22nd Sep 2019
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook - S1-E1
Hastings: It's a wonderful day. Just fill your lungs with that air!
Poirot: No, my poor friend, this sort of air is intended for birds and little furry things. The lungs of Hercule Poirot demand something more substantial: the good air of the town! (00:26:00)
19th Sep 2019
Other mistake: This adaptation opens with a nice fake Pathe Gazette news reel. The voice says that "last year" Farley sold a record 5 million pies, and that the new wing of the plant is due to open. At the inauguration, there's a banner behind him saying "1885-1935" and he's saying that in 1935 they sold more pies than at any point in their history, and he gives the kind of speech you give at the beginning of a year, trying to set a new record while still on the hot trail of the previous. At the same time, Miss Lemon tells Hastings that the typewriter broke 'last Easter' and she burst out with Poirot that she has been complaining 'for the last six months', which would put the event at the end of the year.
19th Sep 2019
Plot hole: Nobody hears the sound of a gun being fired past a door they were waiting almost in front of, and the police cannot tell apart a shot fired point blank by one fired 20 feet away and probably at a very sharp angle. Moreover, the bleeding should be all over his face, since leaning the way it is shown in this adaptation is most likely to lead the victim to fall over, and even leave bloodstains out of the window and on the ground below, which someone would have noticed in the crowded factory.
19th Sep 2019
Stupidity: As far as I can tell this is not a problem introduced by the novelization, but already coming from the original story: without Poirot's involvement, called upon by the murderer, the police would not have suspected murder at all, and still would have a witness with a rock solid alibi to talk about The Dream. If they really wanted another witness, they could and should have summoned a psychiatrist and do to them the same stage act they did with Poirot, they would have been much more qualified witnesses to frame it as suicide. Even to Poirot himself, it's the murderer who suggests the thought there could be foul play involved, at all! The plan makes zero sense because Poirot is not the ideal witness and they want to suggest the victim was mentally ill and suicidal, not that someone wanted to kill him.
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: When Poirot stands as his employer sends him packing, the shadow projected on the back wall is taller than the cupboard by a good margin, roughly from the shoulders up. In the close-up that follows, Poirot is standing in the same spot when he replies "I shall not fail to do so", but the shadow is shortened considerably. (00:14:50)
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: As Poirot, holding the family picture, turns around to ask Mrs. Oglander about the kids in the portrait, he suddenly has his finger near the middle of the frame, much higher than before. It keeps going up and down during the conversation. (00:36:40)
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: Ralph Walton flubs the line and breaks character walking off set: he begins undoing his collar. He repeats the same action ('begins' to undo it) next time the camera is on him, and during a cut when he is in frame both shots, his hands jump off/on the collar. (00:04:35)
19th Sep 2019
Plot hole: Hastings came over to assist Poirot in his case, posting guard overnight. He offers to drive Poirot back to the villa since Poirot is in a rush and has figured out of the culprit. Poirot approaches the villa just in time to come across Mrs. Vanderlyn on her way out. Poirot rushes to Hastings then to give chase to the woman but...Hastings has pulled out all the plugs and is cleaning the carburettor, just doing some random maintenance to the car that would take him, in his words "an hour" to bring back to work. On a one-day job, Hastings crippled their own car for no reason whatsoever. This is beyond stupidity.
19th Sep 2019
Plot hole: In the original novel, the victim's voice is described as "shrill." In here, it's quite the opposite. When the trick for the alibi is performed, the relevant lines are not read by John Normington, thus Poirot's exposition at the end, with the girl providing the voiceover, indirectly further exposes its unbelievability.
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: When Mr. Russell interrupts Hastings' plans of randomly shooting in the middle of the Alexandria harbor, an empty brandy glass is on the table next to him in the first shot, and comes closer the second time he's in frame. (the two shots are not strictly consecutive but there's no reason why the frail old man, still in the same position both times, would pull his empty glass a couple inches closer when off-camera). (00:26:20)
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: Clapperton demonstrates how he can deal cards of his choosing at will and therefore he refrains from playing bridge. In the close-up of his hand and table you can see the cards he dealt are stacked irregularly, but when he deals the last 4s the cards are more neatly arranged, spread in a fan. (00:17:10)
19th Sep 2019
Factual error: The mysterious venom used to perpetrate the murder comes according to the English coroner from a "Vilitilio Occius", said to be a horn viper. Nothing wrong with artistic liberties making up animal species, but the name itself appears to be pseudo-latin with no real meaning or any closeness to other snakes, so not a particularly believable one.
19th Sep 2019
Factual error: At the end of the report on the findings of the crime scene, the "Italian" inspector tells to his subordinates what literally would translate as "Removes this meddler from here, no more access to the prisoner, that you understand?", which is just wrong in accent, cadence and construct. (00:36:30)
19th Sep 2019
Factual error: When Poirot leaves customs with Mademoiselle Lyall, one of the supposed Italians asks in that language "What's happening, what is this noise?", which does not make sense in context, especially with the officer just shrugging and showing him the card. (00:32:55)
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: Sitting down with Miss Lyall as she coughs, Valentine invariably has her left hand up when shot by the right side, just the elbow on the armrest, while every time she is shot from the left side she has the whole arm leaning on the chair, hand down. (00:29:00)
19th Sep 2019
Other mistake: The man in front of Poirot in the line to embark argues supposedly in Italian with the officer: he does it in broken Italian but trying to pronounce informal words (even an incredibly explicit and vulgar curse at the end!) with unnatural cadence and a very thick Spanish accent. (00:28:30)
19th Sep 2019
Deliberate mistake: The day of his scheduled departure, Poirot overhears conversations (mainly the one from the window of his room) he couldn't possibly be hearing given the long distance outdoors and the tone of voice. His reactions are shown as if he could hear and not simply see and infer the meaning. (00:23:00)
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: Poirot at the ruins meets Mrs. Gold, and he starts telling her more about the local findings. You can see in the faraway shot how next to the fence two guys are working by the goat. One of them has a black beret, the other the typical saharienne outfit. Change shot, and as Poirot lets out a "What a beautiful day" remark, the dude in black becomes another man in khaki instead. (00:13:20)
19th Sep 2019
Continuity mistake: When Jimmy reads the solicitor's letter, the date is 5 October 1935. Hastings wrecks his car here but in Murder in the Mews, taking place on the 6th of November, he has it again. Assuming that he has been able to get his car back to form entirely restoring/replacing the ruined sections (Japp tells him that it's now just "an expensive scrap of metal"), in that episode the car needed ordinary maintenance work, while going by the events of this episode it would have been fresh off the car shop instead.
19th Sep 2019
Character mistake: As Poirot reconstructs the facts in the flat (and he explicitly says "consider the FACTS"), he lays out that "a letter which was found at the scene of the crime with John Frazer written on the bottom." But the letter simply said "Frazer", the first name was just Japp's random conjecture based on the initials on another evidence being J.F. (00:27:40)
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