat, Cope
tries to convince her to cut her children in on their inheritance. He's like,
listen, Ginny and Lennox are both aware that there was a second will
Emily, girl, you in danger? Oda may is here to tell you
you in danger? Yeah. Emily starts to threaten Cope with the possibility of
exposing his crimes if he doesn't back the fuck up, and immediately she changes
tactics. She thanks him for his advice, and she invites him to join
the family at dinner that night. As soon as he leaves, she slips
her poisonous digitalis bottle into her purse. The level that the switch on Piper
Laurie here is like it's like a light switch goes off. Like she is
like back the fuck off, and he's like well, and she's like,
I'm sorry, You're right, yes it is. There's no no gray area
here. Later that night, is walking the ship's deck. It's just gonna
get worse and worse. We're gonna be calling him Penis in about three minutes.
Penis, Well, there is overnight Penis is walking the deck. There,
it is, there, it is, And he overhears Raymond and Carroll
talk about killing Emily in order to secure their inheritance. Right, so he's
like, he doesn't see them, but he hears voices being like, we
have to kill her, after all, she's not our mother, right,
And he's like, oh right, that's where that line comes. I said
it at the wrong point before. Weird thing to say in a fucking movie,
but it's said so many times. Who knows it was. Maybe it
was said during Lennox and Lennox scene. It reminds me of that moment in
Friends when John Lovetz keeps seeing like Tartlet Tartlet tartlet where it is lost all
meaning, that's what happens here, that she's not our mother just loses all
meaning. Penis enters the dining room and takes his seat next to Lady west
Home. She and Emily Boynton share a cantankerous look across the across the aisle,
and she looks down her nose at the garish Boynton family. She's like,
ough, when you look at that new money trash over there, disgusting
at the Boyton table. Nadine asks Lennox to fetch her watch from their room,
and Cope arrives just as Lennox departs. Nadine looks thrilled to have him
sit next to her. I mean, look that the basement floods. Okay,
it is. It is very exciting. She lights up, like the
fucking Beatles sat next to her at shea stadium and I was like, like,
be quill, lady, be fucking chill. Jesus, do you not
know how affairs work? Yeah? So he looks her up and down.
He says, ravishing, as if the entire family isn't just sitting right there
watching them. Emily orders a bottle of champagne and she says, no,
I have to pour it. I have to pour it. It's lucky.
So she starts pouring, and they have It's not champagne flutes, it's those.
It's those wide almost like martini looking glasses coops. Yes, exactly,
So this movie will now posit that in this crowded ballroom basically filled with people,
all of her family and friends sitting right well, she has no friends,
all of her family sitting at this table. That would be like a
wedding, right, like like eight people at this big table. She takes
one of the coops she puts, takes it under the table, takes the
digitalis out of her purse, dumps like I don't know, an ounce of
it into the putt cup, puts it back in her purse, takes the
cup, puts it on the table, and then fills the cup with champagne.
And no one notices. Nope, okay, okay, okay, Paul.
To be fair, she is a middle aged woman. No one is
looking at her. Absolutely, she's invisible. Do you know how many people
I've poisoned and no one's ever noticed? You have cut a swath through New
York City. I'm out here, I'm Lucretia Borgia in the two. I
am poisoning people left and right, but I'm also middle aged. No one
pays attention you are. You are the grim Reaper. You're like number one
on the FBI Most Wanted list, but no one even thinks that it could
be you because you're a middle aged woman. They have a picture of a
man that looks like Matt Damon up there. They don't know. They don't
know, then never, and they never will because they won't listen to this
because no one wants to listen to you. All right, so Emily proposes
a toast. She watches with glee as Cope lifts the glass to his lips,
but just as he's about to take a sip, Lenox storms back and
shouts, you bastard and punches him so hard that he drops his glass of
poison champagne, flies across the dining room and breaks a table behind him.
Yeah yeah. It turns out that Lenox found the cigarette case that Cope gave
to Nadine with all the inscriptions that we were talking about earlier in their room.
He throws it at Cope. The two of them start to brawl in
the dining room, they cause such a commotion that only Penis notices Emily's disappointed
face and the five dead cockroaches who drank Cope's spilled champagne. Okay, okay,
like this is where the movie just needs to end, because you are
this is a luxury cruise liner with some of the richest people on the earth
on it, and there's fucking cockroaches in the dining room. That's the true
crime. That's the crime that no one wants to talk about. The champagne
had been spilled for all of ten seconds when five giant cockroaches decided to do
an Esther Williams routine in it, and only one person saw that. Yeah,
I'm sorry, No, this movie ended right here for me. I'm
done about I can't watch this anymore. Okay, not only that, but
after they swam in the champagne, the roaches immediately died. Do you know
how bad poison has to be to kill cockroaches? Nothing kills cockroch Famously,
Armageddon doesn't kill cockroaches, Oppenheimer, there was a whole scene about how they
couldn't kill cockerroaches with that bomb. I haven't seen the movie yet, but
I'm sure it's in there. We cut to the next morning, the ship's
arrival in Jaffa. Cope notices the fetching Miss Quinton. Okay, He immediately
invites himself to accompany her to Kumran, and Miss Quinton is immediately so instantaneously
taken with him. She's like, yes, stranger, follow me on my
trip. Uh huh. Nadine sees them flirting. She can barely restrain herself
from scratching both of their eyes out. Emily turns to Nadine and as though
she was like on her side, was like, don't worry, Nadine,
I've got this. What kind of weird girl power thing is happening now with
these two? And Emily walks up to Cope. She warns him to stay
away from her and her family, and Cope's like, yeah, because your
fucking son tried to kill me last night, so I agree with you,
and he walks away with Miss Quinton. Yeah, she really abandons her hole.
I'm going to kill Jefferson Cope plan at the first obstacle. I would
have thought Emily would have a little more get up and go. I don't
know, I don't know if i'd buy it. You don't think so.
I think I liked it that She's like, you know what, I'll just
get rid of him this way instead, just go, just go and be
in the desert with your little desert skink. Meanwhile, Penis is met by
his old friend, Colonel Cobery played by the Grete and Good John Gilgood,
who's super slumming it in this movie. Yeah, I'm guessing he just wanted
a free trip to Israel. Genuinely. I'm like, he's like, oh,
can I is there beach there? Okay, I'll go. I'll do
this movie. I think I read somewhere that Peter Ustinov actually asked him to
do it. Like they were like, let's just go hang out. We'll
have fun. Yeah, I can't hate, Like, none of these people
are fun, you're fun. I look, I love Piper Laurie and Lauren
Bacall. I don't know that they're fun. I don't know they're fun at
a party fair, But you know who is fucking ton John gil The two
of them offer Sarah a ride into town, and as as they're driving into
their like hotel in Jerusalem, she reads from a guidebook, a nineteen thirty
seven guidebook by the way and offers a bit of pre nineteen forty seven history
about the Holy Land tour the audience that made me so uncomfortable. I was
like, can we not talk about this? Please? Crawling she has murder
history and not think about like current events in that region right now? Yes,
none of this is the movie's fault, right, correct? Once again,
patrons, we could have been what we could have been talking about last
as she lived today. I'm not blaming you. You probably don't remember that
this movie really talks a whole lot about this the subject, but it is
uncomfortable. So we cut to later that day. Everyone is sight seeing Raymond
and Sarah make eyes at each other across the square, for which for some
reason irritates Emily to know. And they will never really give an explanation for
why Emily is so against this pairing. I suppose just because she wants to
be in control of everything. That seems to be the ultimate answer, I
guess. But what isn't everyone's dream to have their child marry a rich doctor.
