Episode 197 - Poirot - "The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly" - One Potato, Two Men Mowing, Three Conspiracies, Bingo!
I'll never do it again. Hey, Maniacs.
Mark:Hey, Mystery Maniacs.
Sarah:Welcome to Mystery Maniacs.
Mark:Mystery Maniacs is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to mystery TV. Each week, we dig into an episode of a show including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love. This week, Agatha Christie's Poirot.
Sarah:Season 1, episode 3, The Adventure of Johnny Waverly.
Mark:Is it really an adventure?
Sarah:No. Oh,
Mark:boy. I am Mark.
Sarah:I'm Sarah, and this is a spoiler podcast. So if you haven't seen The Adventure of Johnny Waverly and figured out
Mark:4 years ago
Sarah:There's no murder or anything. Yep. We're gonna ruin it for you. So go watch it and come back. Yes.
Sarah:Wow. What a plot with so many twists and
Mark:And turns. If you let your kids play with little toy cars,
Sarah:I guess. Hastings.
Mark:I guess. And they can listen to this. They can listen to
Sarah:this podcast. Not listen to this podcast. Like, this episode couldn't offend anybody in any way.
Mark:No. Even the trampers is not even offensive.
Sarah:Yeah. He's got he's got 10 bob in his pocket, so he he's not a vagrant. Nope. So you can't even call him a tramp.
Mark:Original air date, 22nd January 1989.
Sarah:That was the year I graduated from high school.
Mark:I know.
Sarah:No. I started high school in 89.
Mark:Started high school. I was in college at this point.
Sarah:Because you're old.
Mark:Directed by Edward Bennett and written by Reni Rodd.
Sarah:It should be called The Adventure of Not Talking to Your Wife.
Mark:Yes. That's what it should be. Actually, I got that wrong. It's directed by Reni Rai and written by Clive Exeter. Sorry.
Mark:I've we rarely do this. Okay?
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:But this is the synopsis from that the bullet line from IMDB.
Sarah:Okay. K.
Mark:Are you ready? Poirot tries to prevent kidnapping of a country squire's son. While his plan fails, all is not what it seems. I would read that and immediately go, dad did it.
Sarah:He's the only person mentioned other than the kidnapped kid.
Mark:This is this is not Agatha Christie's best day.
Sarah:Mm-mm.
Mark:I read 3 synopsis of this short story, and they're all the same. It's written in the twenties very early on in her career. It's not the best story.
Sarah:I have major questions about it Yes. That we're gonna have to figure out. The mystery is not the episode. The mystery is what Agatha was thinking.
Mark:I tried to figure that out, and I still don't
Sarah:know. Like, what would you have to change to make it work? However, Poirot is awesome. David Suchet. Hugh Frasier as Hastings is awesome.
Sarah:Jap is great. Like
Mark:Everyone is great.
Sarah:It's a fun episode, but the story wise, Agatha was young and maybe taking a nap. Maybe she just needed to fill some pages in a collection short stories.
Mark:We got lots of mysteries, but none of them involve the story.
Sarah:This is not the Lindbergh baby or anything.
Mark:So the Lindbergh baby is 32, so it would be in their minds. Yeah. And I tried they they continually say the line or something similar to child kidnapping in the UK. That could never happen.
Sarah:Right.
Mark:So I tried to find a child kidnapping in the UK at that time, and there was no major story. But, George Weyenhauser was kidnapped in Tacoma, Washington in 1935. He was 9. Guess how much the ransom was for that?
Sarah:$500.
Mark:$200,000. Woah. 200,000
Sarah:in the west. Kid. It was That's a lot of money back then.
Mark:Were lumber barons. Okay. Okay. George was released in a shack near Issaquah, Washington on the morning of June 1st, and everybody got caught, and they were sent to prison for a 135 years. It's really the most kind of
Sarah:Happy ending.
Mark:They got the ransom back. They got the kids back, and the people went to jail.
Sarah:When did the Lindbergh baby thing happen?
Mark:1932. Okay. But this is in the twenties.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:So I read a list of kidnappings.
Sarah:Just so you know, if you're not familiar with the case, the Lindbergh baby was stolen from his crib, second floor with a ladder by some people who had no idea what they were doing, and the baby died. And it was horrible.
Mark:It was horrendous. It absolutely broke Charles Lindbergh. Oh yeah. More than he was already broken.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. It was very sad. And it was world news.
