The Alphabet Murders (1965)

 "A A, eh?"

This is, I believe, by the creative team behind the Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford who, indeed, gets an odd little cameo here. I'm told they're very good films, if apparently not particularly faithful to the novels. I intend to give them a chance. That is, despite the fact that this film is utterly unwatchable.

I'm not at all surprised that Agatha Christie herself loathed this film. It is rather difficult not to. I can't remember the novel (The ABC Murders)- it's been at least thirty years or more since the one and only time I read it. I read many, many of Mrs Christie's works in early puberty but rather went off her by my mid-teens. Still, I've no doubt that this is a far from faithful adaptation, not least because it scarcely pretends to be a whodunit. It is, rather, an embarrassingly unfunny attempt at "comedy".

It's trying to be a farce. A good farce is, of course, a very clever thing indeed. This is not. The cast, from the awful Tony Randall, surely the worst ever Hercule Poirot, with his ever-shifting accent, in one of the most cringeworthy leading roles ever, to a shockingly awful Robert Morley as an unrecognisable Captain Hastings, is either bloody awful or quite sensibly phoning it in for the money as there's no point doing otherwise for a script like this.

We get unfunny "comedy" setvpieces, one after another, and soooo much smoking.We get Anita Ekberg playing, well, the kind of tall blonde unattainable woman she invariably plays. We get a bit of psychological mumbo-jumbo. And we have a very unfunny conclusion in a train. And at no point is any of it remotely entertaining.

Be warned: ninety minutes of your one and only life are far too precious to waste on this drivel.

House of Cards: Episode 3

"His deepest need was that people should like him. An admirable trait, that... in a spaniel, or a whore. Not, I think, in a prime minister."

This episode, after we’ve seen the details of the PM’s fall, immediately moves beyond- there’s an emergency Cabinet meeting, introduced with one of Urquhart’s asides to camera, and that’s it; the PM has resigned, and the starting gun has fired on the leadership race- although I believe there’s a constitutional blunder here. Collingridge hasn’t resigned as PM yet, just announced he will be stepping down when the Tories elect a new leader. So why is he going to the Palace?

Still, it’s fun as ever to see the wheel turning. The departing PM, in his final Cabibet meeting, actually thanks Francis for his support. And Francis implicates the viewers into his scheming with our voyeurism- “Not feeling guilty, I hope?”.

Francis is, of course, not yet in a position to run and needs to manipulate others- not least the infatuated Mattie- into “persuading” him. Others are in a less happy position- Charles Coleridge is suicidal, and it’s interesting that we are given a script with the two brothers sobbing, collateral damage in Urquhart’s wake. This is contrasted with Francis kissing Mattie, the camera pulling away and.. well, the next time we see him he exclaims “No! There are some things a gentleman never discussed!” It’s a nice touch.

Francis still needs building up into a plausible candidate and the clock is ticking, as his dinner with newspaper proprietor Ben makes clear. But Francis has influence, manipulating Collingridge into making it a long contest to his own advantage. Meanwhile Mattie continues to investigate the PM’s fall, irritating those in high places, and ends up getting the sack in a remarkably and openly sexist way which, one hopes, would not fly these days. Worse, she gets a nasty shock with a brick through her window and a threatening note, and not even her friend John, well and truly friend-zones, can remove the fear. No; it falls to Francis to “comfort” her. And she calls him “Daddy”...!

This is a superb adaptation, metatextual, clever, and far deeper than the original novel.

House of Cards: Episode 2

"Would you be into quickies at all?"

If this were to be made today, perhaps- and I haven't seen the American remake with Kevin Spacey- there wouldn't be so much attention on ho the sausage was made. We'd likely jump cut straight from his downfall being plotted at the end of last episode to the PM's downfall. But in 1990 telly could be slower paced, at least sometimes. This episode is an example of why that can be a good thing.

In contrast to the twisty-turny plotting of the first episode, we are concerned here pretty much exclusively with the workings of Urquhart's plot to bring down Henry Collingridge and very little else- but it's gripping. And we get the usual fourth wall breaking stuff, with an early monologue by Francis doing a bit of that pheasant shooting stuff that was an unremarked-upon pastime of upper class Tories back then. 1990 was a long time ago, when twentysomething political researchers could plausibly be called Kevin and, as per last episode, there's a fair bit of misogyny directed towards Penny. Urquhart does, at least, criticise Patrick Woolton for being boorish, lecherous, anti-Semitic and racist while manipulating him, although there's more than a whiff of snobbery directed at this north country foreign secretary.

Urquhart's manipulating ways work on everyone, culminating in the PM being cruelly ambushed on telly, yet everyone seems to think he's a "good man". Indeed, Mattie seems to think he's not only the ablest man (and men they all are) in the Cabinet but that he's attractive- and, as we see, he has permission from his wife to sleep with her. Shagging is inevitable at this point.

Like the potboiler on which it's based, this is unputdownable telly. And Ian Richardson is incredible.