She should be courting Sarah. Yeah, Sarah and Poirot giggle over Sarah
not being allowed to church because she's in a sleeveless dress, and Geneva wonders
out loud about the money her father promised her when he died right in front
of Emily, and then asked Lennox why mister Cope disappeared? Maybe because we
had a boxing match at dinner last night? Ginny, are you high pay
attention? Ginny? I can't. I couldn't believe she. I had to
rewind to be like did she really just ask that brother? Like, Hey,
remember that man you had a brawl with last night? Why did he
leave? What happened? You were there? So it can I real quick.
I just want to tell a personal story. My mother was turned away
from Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York and I think it was the seventies because
she came wearing pants, she was wearing slacks, and they were they were
not allowing women wearing slacks at the time to go into Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
So you have comeaways. We have. But you know what, there's still
plenty of places in the world, like plenty of churches where like ladies can't
show their shoulders, the sleeveless dressing would still be in play in a lot
of churches in England, in Europe and I just think it's very funny because
the movie makes a great point. She's like, Sarah says something to the
effect of like the Lord made my arms, but apparently he can't stand to
look at them or something. Raymond sneaks away from his stepmother and asks Sarah
out for dinner that night. She agrees, and Erica writes here, and
she is not wrong. She must really like Raymond to put up with the
idea of being in this family. There's not a lot of upside here.
That must be magical Dick Frankly, which she hasn't even seen yet, doesn't
even know, doesn't even know what he's working with. He's got magical Dick
energy. Yeah, Nadine and Lennox reconcile. She swears to him she wants
their marriage to work, but they both agree they can't live under Emily's thumb
any longer. Who's gonna die, Paul, Who's gonna be the murder victim
in this movie? Yeh, By the way, we still no murder.
I expected to murder much earlier, dude. The movie goes like forty five
fucking minutes without a murder, and then I'm like, finally, Jesus later,
that night, Sarah is sitting alone at the restaurant, like waiting for
her date with Raymond, uncomfortably trying not to make eye contact with the leering
men around her, who are all men of color. It is a choice,
it is a very strong choice. It's actually just racism. It's just
pure fucking Look. I get a woman by herself in nineteen thirty seven sitting
at a bar or a restaurant might get leered at by men, or will
definitely get leered at by men because they'll think she's like a prostitute or something
that I totally get. But like, the casting choice to have it all
be like brown and black people doing it to her is fucked up, especially
she's staying in a hotel filled with like Europeans. It could just as easily
be like other tourists doing it, But the movie makes a very strong choice
to have this like white woman quote unquote be like terrorized by these black and
brown men around her. And I'm like, oh, no, movie.
Yeah. Carol approaches the table. Carol remembers the daughter, the stepdaughter of
Emily, and lets her know that Raymond has been told by Emily that he
can't see Sarah and so she's she At first, She's like, he's sick,
and Sarah's like, is he She's like, no, our stepmother's a
cunt. She gives it up so fast she didn't even pretend it's accurate.
That is an accurate description of what happens. Hang on, I'm checking for
lies. Nope, none detected, un detected. Sarah asks why don't you
all just leave? Since you're all adult? She literally is like, Carol,
how old are you? And Carol's like twenty two, Raymond's twenty three,
and she's like, guys, what go leave? What do you do?
Why are you still on vacation with your mommy who you hate? Yeah,
and Carol says, no one outside of the family can understand the pain
and anguish of having affluenza. And I'm just like, I hate all these
people. I hate them all. Wait, what the fuck is affluenza?
Wait, you don't know that term. No, it is an actual fucking
thing that happened like five six years ago in a court of law where someone
claimed, like someone's defense for being a shitty, rich white kid was it's
really hard to be a shitty, rich white kid because no one's ever said
no to me before, and I don't understand boundaries, and like the press
termed it affluenza, someone having literally like ill by their own like richilege,
privilege, Exactly, they have affluenza. So that's why I put it in
the recap. I love that that's exactly what these fucking kids are suffering from,
Sarah instead of like sitting around skulking, joins Poirot and Carberry the Colonel
for a drink John Gilgood, let's just call it John gale Good for the
rest of the maybe John Gilgood for a drink at the bar in the hotel.
Poirot leaves to go to the men's room, and on his way he
spies emily seemingly clandestine handing over large sums of cash to a local man that
no one's ever seen before and saying, I understand this is the going rate
for the job something like that that I'm hiring you for. Very suspicious.
We cut to a few days later, John Gielgood receives word that Jefferson Cope
has gone missing, and kum Run Pooa offers his easy Penis offers his assistance
in solving the case. As he awaits his car in the hotel, lobby.
He overhears Raymond and Emily, so that is that is the the hot
sun and the stepmother arguing over Sarah, the hot British doctor, and recognizes
Raymond's voice from the night he overheard him plot Emily's death on the ship.
Right, so that night when he heard Raymond talking to his sister about killing
their stepmother, she's not our mother. He's like, that's the same person.
So Raymond storms off, and Sarah confronts Emily and she asks, yo,
what's their fucking problem with me? I'm a fucking beautiful doctor. She
shouldn't say it like that. That's basically what she's saying. And Emily smiles
and sneers. Is that she never forgets a face, a name, or
an action. And Piper Laurie, this is Marvel supervillain level. This is
Piper Laurie should be Doctor Doom in the Fantastic Four movie. They should resurrect
Piper Laurie and have her play Doctor Doom. This is Carrie's mom from Carrie.
This is that performance of like, she gets so creepy so fast that
I'm surprised Sarah doesn't just like literally back away and like, okay, now,
you scared me. I no longer want to date your son. You
have successfully done it. Sarah backs off. She arranges to join Poirot in
his car to Kumran. Unfortunately, Lady westolm overhears their plans and invites herself
to join them on the journey. The pain I felt it on Peter,
whose now plays the moment so beautifully, the pain of being joined on a
long car trip with someone you don't like. Oh that is rough' that's I
feel, you man, I feel a four hour drive with someone who doesn't
shut the fuck up. Oh my god. I would rather be murdered.
I mean, at least it's faster. Ostensibly it's fast, it's fast and
easy. Compared to that, I would rather be quickly murdered. I don't
want to be tortured and murdered better than that. Yeah, yeah, I
don't want to almost get to the site four hours later and then die in
a car crashed, You know what I mean? Like, No, that's
rude, insult to injury, that's fucking like I did something terrible in a
past life. We're talking about a lights on, lights out kind of murder.
That's that's what we're saying. Is better. Like all the people that
I poisoned throughout New York City, it happened fast. Only two of them
really suffered, and they earned it. They dis You chose to have them
suffer. It wasn't an accident. When they arrive at the archaeological site,
they find out that miss Quinton has also gone missing. Can I tell you
something, It's very true at this moment, I completely forgot this entire subplot
that Quintin Cope went missing. At one point, completely forgot it. Is
it because it almost does not fucking matter. I guess I get like a
movie like this is supposed to have some red harring. The amount of red
herrings in this film for like, Okay, look I'm gonna give it's not
a total spoiler. It's a slight spoiler for the ending. The actual like
motive and crime is revealed at the end, and like you are given the
information you need to truly get what happened, only like in the instant in
which it is revealed. It's not like I was really watching this movie,
Paul. I was like, that cigarette case is coming back. The fact
that this other woman's cigarette case keeps going missing, the fact that this Thruttle
seems to be like the Lady Doth protests too much, and these three are
all in cahoots together. I was so sure the Throutle was gonna be like
that, that fight was all planned ahead of time, Like, I was
so sure that this movie was working on some like extra levels that it is
not. It is absolutely not, and almost none of this will matter.
You were playing chess and they were playing like a game of war with cards,
like it could not have been more different. It was so dumb,
and I was like, oh, this recap could have been a page and
a half long. Yea, So okay. So miss Quentin is also gone
missing. Lady Weshelm's like, oh, a white woman has gone missing?
Why have none of you done anything about this? That is, she doesn't
quite see that that is almost exactly what she says. It's pretty close.