Mark:It was called the crime of the century. Yeah. And that was 32. So this story, the show Poirot takes place in the 30s. So the characters in the television show
Sarah:Might have been thinking about Lambert. Thinking about Lindbergh. But Christy wasn't when she wrote it
Mark:because it hadn't happened yet. And it hadn't happened yet.
Sarah:Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So people reading it contemporary to when it came out wouldn't have been thinking about the Lindbergh baby either. No.
Sarah:Alright. So The Way release have received 3 rants of notes.
Mark:Starting that now they're at £50,000 at the start of
Sarah:the episode. 25, 30, and then 50.
Mark:When we know Saying that a child goes for 200,000
Sarah:at this point. Saying, give us the money or we will kidnap your child.
Mark:Yeah. Which would you do
Sarah:that? A dumb idea.
Mark:It's a dumb idea.
Sarah:If you're a kidnapper, don't do it that way. Like, who's gonna pay in advance? Because you pay, the kid doesn't get kidnapped, then what happens? The next week, they send you another note. We'll take another 20 k, please, or we'll kidnap him this week.
Mark:Yeah. That's that's blackmail.
Sarah:For the rest of your life.
Mark:Yeah. You're paying. You're always paying.
Sarah:And you don't even know if they were ever really gonna take them anyway. I mean, who wants this kid? I don't know. He doesn't seem like a bad kid, but
Mark:He's not a bad kid.
Sarah:He's kind of car obsessed.
Mark:He plays quietly. He does. Sarah, speaking of obsessed, I'm a broken person.
Sarah:I know that.
Mark:I spent 10 minutes, 10 entire minutes staring at the first exterior shot of Whitehaven Mansions because it looks like father Brown's on a bench outside.
Sarah:You mean there's a priest?
Mark:And I was like I was like, I'm not gonna let this sidetrack me again, but wanted to make sure. It is a Catholic priest.
Sarah:It is not father Brown.
Mark:It's not father Brown.
Sarah:It's not Mark.
Mark:Catholic priest with the big wide brim hat Yeah. But but it's not father Brown.
Sarah:And that is just because in the father Brown show, he dresses accurately to what a priest wore in the fifties, and their outfits really didn't change very much.
Mark:So But I may have exclaimed out loud, father Brown.
Sarah:So £50,000 at that point would have been around £1,000,000 now. Yeah. So it's a lot of money. Wow.
Mark:It's a lot of money. The second mystery I have is what is on Poirot's table?
Sarah:Well, you've you've skipped ahead of one of the mysteries that I have, though. Okay.
Mark:Okay. We'll go back to your mystery.
Sarah:So this little boy
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Who we see at his house first before we go to Paro's place is dressed like a sailor. Right?
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:He's got the wide collar on with the little anchor buttons on the front.
Mark:Blue shorts. What is up with that? Yeah. Why do people do that?
Sarah:They did it for a long time. They might still do it. Really? We we don't dress little boys up in any other military profession. We don't dress them up in little marine outfits.
Mark:I'm in the air force. No. No. No. I wear blue.
Sarah:We don't dress them up other professions No. Thinking it's cute?
Mark:No. Not like a postman or anything or a butcher with the hat.
Sarah:The little white paper hat
Mark:Yep. And the
Sarah:white coat?
Mark:And the white coat. That would be a butcher. Or
Sarah:or an accountant with the little green visor and the armbands and everything. Oh, yeah. Oh, look at little Johnny. He looks like a little accountant. We don't we don't but for some reason, sailor costumes were sailor outfits were all the things.
Mark:What if little Johnny came down dressed like Poirot? He had the he had the whole suit on and everything and the bad shoes.
Sarah:When he comes in his pajamas, he sort of does look like Poirot. He is a little He's got fancy pajamas.
Mark:He does have some fancy pajamas. All these people sleep in way too much. But
Sarah:Miss Lemon is perfecting her system. Her system. It is quite the system.
Mark:She's cross referencing. It's it is data analysis before data analysis.
Sarah:She's she's making crosstabs.
Mark:5 rivetables. Crossed it. Crossed it.
Sarah:Adultery, see also marriage. Yes. Bombs, see also marriage.
Mark:Makes a great joke, and then they hard cut
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:Which they needed to leave a little bit of rumor, like, not sitcom y level, but a little rumor looks at the camera and goes, bombings, marriage, bombings see marriage. So
Sarah:I would just like to see him enjoying his own joke because you know he's the kind who would be like hee.
Mark:Yeah. That's, like, in the there was a bit of a hard cut there. So what is on his table?
Sarah:Yeah. Poirot's apartment is decorated beautifully. Everybody goes on about both of his apartments in the series being beautiful. But that there's it's a big, very shallow kind of plate dish on a table. I think that's behind a sofa.
