Murder Party (Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie)

Murder Party is the 11th episode of season 2 of the French TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. It was produced by Escazal Films and France Télévisions, directed by Eric Woreth and first aired on France 2 on 18 September 2015. It is an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel A Murder is Announced.

Synopsis
Like the rest of the episodes of season 2 of this series, the original Christie detective characters have been replaced. The lead roles are taken by a French detective Commissaire Swan Laurence assisted by a journalist Alice Avril and Laurence's secretary Marlene. The action is set in Lille in the 1950s. In this episode, Marlene spots an advert in the newspaper announcing a "murder party" at a horse ranch. Laurence thinks it is a joke but at the time announced, the lights in the house go out, a man turns up, holds up the room full of people and is then shot dead.

Plot Summary
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) Marlene reads an advert in the newspaper announcing a murder at a set time at a ranch owned by Leticia Salvan. She shows it to Laurence but he believes it is just a joke, a theme "murder party". Alice works at the newspaper so they look for her for an explanation but she is stone drunk after a party to celebrate her promotion to a reporter for the front page.

At the ranch, Leticia and the others in the household are also puzzled by the advert but expect it is a gag of some kind. Near the appointed time, they gather in the living room and are joined by the neighbours, Henriette and Greenblat. As the clock strikes, the lights in the house go out, a man appears in the doorway and shines a torch at them. Shots are heard and then they see the man dead on the floor, a gun near him.

Laurence is puzzled by the "crime". The dead man is a Swiss waiter, Kurt Wengen. The best explanation by Leticia and the other witnesses is that he tried to stage a robbery, and tripped and shot himself by accident. Or else he wants revenge because he once wanted to borrow money from Leticia and she refused. There's nothing valuable in the house, and why announce the crime in the newspaper?

Alice's editor sends her to cover the story. The receptionist Josette wants to talk to her about Kurt but Alice is too busy and in a rush to get to the ranch--not that she learns much as the witnesses are reluctant to talk, or else, like Henriette, seem muddled about what happened and just makes things up.

The forensic pathologist Euphrasie Maillol finds out that Kurt is left-handed. He couldn't have shot himself on his left side like he was. So it is murder, but who killed him and why? At the crime scene, there are more puzzling clues. Another door out of the living room, supposedly unused for a long time, has been oiled. A table which stood against it has been moved.

Josette calls Laurence's office. He's not in, but Alice takes the call. She tells Alice she was Kurt's friend. He had asked her to place the advert and had paid for it. He seemed happy and said he would buy her a new dress. She noticed something strange but never gets to finish the sentence as the phone goes dead. Alice rushes to the newspaper office and finds Josette murdered.

Laurence tells Leticia he thinks someone is trying to murder her. What's a possible motive? Leticia reveals that she is actually very wealthy because the late millionaire Denis Sontag was her former employer and lover and had left her his fortune. There were contenders: his former lover named Sonia who had a daughter Emma. They had tried to contest the will on the grounds that Emma is his daughter but they couldn't prove it. Laurence next asks the occupants of the house where they were on the morning of Wengen's death. No one seems to have a credible alibi. Leticia's niece Antoinette claims to have gone to Lille for a law exam but the horse trainer Philippine challenges this. Equally, Antoinette claims she saw Philippine talking and giving money to Wengen in a barn but she denies it.

Meanwhile Alice is in a deep depression because she blames herself for not listening to Josette. Laurence pulls her out of it and she continues her inquiries. At the ranch she finds Leticia on on the ground, having fallen from a horse. Someone had cut the strap of her saddle. Laurence follows up. Perhaps Sonia or Emma are in the offing. Making the point that since the war, few people knew their neighbours anymore, he considers people likely to be the same age as Sonia and Emma. Greenblat and Henriette were about Sonia's age. Antoinette and Philippine about that of Emma. They all seemed to know about Leticia's background and fortune. Philippine and Antoinette hate each other. Leticia had made Philippine her beneficiary in her will and Antoinette had overheard Leticia telling her this. Leticia didn't know much about Philippine's background. As for Antoinette and her brother Marcel, they are actually children of a distant cousin in Argentina. They recently turned up to stay with Leticia but she had not seen them since they were little children. Laurence asks for the letters between Sontag and Leticia and goes through them with Alice looking for a lead.

At the ranch, it's the birthday of Leticia's childhood friend and companion Odette. Odette has a headache so Leticia tells her to get some aspirin from her bedstand and have a rest before the party in the evening. The members of the household and the neighbours Greenblat and Henriette gather for the party. Antoinette goes to fetch Odette but finds her dead. An autopsy later concludes there had probably been poison in the aspirin.

In the living room, Laurence meets the guests of the party and notes that they were the same people in the room when Wengen died. Henriette was by the door and could see where Wengen's torch was pointing so he asks her to describe what she saw but she's muddled and hesitant.

The next day, Henriette is gathering the laundry when she is attacked and almost strangled. Fortunately, Alice arrives in time and she is sent off to the hospital. Greenblat is packing Henriette's things for the hospital and notices a letter on the bed--it is from Argentina and is addressed to Leticia, saying that Marcel and Antoinette hoped to visit next year. She hurriedly tells Laurence who gathers everyone in Leticia's living room again. Now Antoinette confesses that she is Sonia's daughter Emma--she just wanted to see the woman who ruined her and her mother's life. Marcel is just her boyfriend who plays along as the brother. But both deny killing anyone. Still, Henriette would regain consciousness soon and will be able to identify her attacker so Laurence orders all of the suspects to remain in the house while he and Alice drive to the hospital.