Yeah, it's close. She immediately starts brating all the workers for continuing their
archaeological dig instead of looking for this lost english woman. Sarah like, who's
not an idiot? Pausits Hey, maybe miss Quentin and Cope ran off together
because they weren't they fucking after all? And everyone kind of laughs and they're
like probably, and wouldn't you know it, Paul. Literally thirty seconds later,
the movie's like, yeah, that's what happened, because thirty seconds later
a group of men and like riders on horses, one of whom is referred
to as the Sheikh. Doesn't matter, they won't speak, they're not even
people, frankly, they're just they're just men on horses in in Arab dress.
That is that is important for later deliver Cope and Quinton back to the
party. It turns out the two of them were offered the chance to spend
the night in the desert with some locals, like at a camp, and
they were like, oh, yeah, let's do that. That sounds like
an adventure, and they took the opportunity. The Boynton family arrives in their
own car, being driven by the man that Poirot saw Emily higher the night
before. So that very suspicious exchange of cash seems to be explained. Right
literally two minutes later is explained. Raymond walks right up to Sarah and tells
her he's in love with her. As Erica writes here, does he know
her last name? He might know her last name, he absolutely does not
know her middle name, or where she lives. I don't think he's actually
absorbed the fact that she's a doctor yet, ha ha ha. Honestly,
as a doctor, she should have recognized the signs of like of clinical stupidity
and been like, excuse me, I can't be your wife, but I
can absolutely be your caretaker. Sarah tells him that he needs to be a
man and learn to stand up for himself in order to have even the slightest
shot with her. You're under your stepmother's thumb. Do something about that,
and then we can talk. So, just to be clear, we now
have all of our dramatis personae at this like dig site away from the city.
Yep. After lunch, Emily decides that all the kids should leave her
alone for a while. She directs everyone where to go, Ginny, go
to your tent, take a nap, Raymond, Sarah, Lennox, Nadine,
and weirdly, Cope. Cope goes on a walk with them. So
that is the two brothers, the brother's wife, the lawyer that she's having
an affair with, and the doctor that the other brother is apparently in love
with. After knowing for let's generously say a week, Okay, sure,
what a normal thing to do, Carol, the other daughter is sent to
watch miss Quinton while she works. It doesn't matter. Don't literally throw that
piece of information out of your head. It has like the slightest bit of
meaning, but you don't need to hold onto it. Once everyone has left
her alone, Emily sets her sights on Lady Westolm. Remember the two of
them have been shooting each other dirty looks the whole trip on the walk.
Nadine and Cope immediately start to hold hands and struggle as the Lenox isn't right
fucking there. I was like, genuinely, I was like, well,
the murder is not going to be Emily. That's the red herring and this
fout I'm thinking on this level, I'm like, well, Emily's not the
victim. It's going to be Cope. And the truth is like, we
don't know who killed him. Will it be Emily because she's blackmailing him,
or Lenox because he hates him, or Nadine somehow to get out from under
all of this, or a third party like because we for some reason we
don't know yet. No, none of that, none of that. It's
not honestly a piece of me does want to read a point with death at
this point to be like, is this a better book? They're like,
did they just fuck this up for the movie. So these two start canoodling.
Lennox is like, what the fuck and it's like and he pieces out,
and Sarah looks at Raymond and she says, should we go down with
him? And Raymond's all, now, baby, I want to go down
with you. And then they immediately start making out. They're just like we
got rid of the rest of them. They just start kissing and and they
spend the rest of their walk making out and making like moony eyes at each
other. Right, So they're just knacking on each other in the desert.
Yeah, Nadine and Cope were doing god knows what like off in the distance,
and Lennox is now pieced back out to the camp. Eventually, Raymond
leaves Sarah alone and goes to confront Emily. He's like, you're right,
I should confront her about this. I love you, I should be a
man, and he leaves. Sarah goes back down without him. She basically
she sticks around to like, I guess watch the other two flirt for a
while, and she goes back down to the camp by herself. She greets
Lady Westholme, who is like sitting at the communal tent doing some work.
Lady Wesholm is there on an official British business. I suppose yeah, because
she's a member of Parliament and this is the time around the time when Britain
was discussing the partition of Palestine historically. Yep, exactly the person I want
involved in this, This person they're portraying here, perfect choice Britain. No
notes, no notes. Woo. Penis returns from a day trip to Afra
and Ginny, Carol, Lennox and Nadine are spotted by Sarah being nuisances on
the dig site. Right, so the people that we have in our sights
are Jinny, Carol, Lennox, Nadine and Westoll. That's when Sarah notices
that Emily is slumped over in her chair in front of her tent. And
she's a doctor, she's taken an oath for God's sake, and she runs
over to help her, and she finds that Emily has died. She delivers
the bad news to the Boynton children by going to their large open air tent
and announcing honestly that hey by the way, Emily's dead, very little,
very little. Hat tip to like Decora and like, can everyone just come
here? I'm sorry, I have some difficult losers. Like by the way,
ding Dong, the witch is dead. We're having chicken cutlets for dinner,
and Emily is sitting there dead in front of her tent. I haven't
even bothered to move the body. Someone's got to take care of that.
It's gonna start smelling in the desert heat real soon, real soon. Erica
right here, Honestly, miss Quinton seems far more upset by the death than
anyone else. That's true. She actually is like, oh no, someone
died. Everyone else like, nah, was she a person? We're not
sure. Raymond loudly claims. Raymond is the one in love with the British
doctor right loudly claims that he spoke to Emily only an hour ago and she
seemed fine. She was running a marathon. I was like, buddy,
I know you didn't kill her, because yeah, you're just you're too dumb
to have ever done anything like that. Correct. Nice of the movie to
throw you in the mix as though you were actually someone who could have done
this. Yep, POI ro then examines the body and asks Sarah her opinion
on the cause and time of death. Sarah, who literally graduated. This
is her like trip that she's taking herself on as a treat for graduating college
a week ago. And he's like, hey, lady who just graduated college,
what's the time of death? And Sarah's like, I don't know.
I guess two hours. Then the movie will keep treat that like it's like
a fucking corner's report. She was literally guessing it could have been any time,
but anyway, that's the timeline we are now working with, right.
Poirot says he noticed marks on Emily's wrists and he suspects foul play. He
asks to see Sarah's medical bag, and Sarah immediately notices that someone has gone
through her bag and rearranged things. Poirot spots an empty bottle of digitalis and
she says, oh, no, that was full when I packed it.
Poiro debriefs John Gielgood and promises that A Emily Boynton was murdered and b he'll
suss out the murderer in two days. At at one point, John Gielgud
says, I couldn't possibly ask you to tell me who the murderer is.
You're on holiday. When British propriety goes too far, like someone is dead.
You know what? I'm loving this like work life balance this like look,
you are on vacation. You have to unplug, you have to turn
off your laptop. This is this is not your responsibility. So the next
day, Poirot questions Sarah about her motives to kill Emily. He asks her
to fill him in on everything that happened yesterday afternoon, and she gives him
the rundown of how Lennox and Raymond both split off from the group and went
back to camp. It all seems very honest. What she says matches up
with what we saw. Next, he goes to visit Lady Westholm. She's
entertaining Lord Peel, who is a real character who recommended the partition, a
historical person, yes, who recommended the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and
Arab states. And Miss Quinton. I don't know the connection between Lady Westolme
and Miss Quinton is is gossamer thin. I have no idea why these two
were traveling together. Okay, look, I'm going to go for a long
time. I thought Miss Quinton was going to be the murderer because I was
like, they're doing the lack of characterization. They bothered to get Hayley Mills,
who's not nobody, right, she's famous enough. They bothered to like
make her, give her an interesting backstory. They bothered to make her mister
Cookee's lover. They did so much and then we end up with so little
nothing shocking. Agreed. Agreed. Lord Peele basically immediately excuses himself, and
Poirot questions, and Erica questions, why was he in the movie? He
isn't necessary. Again, I don't want to talk about this, but the
movie is fucking forcing me to. Yeah. So Poiret questions the two ladies
about the events surrounding the murder. Lady Westom tells him that she stayed behind
after lunch to study up on Palestine and then went to visit Emily at her
tent. Once she was summoned, she says that they argued about the King
of England and Wallace Simpson. And as any one does, as one who
hasn't, he hasn't had a heated argument over the King of England and Lady
Wallace Simpson. I asked you over a couple of Nazi sympathizers, who hasn't
argued over there? Love. Actually, I don't think Wala Simpson was ever
a lady. I think that was the problem. Yeah, that was one
of the problems. So Lady Weston then went back to her work. She
also says she saw Emily yelling at a large man wearing Arab clothes, but
his clothing covered his face from her view. At around four pm, she
and Miss Quinton asked Emily if she'd like to go for a walk with them,
but that she just grunted at them and they walked away. They do
dramatize this, and it is. It is Piper Laurie sitting looking half dead
in her seat and going excellent. I was like, oh, so the
idea is like she's been poisoned and she can no longer speak right like.
