Un meurtre est-il facile? (Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie)

Un meurtre est-il facile? (Is a murder easy?) is the 9th 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 Marc Angelo and first aired on France 2 on 4 September 2015. It is an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel Murder is Easy

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, Alice receives a proposal for marriage from Emile Deboucke, a wealthy owner of a spinning mill. She accepts even though he is much older than her. But there has been a series of deaths at the mill and soon Alice might be in danger too.

Plot Summary
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)

Comparison with the original story
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)
 * The main character Emile Deboucke is a textile factory owner unlike Lord Whitfield who is a newspaper tycoon. Alice Avril is the Bridget Conway parallel in that she accepts Deboucke's proposal of marriage--why he proposed to her in particular is not explained.
 * There is a "cousin" element here but it is not Alice's cousin. Marlene comes to live nearby with her cousin Annick who is actually the Honoria Waynflete parallel. So Marlene is somewhat of a Luke Fitzwilliam parallel.
 * Josiane Lallin is the Lavinia Pinkerton parallel. Most of the other characters do not parallel closely those from the original novel. And not all the deaths are of people who offended Deboucke in a serious way, unlike the original novel. Josianne merely annoyed him with all her letters concerning her crazy ideas. Sabine Toulemonde was merely a "crier" and cried too much.
 * A scratch on the hand is featured (just like on John Humbleby). But in this case it is on Emile Deboucke himself. And nothing came of it.
 * The methods of dying were not the same as in the original novel. Josianne Lallin (Lavinia Pinkerton) dies in the manner of Tommy Pierce. The others are people who do not have good parallels in the original novel and die in different ways. Not all appear to be accidents. In fact Laurence believes very early that all the deaths are murders.
 * Annick Devassène also suffers from poisoning. This did not happen to Honoria Waynflete in the original. It is not mentioned but she probably poisoned herself as misdirection.
 * The story of the bird (in this case a swallow and not a canary) is also featured in the same context.

Cast

 * Samuel Labarthe as Commissaire Swan Laurence
 * Blandine Bellavoir as Alice Avril
 * Élodie Frenck as Marlène Leroy
 * Dominique Thomas as Ernest Tricard
 * François Godart as Jourdeuil
 * Philippe Nahon	as Émile Deboucke
 * Anne Benoît as Annick Devassène
 * Alexandre Steiger as Jean Castor
 * Emilie Wiest as Sabine Toulemonde
 * Marcelle Fontaine as Josiane Lallin
 * Eric Beauchamp as Flic Martin
 * Saverio Maligno as Flic Pagès
 * Manon Petit as Ginette Hansel
 * Béatrice Courtois as Françoise Loisée
 * Pierre-Yves Kiebbe as Baptiste (as Pierre Kiebbe)
 * Uncredited actor as Michel Loisée

Research notes

 * Apparently this is the first time in the series that Marlene's last name Leroy is mentioned, in the news article which Alice wrote at the end of the episode. This last name is not mentioned in the credits of the series.
 * The U.S. Army gadget which Laurence received is a EE-8-B field telephone, although Laurence appears to use it as a radio-telephone. This is not possible in reality. The EE-8-B is a field telephone and needs to be connected by wires to an existing telephone land line network. It doesn't really serve any plot purpose and does not play a part in the final solution of the case.

Filming locations

 * Chateau du Vert-Bois, Bondues - Emile Deboucke's chateau