Mark:With white onions? Are they onions?
Sarah:They look like ceramic heads of garlic.
Mark:Or bad apples? Like, they're not shiny or smooth like apples.
Sarah:No. And they're definitely not real. I mean, they're white. White white white.
Mark:We'll put a picture in the show.
Sarah:Can guess what you think they are. But They're decorative.
Mark:They're decorative white onions.
Sarah:Because, you know, that's what would have. I don't know. Was that a thing then? I'm not sure. Maybe maybe it's a superstition or something.
Sarah:He's worried about vampires.
Mark:Johnny's dad arrives, and I'm left with another mystery of this episode of why does he go to see Poirot?
Sarah:Why doesn't he call Poirot and say, please come here?
Mark:Yeah. Like, why is
Sarah:he I tell you why he's pursuing this. Because, he's the kidnapper. Oh. So he knows that the kid's not gonna get stolen while he's away. And then he pretends to be in a hurry.
Mark:A kidnapping in England? Clearly, banned of foreigners. Yeah. It's like, excuse me. So umbridge there.
Sarah:Like, we're in front of a client, so I'm not gonna tell you off, but excuse me. Not foreigners. He wants Hastings wants to race in Le Mans. He wants to drive his car for 24 hours. He's never even participated in a race.
Mark:Yeah. He's not gonna do
Sarah:Le Mans. The form that he gets looks like a certificate from the queen. I've never seen an entrance form that is so formal.
Mark:But the Lagonda is a beautiful car. It is. When you see that car with other cars of that period, you're like, that's a Lamborghini.
Sarah:Well, when you see it with the Waverly's car
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:The Waverly's car looks like a jalopy, and they are sort of tight on money. So they don't have a real nice car. But that was an average car, and his looks like a yacht.
Mark:Wait a minute. If they're tight on money, maybe they need money for, like, renovations or something. Maybe he's faking the whole kidnap.
Sarah:Well, you figured it out fast, didn't you?
Mark:Miss Lyman has a really nice typewriter, but I don't get to see the name on the front of it.
Sarah:I think she's absolutely happy that they're leaving
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:And she can get on with her system.
Mark:She goes, better safe than, she goes, hold the castle.
Sarah:That's what That's what Poirot
Mark:is saying. Hold the castle.
Sarah:She strikes me as the kind of person who is not gonna goof off while the boss is away. Nope. She's gonna be like, finally, I can really get down to my work.
Mark:Tell you how
Sarah:I love those filing cabinets, those those card catalogs,
Mark:by the way. They're beautiful. Beautiful. This episode lacked stuff. So I investigated.
Mark:Better safe than sorry.
Sarah:Oh, yeah? Do you
Mark:know where that comes from?
Sarah:I'm guessing it's some kinda advertisement.
Mark:No. Actually, it's from an M Plum novel from the 1800 entitled Murder at the Hunting Club. It's the first imprint view of it they have.
Sarah:I mean, they're talking about rifles.
Mark:Maybe better safe than sorry, which is like so all idioms have an exact opposite idiom Mhmm. That I love that because
Sarah:Better sorry than safe.
Mark:No. No. He who hesitates as lost is the opposite of better safe than sorry. It is? Right?
Mark:Because if you're if you're like, oh, better safe than sorry, I'll be completely safe. You live a life of quiet desperation, basically.
Sarah:Yeah. I would think it was like a, like, a a risk not taken is like a life not lived
Mark:or something like that. Yeah. But I I love that all idioms have those kind of flip sides to them.
Sarah:So then they can never be absolutely true.
Mark:Because you have that uncle who all he does is spout idioms. Well, you better be safer than sorry. Or you know what I always say, check your gas tank before you look at the gauge or
Sarah:Hastings.
Mark:Like, they mean nothing because of it, which is why I always say don't burden your bridges before they hatch because those mixed metaphors make
Sarah:No joke.
Mark:Yeah. That that none of those things make any sense at all.
Sarah:Poor Jack is in his office. He's got a little cup of tea. He looks quite content, and then they have to come in and ruin his peace.
Mark:I have a note that says he's horrible and Jap is right. 100? Yes. Maybe not 100.
Sarah:No. Don't be literal. Nobody ties piles of papers up with string anymore. No. Like they did back then.
Sarah:Like, I think that was considered neat and tidy. Even miss Lemon has some stacks of paper tied with string. Yes. Like, that's how I keep them together. That's how I organize my files.