I was like, oh, that's what happened there. That is not what
happened there. Everyone to know that that is not what happened there. So
Lady west Toll and Miss Quinton walked away, and then miss Quinton adds that
on her way back to the dig site, she found a hypodermic needle in
a silver case, and Carol Boynton, that's the stepdaughter, right, yeah,
claimed that it belonged to her. So miss Quinton found Carol Boynton's hypodermic
needle in a case out and about amongst the dig You know how you travel
with your own hyper fucking dermic needle? Well, I sure as fuck do.
The amount of times this twenty two year old will reference her hypodermic needle
and no one will be like, so, what's that story? So why
do you carry that around? Literally, no one will ask. Everyone will
just be like, well, yeah, everyone travels with the hypodermic needle,
it's the curdy. What. No, No, they didn't. Maybe women
of money at that time walked around with drugs to come themselves down from their
hysterics, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, maybe heroin wasn't
even illegal yet they were all just shooting up. That's why not sure,
let's say that. Let's say that happened. Medicine is literally poison in this
so we don't really, we really don't know what else they could have been
doing. They were putting heroin in their cookies, for God's sake. So
next Penis questions Lennox, who seems to have reconciled again with Nadine. He
and Maadine are cool once again. He saw her flirting like hard, flirting
with her her boyfriend in the desert twelve hours ago, and he's like,
we're we good, We're fine. Good. Lennox claims that he only spoke
to Emily for a few minutes after he came down from the from their walk,
and he helped reset her watch to the correct time, which was four
fifteen. So now we have a timeline. Like those other two saw her
at four, he saw her at four fifteen. He also says he never
saw that man in Arab clothing speaking to Emily or fighting with Emily that the
other two saw. Poirot then approaches Nadine, a separate from her husband,
and he isn't like, girl, tell me everything, what's going on.
Let's scruffle situation. How does it work? How many safe words do you
have to have? I want to know every detail. I'm going to every
fucking He's so graphic that you think you're gonna disgust me, go do it.
If you don't use the word gape in the next thirty seconds, I'm
going to be furious. She tells him. Nadine tells Poirot that she decided
the day before to finally leave Lenox for Cope. Even though she's thirty seconds
ago. It makes like they're not just sitting there, They're like holding hands,
They're looking like lovingly at each other. I can't with these people.
This is this is some white people nonsense. I can't deal with it.
So she gave the news to Emily that she's going to leave Lenox for Cope
around four thirty, and she says that she actually feels guilty because she thinks
the shock of it is what caused Emily's heart failure. She's like, Emily
died of a heart attack, and it's my fault. I killed her.
I told her that I was going to divorce her stupid husband for her stupid
lawyer, and the stupid woman had a stupid heart attack. Somehow, this
is all my fault. Poiro insists that Emily was murdered. He's like,
no, no, no, you did not kill her unless you actually killed
her, but we will suss that out later. He asks Nadine if she
has a hypodermic needle. She says, I do, but I didn't bring
it with me to run, unlike Carol, who fuck it travels with a
hypodermic needle, I ask you. Most importantly, she tells Poirot that Emily
was alive and well the last time she saw her at four fifteen pm.
She also did not see this man in Arab clothing that Lady west Hoolm and
Miss Quinton say they saw with Emily. Poiot goes back to the hotel and
he finds Jefferson Cope, the lawyer, trying to make a quick getaway,
and he very calmly forces Cope to stay and reminds him that they're all under
John Gilgood's orders not to leave until the crime is solved. I always do
whatever John Gilgood tells me to do, a follow all of Daddy Guilgod's orders.
Yeah, talk about someone directing you to gape? Who whoo so gross
would I gave for gil Good boom bumper sticker. I want that boom per
stickler right now. I will buy a car just to have that bumper sticker.
He confronts Cope about his part in helping Emily destroy her husband's true will
and points out that killing Emily would be his way to avoid detection and scandal.
He's like, look, you have a motive like this all tracks out.
You're a very You're a very plausible suspect. Yeah, Cope gets fired
up. He loudly claims that he's made many mistakes in his life, but
he did not kill Emily Boyton. After Nadine left him the day before,
he walked back down to the camp around five pm and didn't see Emily before
she was found dead. Poi Ro then goes back to Colonel Carberry gaping for
Gilgud. He wants the colonel to question all the workers on the site about
who this man in the Arab clothing could have been. He then tracks down
Carol and Raymond. He confronts Carol first about the conversation he heard her and
Raymond having on the ship. Carol actually just full out admits it. She's
like, yep, okay, we fantasized about killing Emily, but after all
she's not our mother. Yeah, and we but in the end we were
like never, we decided not to go through with it. He then poor
Ro asks her about the syringe, like how did your syringe wind up in
the dirt? And she's like, I have no idea how that happened,
and then at one point and then I'm like screaming at the screen and I'm
like, ask her why she has a syringe on the birthplace, You fucking
idiot. Goddamn it, God, damn it. I thought you were the
world's greatest detective, You fucking moron. You are leaving so much on the
table here. We also find out in this in the course of the scene
from Carol that Jinny claims a shake came into her tent while she was sleeping.
Carol's like, no, no, no, you were just dreaming because
you were asleep. So she's she immediately dismisses her little sister's flight of fancy
about some shake entering her tent. Next, Poirot questions Raymond, this is
the son in love with the doctor, the British doctor. He says that
at five point thirty PM, he told Emily that he wants to marry Sarah,
and that Emily was furious and absolutely forbade it. After that, he
left her alone, and that's all he's gonna say about that. The only
smart thing I've seen anyone do in this movie. He's like, oh,
you're gonna question me. I'm ann needle fucking lawyer who's not coch lawyer.
Poirot points out that Sarah put the time of death around four pm, which
makes it a little odd that all of these people were speaking to her after
her death. All of her children claim to have spoken to her after four
pm, but Sarah, the magical coroner who can look at a body and
figure out when it was dead, says she died it four Later that night,
Poirot Powa is walking near the hotel. Parrot is walking near the hood
parrot, Parrot, that's a good one. It's walking near the hotel,
and a disembodied voice whispered yells to him in the dark that they have information
about Emily's murder, and the voice asks Poirot to meet them at ten am
behind the hotel, and the camera pans up and we see someone listening in
on this exchange from a hotel window, but crucially, we don't see their
face. Why can't he just tell him now? Right? What do we
like? He's not like scared away by something? Is I'm like, come
here, come here, Oh no, my boss, I have to go
meet me tomorrow like something. He's like, I have important vital information for
your case. But I can only give it to you eight hours. Hence
eight hours forthwith, I shall tell you about the murderer, like Poirot should
just have been, like, just say the fucking name now and we can
all go home. Poi ro runs into Miss Quinton and Lady west Hoolme in
the lobby and he points out a large brown spider on the wall to miss
Quinton. She claims to see it, but it's pretty clear that she's lying.