On the road, Alice is discussing the case. They argue about Leticia's nickname. Alice calls her "Lottie" because that's what Odette called her. But Laurence insists it should be "Lettie". Next Alice mentions that she likes "Lottie". It's nice of her to want to ride horses in honour of her late sister's passion for horses. According to her letters to Sontag, she actually hated horses. To Laurence, what she just said doesn't add up. The woman they had met was clearly passionate about horses. What's the name of her late sister? Charlotte--Lottie. They rush back to the house.

Laurence confronts Leticia who admits everything. Odette had painted a picture of Charlotte "Lottie" with a goitre deformity. He makes Leticia take off her scarf to reveal the marks of surgery on her throat. She had gone to Switzerland with her sister and had killed her there and then switched the names on the death certificate. She then used the money falsely inherited from Sontag for surgery to remove the deformity. Later Odette had turned up and cooperated in the deception but she was unreliable and getting muddled about names. Wengen had meet her and her sister in Switzerland and knew the deception and had tried to blackmail her. Henriette had seen that night that she wasn't in the room--she had gone out to shoot Wengen. Leticia is taken into custody but outside, she grabs a policeman's gun and shoots herself.

There are a number of sideplots. Marlene is disappointed about her failings as a secretary and takes lessons from Greenblat. Laurence falls for Dr Maillol, the forensic pathologist but doesn't make much progress because her feminist views clash with his chauvinistic attitude. He asks Alice to help. Alice intercedes and this seems to work, despite Marlene's attempts to torpedo the relationship. One of the running gags in the episode is Laurence's attempts to find out her first name. In the end, Tricard tells him her name is Euphrasie but that she had to go back to America--some matter to do with her husband. Laurence is crestfallen but Marlene and Alice can't stop laughing.

Comparison with the original story
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)
 * The setting is changed to a horse ranch outside Lille, France and a number of minor characters have been removed so there are fewer suspects. The gathering at the living room of Leticia only includes a pair of neighbours Henriette and Greenblat (Murgatroyd and Hincliffe) and the rest of Leticia's household. There is no character who is a parallel of the cook Mitzi.
 * In this adaptation, the Myrna Harris parallel, Josette, is also killed to prevent her talking about the advert which Kurt Wengen (Rudi Scherz) had asked her to place.
 * Leticia stages a fall from a horse caused by a cut saddle strap in order to reinforece the impression that someone is trying to kill her.
 * Leticia makes Philippine (Phillipa Haymes) the sole beneficiary of her will. This increases the tension between Philippine and Antoinette (Emma). In this adaptation, they are not sisters. Antoinette is in reality the daughter of Sonia, who was the lover (not sister) of Denis Sontag (Randall Goerdler).
 * A cake nicknamed "Delicious Death" is also featured. Here it is baked by Leticia herself for Odette's birthday. However, Odette does not get to eat it or enjoy a last party. She was already dead by the time the party began.
 * In this adaptation, Henriette (Murgatroyd) does not exclaim "She was not there!" When commissaire Laurence placed the people in their original positions in the living room, he said that Henriette could seem where the torch was pointing and asked her to described what she saw. While she didn't say anything about Leticia, the latter must have guessed that from Henriette's expression that she might have noticed something unusual.
 * As in the original, Henriette was attacked while gathering the laundry but she didn't die. Alice arrives to find her lying on the ground and managed to call the ambulance in time.
 * The final pieces of the puzzle fall into place from an unconscious remark by Alice to Laurence. She said that Odette called Leticia Lottie. And that it was nice of her to ride horses in honour of her late sister Charlotte. She said Leticia actually hated horses while Charlotte had a passion for them. For Laurence, this does not add up. The woman they had been questioning obviously loved horses.
 * Leticia admitted to the crimes more readily than in the original. She removes her scarf readily when challenged. Like in the original, Greenblat attacks her for harming her friend Henriette.
 * At the end Leticia manages to grad a gun from a policeman and commit suicide after also shooting her favourite horse.

Cast
Characters mentioned but not cast
 * Samuel Labarthe as Commissaire Swan Laurence
 * Blandine Bellavoir as Alice Avril
 * Élodie Frenck as Marlène Leroy
 * Natacha Lindinger as Dr Euphrasie Maillol
 * Valeria Cavalli as Leticia Salvan (as Valéria Cavalli)
 * Blandine Pélissier as Odette
 * Juliette Plumecocq-Mech as Greenblat
 * Christine Bonnard as Henriette Parisot
 * Annabelle Hettmann as Philippine Leroy
 * Honorine Magnier as Antoinette Combet
 * Clovis Fouin as Marcel Combet
 * Dominique Thomas as Ernest Tricard
 * François Godart as Robert Jourdeuil
 * Félicien Graugnard as Kurt Wengen
 * Marion Zaboïtzeff as Josette Bianconi
 * Uncredited actor as Basil
 * Denis Sontag
 * Dr Simon
 * Nadine Combet
 * Sonia

Filming locations

 * haras de Blingel - Letitia Salvan's ranch