Lady Westholme sees what's happening between miss Quinton being wave too chatty with the
detective, and she immediately ushers her away. John Gielgood, gaping for Gilgood,
joins joins Paris at the end of the bar and tells him that he
spoke with all the local workers. No one saw anything useful. What a
great use of John Gilgod's time. This movie is perfect. Yeah. Poiro
then writes a name down on a piece of paper, and he to one
of the colonel's soldiers, and he asked him to check and see if quote
unquote, the Americans know anything about this person whose name I'm writing down on
this piece of paper that I will not say out loud. Poirot tells the
Colonel that he's pretty sure he knows who killed Emily Boyton. He just needs
one more group interview. He needs to get them all in the same place
at the same time, in a really dramatic location. Paul, once again,
will this dramatic location be in any way important to this interview? Not
even a little bit. Will this interview actually glean any information that is that
is useful? I am so glad I did not see this movie before I
recapped it, because I genuinely this whole recap would have been a page long,
because like I wrote everything down like it was fucking gospel, Like we're
gonna like this is all I'm gonna come backing's important. So they arrange for
all the suspects to meet them for afternoon tea at the springs of Satah.
I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that correct, believe like which is an actual sight.
Yeah. The next morning, Sarah and Poirot are walking outside of the
hotel when Hassan, the young man who whispered yelled to Poirot in the dark
of night, appears. Hassan, I will just say for the record,
is actually played by an Arab actor. So when it is a toss up
as to whether or not nineteen eighty eight they would have known better than to
put like to put brown face on a white actor. I mean, spoiler
alert, Hassan does not speak again in the movie. So like, it's
all it's all, it's all bad. But this is an actual Arab.
Yeah, Hassan's dignity will get curb stomped in this film, don't worry about
it. But basically, like, at least the actor is played by an
actual person of color POI ro with Lady Westolm standing behind him. She's like
walking to her car, approaches Hassan with Sarah. Hassan panics, turns around
and runs away. Sarah gives chase. She's like, I'll get him.
So now this is a young man in like Arab clothing, but like in
like I just crucially, I'm talking about his shoes. He's in like sandals
flats if you will, Yes, Sarah is in a sun dress and pumps.
She goes after him Jackie Joiner Cursey film. Sarah runs so goddamn much
and so goddamn fast and so goddamn far that it becomes extremely comical. Eventually
they pass every single member of the cast. During their chase, she falls
a little bit behind, but finally he runs around a corner. We see
Sarah run around the corner. A gunshot occurs, and then we come around
the corner and we see Sarah standing over Hassan holding a gun, a literal
smoking gun, a literal smoking dead on the street and she's holding a literal
smoking gun. And now Paul is like, well, that means she's not
the killer, because this is this is too much, This is too much,
right. A group of local men find Sarah standing over Hassan's body with
her literal smoking gun. Things are looking pretty grim for all Sarah, who,
by the way, does not raise her voice and say I didn't do
it. It wasn't me, it wasn't me. I know, hold the
gun, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. She just kind
of freezes again, this woman being menaced by a group of brown men,
like in a way like that, the movie is definitely on her side and
not on theirs, which, to be fair, this like street Justice,
was probably a bad idea to begin with, Like this should go she should
probably all go through a court of law. But like the movie has like
a group of twelve men, all of whom are like I'm assuming locals of
where they're filming, but also dark skinned. They're all surrounding her menacingly.
They start unsheathing their knives. There's like like three close ups of people unsheathing
knives, and so they're all about to like stab her to death in this
dark alleyway for the murder of this man. And I'm like, this was
a choice. They didn't have to put this in the movie at all.
This they could have They could have easily just had her like like find a
smoking gun and get arrested. That's it. They chose to have this instead.
This is now the second time in the movie that this character is being
menaced by a group of men in whose country she is visiting, by the
way. Correct. Suddenly a group of British soldiers arrive and they you know,
quote unquote, well, I mean they do rescue Sarah, like something
bad is about to happen to Sarah in this alleyway, and they take her
away for questioning. So we cut to Poirot and Carberry, Colonel Gielgud,
Colonel Gaper discussing the latest murder by the Way. As much as the movie
focuses on Emily's death. Hassan's death matters absolutely nothing to anybody, and it
will be alighted extremely quickly. This is actually, I think the most offensive
thing that happens in the movie, despite the many offensive things that have already
occurred, and like the racial epithets that have already been thrown around that we
just haven't even mentioned. It's like, it's this, it's there's like a
person of color, a local, a servant who gets murdered in the streets,
and it is completely just dropped for the rest of the movie. It's
just another like blip in the in the plot of who killed Emily Boynton?
Right, So, okay, they're discussing this murder. This will be the
only, just the only scene in which anyone discusses this murder. Even though
Sarah's fingerprints were the only ones on the gun that they got at the scene,
Poirot does not believe she could have killed Hassan. There's nowhere for her
to have hidden a gun. He's like, I saw her literally for the
minute before she ran. She didn't have a purse, she was wearing a
tight white dress. She could not have hidden a gun anywhere without me seeing
it right, which does mean that she sprinted around a corner, found a
smoking gun over a dead body, and made the conscious choice to pick up
the gun. Yeah, she also might be clinically stupid. Maybe she shouldn't
be a doctor. Yeah, I don't. I don't think she should be
like rooting around on my insides, I don't. I'd rather have something I'm
not okay with that. I'd rather have someone who's like smart enough to know
to like whistle and walk away when they see a dead body. He asks
Carbery to release Sarah from jail so that she can join that group in her
that afternoon. That is going to be so crucial to the rest of the
movie, so important. We cut to this fucking tea slash interview in the
second location that I know they only picked because they wanted some more picturesque to
film. Parrot holds court. He dramatically goes through all the suspects and their
motives, once again pointing out all the inconsistencies in the timing of their stories.
Raymond and Carol loudly admit to plotting to kill Emily with an empty hypodermic
needle. Both of them thought the other one had committed the murder, which
is why they were so cagy in their interviews, and it turns out neither
of them had. Don't you hate when that happens. It's so funny.
I totally thought you killed her? Can I tell you if I'm ever murdered?
One of my deep hopes is that there is us, that there is
not a Baker's dozen of people who are viable suspects with good motive on it,
Like, I hope I live my life in a way that does it
PSA for this episode, live your life in a way. We're only one
or two people want to kill you, not everyone, not everyone you meet.
I mean, if no one wants to kill you, I think you've
gone too far. I think you've lived a life unfulfilled. But only two
or three maximum maximum three? Any more than three, we're getting I'm getting
nervous. Lennox then starts to confess to the murder. Right. He's like,
I did it, I killed her, right, And Poaro is like,
no, you didn't. Why are you confessing? And it turns out
he thinks Nadine did it, so he's covering for Nadine, and Paro's like,
guess what Nadine didn't do it either, and Lennox is like, psych
I didn't kill her. I back, I didn't do it either, all
right, I forgot. The cutaways to Lauren Baccall in this scene are the
most over at the top I roll you know that Liz lemon I roll from
thirty Rocks. She is almost she's doing that. That is Tina Fey actively
trying to be enormous. This is Laura Wacall like biting a cookie and having
like seventeen emotions play across her face as she like rolls her This entire affair
horn Bocall gives in this movie. Can I tell you she serves? She
gives every scene. She plays maximum cunt every fucking scene like Piper Laurie does
too. But they're doing it in different ways, and it's it is fifty
shades of cuntiness, and I am here for all of it, all of
it. So Lennox admits finally that by the time he saw Emily at four
fifteen that afternoon, she had already died. So now they're all starting to
admit it. They're all like, she was dead when I saw her.
Doo, me too, me too, me too? Yeah, I just
didn't want to cause any suspicion around the other person that I thought killed her
because everyone wanted her dead. Lady Westolm can take it no longer, she
tells Parquet and gaping Gilgood she's leaving. She's excusing herself from the proceedings.
Poirot ends the group interview, and John Gielgood invites everyone to the coronation ball
that evening because also King George the Whatever is being coronated that day. Okay,
sure, let's throw that whatever. John Gilgood asked Pool if he got
everything he needed, and Poo insists he has until midnight to unmask the killer.
This messy bitch knows who did it. This messy bitch knew yesterday,
and he's just putting us through all of this for nothing. Fuck you,
Paro, Fuck you, I thought you were supposed to be on vacation.
Get this done and go and go relax. Goddamn it. We see a
British soldier bringing paper plain and important note regarding quote unquote that person. Puot
hides it from John Gilgood because apparently he's having too much fun on his little
murder vacation. He doesn't want to just end it. He wants to end
it dramatically. At midnight, we cut to the ball. Everyone is on
the dance floor, even Parrot, which causes my favorite bitch line in the
movie, which is Lauren Bacall looking at him and she goes in that Lauren
Becall's smoky evil voice goes, mister Poirot, shouldn't dance too fat, bad
for the heart. Damn Jesus fuck. I mean Heather Chandler wishes she had
this level of huntiness. What if Flora paccaullad played Heather Chandler, who would
have been the other Heathers Katherine Hepburn would have been Heather Duke, right,
she would have been the second one, the Shannon Doherty one who takes over
is Joan Fontaine as Heather McNamara, the cheerleader one, right, Okay,
and then I think it has to be Betty Davis's Veronica. Yeah, I
think that's fair. Jd can be played by Gary Cooper. This is an
amazing movie. I wish she could make it. I want to remake Heathers
with old dead actress. Yeah. So the Boytons and Cope, the lawyer
are all seated at the same table with John Gielgud and plowa Ah. Carol
asks how he's so sure that none of them committed the murder. He points
out that any one of them could have killed Emily by slipping her a fatal
dose of digitalis at any time. They wouldn't have had to inject her with
it to kill her. They're all very familiar with how she takes it.
Therefore, the murder is someone who didn't know Emily all that well. Now,
this is I think is one of the best bits of like deduction that
it happens in the movie. Yeah, like, oh, that does make
sense, and that's a solid point. So he goes through the events the
last few days one more time. On the day of her death, Emily
sends her family away in order to speak with Lady west Hoolm, and when
Hassan, the only witness to the murder, tried to speak with Poirot,
he saw Lady west Holm approaching and ran away. Poirot then breaks down how
Lady Westolm committed the murders. Paul, Here's where I am so fucking disappointed
in myself because I genuinely, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, never really
thought about Lauren Bacall as the killer until like like three minutes before the scene,
and I was like, yeah, bitch, this is procedural television one
oh one. The famous person is always the killer. Lauren Bacall is in
this movie, and she's not gonna be the killer? Are you fucking kidding
me? Like, obviously is Lauren Bacall. I had to put my head
in my hands and I was like, oh, you dumb, dumb bitch.
I can't believe you realized it was Laurencall. I thought I figured it
was Lauren Bacall as soon as she sent everyone away, and then was like,
tell Lady westme, I want to speak with her. I was like,
something's it has to be her. It would have had to be all
of the kids together or none of the kids, like, because they're not
particularly well drawn characters, and they're not particularly they're all too stupid to have
done it. Yeah. So anyway, so he says, Lady west Holm
disguised herself as an Arab man broke into Sarah's tent, but not before accidentally
walking into Ginny's tent, hence Ginny thinking she'd seen a shake. Remember we
heard about that earlier. She stole the needle from Sarah's medical bag and the
digitalis and then administered the fatal dose to Emily. There's an amazing reenaction of
this of Piper Laurie screaming no as it happens, and like no one coming
down, Like there's people like one hundred yards away in a dig site,
and everyone's like, yeah, we're trying to find the dead scrolls over here.
Later that day, when Lady west Home was Quinton offered to take Emily
for a walk, she claims that Emily grunted at them, and Miss Quinton,
who is highly suggestible, which Poirot knows because he suggested that isn't there
a spider in that corner? And miss Quinton just agreed says, oh,
yes, I also heard a grunt. So Lady west Home knows that miss
Quinton has a weak mind basically and took advantage of it. Which again,
should she be the person overseeing the excavation of a major archaeological dig. None
of these people should have the jobs they have. They're gonna find a newspaper
with today's date on it, and she's gonna insist it with Jesus Christ's newspaper
like this is a problem. Jesus read Life magazine. I have proof.
I found it at the dig. Then she killed Hassan before he could tell
Poirot that he saw Lady west Hoolm kill Emily. How Lady west Holm knew
where Hassan was running through the city and got there ahead of him in order
to commit this assassination. The movie will never explain and has no interest in
she did it? You know there was a scene with her chasing him down
and Lauren Bacall was like, no, absolutely not. It is one hundred
degrees. I am not running around in this film. You just write around
this. Fuck you all, fuck you, fuck you, You're cool,
fuck you. I am Betty Baccall, and I do not run. Okay.
Sarah asks, Okay, but why why would Lady Westholm, of all
people, rich British aristocrat and member of Parliament want to kill this evil bitch
from New Jersey, this gorgan from the colonies. Yeah? Well, it
turns out that before she was a high and mighty peerist of the realm,
she was Dun Dun Dune, an American criminal and a prisoner in the same
prison where Emily was a w warden dress or whatever. We said wrdross,
a warderous, a matron, a mama Morton, if you will, exactly.
Emily recognized her and threatened to reveal her secret just for fun, like
not even for money. That to me is the most ice cold thing in
the whole movie. She's like, but Emily was so rich, what could
she possibly gain? And they were like just evil fun and I was like,
oh shit, just a little bit of glee, just a little bit
of glee at tearing someone else down. And that is why Lady Westholm killed
her. Okay, And at this point in the film, they're at a
party. They can see her. Lady Wesholm has been watching them having this
conversation from across the room, kind of looking at them as Poirot like puts
on he like takes a tablecloth and puts it over his body to like mimic
how she would have dressed it and like hidden her face in order to commit
the murder. And like, Lady Wesholm's been watching this whole time and is
like, well shit, I think they're on to me. And she sucking
pieces out of the ballroom. No one arrests her. They don't even get
up from the table after They're all like, oh, that's how she killed
Emily. This is why you should maybe arrest the murderer before explaining to everyone
who is the murderer actually is and why they did it. You put the
cart before the horse a little bit here. It's you know, Paul sounds
like she can get away. She's getting away, She's getting away. Never
mind, yep, she can get away. Well, everyone okay, and
then everyone's like, that's how she killed her. Ooh, fireworks, and
the entire table gets up to go outside to watch the fireworks, including the
colonel who is who is like their sheriff in these parts, and just fucking
leaves this murderer at the party. She's just unaccounted for. Yeah, lady
w not being a dumb dumb slips out. Poirot follows her, and she
turns and confronts him, and she says, should I suffer for the crime
of murdering someone as horrible as Emily Boynton was? You're like, wow,
ring ring, Hello, pot, it's kettle, you're black. I mean,
like, both of these women suck. Haha. I would have killed
it twice if I had had my high point. Cuffeequaro says, I don't
know, lady, I'm just the detective. Here is really up to Colonel
Carbury to decide if you go, if you go to prison or not.
Oh, fireworks, and then he turns around and joins everyone watching the fireworks
and does nothing. Okay, here's my resolution. Your resolution is to not
have enough people want to kill you that there's a literal like murderer's row of
suspects. My resolution is that I hope that if I am ever murdered,
the police don't exactly figure out who did it and go, that's fine,
it was fine, don't worry about it. No one cares. She earned
it. That's fucking harsh. Yeah, Lady Westom adjourns to her hotel room
and she dies by suicide. She shoots herself with a gun. Fucking shoots
herself, Like, whoa, I didn't see that coming. The movie did
get me in here? That was like whoa? Okay? Cool? Uh.
Percolator and Gielgud decide to cover up the suicide by claiming that she died
while cleaning her gun. After all, she was ever a woman who knew
her duty. What I don't think the movie thinks that Lady west hoolme is
as problematic as we do. I think the movie thinks Lady west Holme is
a bit much, but like, yeah, ultimately fine, honestly, yes,
the movie is contending that Emily Boynton would like basically deserve to die and
the way Lady west Holm was the only one with the kohonas to do it,
like that is what this movie is positing. And they're like, well,
good for her for also not dealing with a long prolonged trial and just
ending it herself. And I'm like, the fuck is this movie for knowing
when to make an exit? Lady west home? I mean, so they
say, this way, there's no further investigation. They can also claim that
Emily died of a heart attack. Pit Pat spit spot, all done,
nice and cleaned. Everyone's reputations are intact. Over breakfast the next morning,
they read the story of Lady west Hoolme's tragic accident in the paper, and
Poirot and Gielgood watch as all the point and siblings go off to live their
care free lives. Lennox and Nadine are back together. Cope and miss miss
Quinby or whatever her name was, Miss Quintin miss Quincy are together now that
eighties jaunty sitcom score kicks up again and they all drive out of the Holy
Land. End of movie. What a movie? What an absolute clusterfucke Oh
God, stick around. We'll be right back with our random observations and final
rankings after these messages and we're back, Paul, give us a little bit
of you for macheon. That will help us solve why is this movie so
stupid? By the way, flawless franch accent your well lawless, it's actually
Bill, I'm doing Belgian Flemish. I believe perhaps maybe, yeah, I
don't know, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's there's a scene that you
allided out of the recap, which was the correct choice, but because it
has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. But Lauren Boocall as
Lady Westolm, she like it's constantly taking pictures and wants her picture to be
taken and is posing for pictures. And then at one point she winds up
at the whaling wall oh and like accidentally offends everyone because there's there's a there's
a male and a female section of the whaling wall, and she like blindly
walks onto the to the male section, and everyone like looks at her and
it is I think the movie means it to be a like comic moment.
Yeah, it's funny. It's supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be
funny. It's so uncomfortable. Uh huh. Also, Paul, can I
tell you how much I thought her taking pictures all over the movie was going
to come back, was going to reveal something. It's another thing that I
thought because I'm an idiot and I didn't realize Lauren Woodall, the most famous
person in the movie, was also going to be the killer. I thought
that the whole point of her character was that she's irritating, but she redeems
herself at the end by being the person who helped solve the crime with all
these photographs. No, none of that, But there is a movie you
wrote. There is a runner in the movie where she is just like taking
pictures of everything and just does nothing nothing. Speaking of Miss Bookcall, of
Betty Bcall, I have some favorite lines of hers. Oh I have one
too. Uh. One is where she's there's someone's like, well you're an
American, but you're really English now or whatever, and she goes, I
consider myself merely a colonial who has returned to the fold. What a woman.
Fuck. Yeah, I have one where she says having servants about that
don't speak a word of English is very trying. Ha ha ha oh.
I have a good one. By the way, she says some fucked up
racist shit in the movie. I'm not just I'm just not gonna say any
of those. But there's one that she says that's very funny that he goes
very nice meal considered it was prepared by foreigners, but you're in their country,
you were the foreigner. There's one moment where they're on in the tent
and they're like, oh, look it's lamb and they do this intentional close
up of this I'm sorry, very unappetizing looking meal that actually has a fly
on it, And I'm like, you couldn't just take another shot of the
food it doesn't have a pest on it. One of my favorite lines in
the movie, it's not from Lauren bacalls from Carrie Fisher. This is after
Lennox has found the cigarette case, they've had the brawl, they are leaving
to go on their walk. That five rant, that motley crew of five
that went on the walk at the dig Yeah, and she's walking with Lennox
and she asks him, Oh, are you still sulking about all of that,
about the ongoing affair that she had with the family lawyer who's still there?
To be clear, Oh, you're still smulking about that just because I
gave him a hand job at lunch. Jesus Christ, grow up. There
is a weird fucking line that like, I think it's intentional, and it's
poi Rot, it's parrokeet. He says, everything is always fun for you
English, the sun never sets on your games. Well, I hope it'll
always be so, although I have my doubts. What does that mean?
What does that mean? It got so dark so quickly, And I'm like
what the fuck? I had to write it down because I was like,
genuinely have no idea why that's in there. Yeah, it's it's it,
like is it the movie makers like knowing that, like the the sun was
setting on the British Empire and and like it's not gonna go well. And
they're trying to put words in Poirot's mouth that make him sound even more oh
like pressure, like like look like none of this Palestine shit's gonna end up
well, just aheads up, maybe f yi, just FYI. I don't
know, maybe, but I was like, this is dark and the movie
doesn't in the movie like tiptoes around it and really doesn't delve into that.
Yeah, speaking of paragraph, what are the pants that he's wearing at the
end call They look like jod purs but also kind of like mc hammer pants,
Like they're very like parachute Jod purse. I missed it, Shit,
I miss it. They are They make him twice as wide as he is
tall, Like they are so wide. Is this Peter Ustinov? Yeah?
Huh oh and he is tall and wise. Holy shit. There's a scene
late in the film where Lauren Bacall is serving coffee to someone. Yep,
uh huh. It is so weird and it's so unintentionally funny because they didn't
wish you already doing the high Point coffee commercials. Is that? What is
this? What is that? What this was a reference to? Or did
the high Point people see this scene and go, we need to put her
in our commercials. Chicken Dinner. She's pouring coffee out of this like silver
coffee server like coffee thing, and like three drops come out and then she
just hands them the cup like it's a normal serving of coffee, and she's
like, have some coffee. It's de definated, and I'm like, everything
about this scene makes me so joyous. By the way, for those of
you who don't understand what we're talking about, I don't even remember what episode
we meantion we started talking about high Point Coffee Misery. Thank you, man,
You're good. If you've not heard our busery episode and you're hearing this
one, please google Lauren Bacall high Point Coffee, high Point Coffee. Paul
has made my life immeasurably better by telling me about these commercials, and I
would like to I would like to like return the favor to the listeners.
You're paying it forward, paying this shit forward. My favorite time of day
is not Erica. How how should we rank appointment with death one to ten
murderers rows of murder suspects upon my murder? One to tically stupid murder suspects
upon your murder? One to ten horses at Elmer Boynton's glue factory. Oh
too dark, too dark. I hope the sun never sets on your games,
Paul. One to ten gaping geel goods. You know what if if
only because I think John Gielgood would have thought that was funny. Oh that
was funny. Yeah, he would have been thrilled. Do you want to
go first today? Or shall I lead the way? I'll go first,
have at it. I have to say, of all the films we've covered
this month, this is the only one that actually surprised me with Who the
Murderer is fair now it is because I'm too stupid to live. Yes,
frankly one to ten clinically stupid podcaststs, clinically stupid podcasts. Who really who
doesn't understand the basic economics of filmmaking and that you can't cast Lauren Becall unless
she's the killer. I'm glad I saw it. I really am. I
think as much as we're ragging on it because it is stupid and bad,
it's also really fun to watch. Agreed. I did not feel bored for
even a second. It is very pretty as well, because it's like nineteen
thirty seven costumes and like these exotic to us Anyway locations. It's funny.
There's a lot of funny lines in the movie actually that we kind of elided,
but they're they're cute, right. It's a cute watch where the movie
does fall down a lot in how it ages. Now. Look, it
is not entirely the film's fault that it takes well. It is the film's
fault because you know what I read on Wikipedia, Originally this is supposed to
be in Jordan. Oh really, the novel takes place in Jordan, and
they're like, let's go to Israel, it'll be more fun, and I'm
like, oh man, for real. So that is in a way,
it's their choice to film there, and like, of course, given like
what's been going on in the last few months, it makes the film really
weird to watch. I was worried about how we were going to talk about
it. Frankly, I talk about this shit like and what we have chosen
instead is to just say we're not talking about it. Ie, No,
no, really, Paul, everyone needs our opinion about the conflict right now.
It is pretty racist as a movie. It's pretty racist, both inherently
and like actively, Like the Lauren Billcall character is the only one that's given
racist things to say, and the other characters all like roll their eyes at
her, as though the movie is like get a load of this bitch,
right, Like she's the worst. But then the movie also has constant scenes
of Arabic men leering at or menacing white women, or one specific white woman
because she's the only one that happens two, but it happens twice in the
film. There's no way that's an accident. And then there's a character who
like as a local who died and literally no one cares. I'm shocked we
got his name. Can I tell you that? Like, I was shocked
that they actually bothered to name the character. That's how little they give a
shit about him. You know, good amount of roles for women, I'll
say that. I mean Agatha Christie always like writes good women, doesn't she
like? She writes real bitches, and I fucking love her for that.
They're fun, They're fun. She always writes a real just a top notch
bitch. No gay content that I'm aware of, unless you caught something I
didn't, unless it was like this, the smoldering undertone of the Miss Quintin
and Lady Westfolm relationship. That's the closest thing we have. I'm gonna give
it a really low score because it's it's pretty damn and and racist in ways
that like it could have surpassed the source material. Just fine. Yeah,
this sort like I've only seen one of these Kenneth Branna ones, but I
feel like already it is so updated and so much more like modern in its
take. I'm gonna give it a two. I'm gonna give it with two
out of ten gaping giel goods. The points are coming from the female roles
that I think are actually pretty well rounded, and the sheer entertainment value of
this nonsense if you are in any way triggered by anything going on in the
Middle East right now, I was just giving this one a pass. Don't
watch it, agreed. It's uncomfortable at best, and it'll it might be
upsetting it worst, So I would I would say skip it. Yeah,
how about you, Paul, Yeah, I agree. I think like the
the movie plays with the trope of like, this person is a racist and
it knows it. It knows that Lady Westolm is saying horrible things. It's
not that blind to it. But then it at the same time like walks
around, steps on a rake and hits itself in the face of the rake
of oh but you just did it too, and you don't know that part
of it right, so, and and you know it's set in nineteen thirty
seven, so it's it's a different time. And it's because when it first
started, and I before they actually got to the final destination, I was
like, oh, this is fine, Like it's a little icky sometimes,
but like it's nineteen thirty seven. People did talk like this. I'm sure,
like I'm sure, like it's a bunch of British people, for God's
sake. Yeah, it's a bunch of British people Americans like not the greatest,
not the greatest history there. Yeah, but once they get there,
particularly the scene with all the men leering at Sarah, and they also have
a belly dancer in that scene, and there's a very odd close up of
the woman's face. Oh right, that's definitely seems to be shot to want
to be a little uncomfortable, like to make you uncomfortable, Like she has
a very aggressive expression on her face and she's smiling. But it's it's like,
what why is this here? Don't like, don't care for any of
this. I agree like lots of really good female roles. I really think
this movie could be rewritten and fixed with pretty easily, Like it just needs
to just needs to be recalibrated, I think. And it could be fun
or it is fun, it could be a lot more fun. It could
be a better movie and fun. Yeah, with a little bit of recalibration.
And like you said, there's there's not any gay content, which is
fine. This movie doesn't does not need gay content on top of everything else.
It doesn't need like Cope also is also fucking Raymond, Like, we
don't need that's that's just too messages. I mean, if Cope and Lennox
had also been fucking, then I do need that. Then a dream that
perfect fucking dream movie. If I just the weird thrule going on there,
Yeah, we will never know if that's what my great great aunt was doing,
if she was also having her boyfriend's fuck each other, maybe we don't
know. She was a freak. Oh love her. Love that for you,
my friend, Love that for you. I'm gonna agree with you.
I think a two is fair. I think a two out of ten gaping
gild goods on this one. It's it's not great. Do you have a
palate cleanser that you wanted to offer? Yeah, I'm going to tell people
to watch my favorite murder mystery of all time. Clue excellent. Clue is
not a perfect film. It does it also falls somewhat flat on some of
the aging, but it is also an excellent film. It is one of
the best murder mystery I've ever seen. I love it. I would say
watch if you want something frothy and fun and does have queer content, watch
watch Clue. How about you. I just think there are better Agatha Christie
adaptations out there that the Peter Ustinov Death on the Nile from like a few
years before this. It's actually a lot of fun and and it holds together
more. There's there is still some like light racism in it, but it's
it's way less uncomfortable in this movie as far as that goes. Then there's
there's a really great BBC adaptation of it. Then there were none with Charles
Dance that was really fun. There was a BBC adaptation of this one called
Ordeal by Innocence about a family with that like another horrible mother gets killed by
like there's a big family around and no one knows who did it. That
one's really fun. So I would just go see perhaps a better Agatha Christie
adaptation. Uh not the first two Kenneth Brono Ones, which I didn't see,
but the haunting in Venice Kenneth Broano one is genuinely a good time,
a little spooky, little creepy. All right, So, Erica, that
is the end of our show and the end of Murder Mystery March, which
means that next week we are doing a show on April Fool's Day. Oh
what could it be? Well, one of us get murdered and that's the
April Fools. April Fools. The podcast is over because one of us is
dead by the other's hand. Boy, they took it too far. It
went dark. Well, you should never have told me that cat comes with
a stipend. Now you have a target on your back, my friend.
Now it's your fault. Yeah. Yeah, Everyone listening can follow us on
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some tears on our Patreon come with a thanks from a podcast character.
And today we're hearing from none other than Agent doub Loo panties Well Well Well
back in person, and it feels so good. Not for you, queer
bait. I was talking to your partner there. She can tickle the hilt
under my kilt anytime. Don't be shy, sweetheart. If you want to
shake hands with the governor, all you have to do is ask. He's
very friendly and he'd love to guarantee your vote. Well, thank you,
double o panties you think about that, But I'm here to thank Allison for
being a patron of that aged well. Without these bookings, my undershorts budget
would be unsustainable. And then where would we be the world's greatest spy doing
the helicopter in the moon dance when he should be punching out domestic terrorists.
Sounds like a movie The bum chom over here might rent on a lonely Saturday
night, but hardly the best way to keep the world safe. So thank
you, Alison. Your patronage of that age Well is almost as inspiring as
an upkilt view of me as I walk up a flight of stairs. First
of all, I would tickle Sean Connery's pickle anytime, anytime, anytime.
Yeah. Second of all, he really enjoys writing slurs about your sexuality.
He seems a little homophobic. I'm not gonna I'm a homophobic And it's almost
as if you're maybe dealing with some internalized hate there. I'm not gonna say,
I don't know what you're talking about it. I don't think Agent doublow
Panties is queer. I think he's aggressively straight. Hah ha, Eric any
final thoughts on appointment with death. But when I call you a big,
gaping quiro, You're like, oh, that's offensive. I don't get it,
Paul, I just don't get it. I thought we were friends.
The champagne had been spilled for four seconds before literally five giant approaches just started
fucking doing a oh god, what's her name? The swimmer? The oh
uh Diana and iad no the nineteen Jane Evans. Oh no, movies,
movie, movie, movie, she did swimming routines, Oh oh, oh,
oh no. One know you're talking, mister Williams. Williams, that
was a journey. You know a lot of swimmers. I only have,
like Katie Ludecki. That's it. That's all I can do. The fact
that Janet Evans came flying out of my mouth like it was the actual answer
to what you were thinking of I am so fucking proud of you. You
are killing it today and my friend killing it