Sarah:I contain them with strings. Yep. No. Nobody does that.
Mark:No one does that anymore.
Sarah:I doubt they even tie bundles of newspapers with string anymore.
Mark:Yeah. I don't think so. It's all, like, straps and stuff.
Sarah:Well, Jop's not gonna take the case. And he tells Waverly on the train that if they wanted to be proactive and preventative about crime, they would have to have a cop for every person.
Mark:You have a little policeman in your
Sarah:head. This kidnapper perhaps has no little police
Mark:man. I don't know you're talking to him. So Yeah. Really?
Sarah:I think Poirot already suspects that mister Waverly is not telling the truth.
Mark:But he's the worst human being on the planet because he introduces Hercule as Hercules. Hercules. Hercules. Which
Sarah:is, like, the least name to describe Hercule Poirot ever. Like, he's Hercule. He's not Hercules.
Mark:But someone has beaten Hercule to the house.
Sarah:Hastings because he drove 80 miles an hour.
Mark:He touched 80 on the hogsback. Do you know what the Hogsback is?
Sarah:It's a highway, isn't it?
Mark:No. It's a particular type of land feature, but
Sarah:Right. It's a it's a raised ridge.
Mark:It's a it's a kind of curved ridge. Yeah. It is a dangerous road to be going
Sarah:80 miles. No interstates at this point. No. So a tractor could pull out in front of you at any moment or a goose or
Mark:whatever. They mean the the one on North Downs in Surrey, though.
Sarah:A small child. You know?
Mark:That's the specific one they're talking about here.
Sarah:I'm not surprised at all that Hastings beat beats him there and bores missus Waverly to death with information about his car.
Mark:Eighty miles an hour on the Hogsback. Wow.
Sarah:That's why he wears goggles when he drives. Zoom.
Mark:There's a Hogsback in Ottawa too, but it's not even listed on the Wikipedia page because Ottawa doesn't matter.
Sarah:Why the hell are they letting the kid play outside?
Mark:I don't. Why did they not send him to okay. This episode is missing an annoying mother-in-law.
Sarah:Yeah. You're right. Really badly. We need Maggie Smith.
Mark:Who's who would say things like, why don't we send them to uncle Filberts?
Sarah:Yeah. We need Maggie Smith being the mother of the wife and holding the purse strings. She's the one with the money. That's what it needs.
Mark:And then we would have at least another possible suspect. Yeah. Because even though there are a lot of people in this episode, there's a lot of extras. There there is not a lot of people who are suspects.
Sarah:Yeah. In Okay. We just gotta say it. The plot doesn't make any sense. Okay?
Sarah:So mister Waverly is gonna ransom his own kid to his wife because she's shut down the renovations on his family home, the estate, because she's the one with the money.
Mark:Well, this is yeah. You know?
Sarah:And so he's gonna get the £50,000 from her, I guess, and then start the renovations again. And she's gonna say, where did the money come from? And he's gonna say, I Oh, that time
Mark:when I blackmailed you secretly by
Sarah:stealing the kid. I put a bet on a horse.
Mark:I I guess. Even Poirot is like, why are they doing this? Yeah. Is this the worst dinner party of all time?
Sarah:It it is really awkward with the one potato.
Mark:I only got one potato.
Sarah:Like, it's, well, anytime that you're sitting at a giant table and you can't even, like, reach the next person, I don't have you ever been to a dinner party where somebody served food like that? No. Where they walked around and put it on your plate? No.
Mark:I'm not rich. You're rich enough.
Sarah:I have once one time, and it was it was actually at a restaurant. It was a a private dinner at a restaurant.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:And the waiters brought around dishes, and they didn't put it on our plate, but they offered it to us. And we could take the spoon and take some off of it and put it on our plate. And it was so awkward.
Mark:It would be incredibly awkward.
Sarah:I saw, like, everybody was looking at me like, I'm just gonna take 1 potato.
Mark:And Hastings would have taken 2 potatoes.
Sarah:You would have taken 3 or 4 potatoes.
Mark:He was so hungry for us.
Sarah:You know, I was hungry. Johnny, when he comes in to say good night to his mother, he eyes her roll.
Mark:Oh, I know.
Sarah:It's like, I was waiting for him to grab it and put it in his little robe pocket. Like, that kid's starving. Give him the role. He looks at it like, oh.
Mark:Okay. An another thing, and we talk about this a lot, but that kid does a great acting job.
Sarah:Yes. He does.
Mark:At no point is he annoying? Nope. At no point does he try to steal the show. He does a great job.
Sarah:Yep. He does a good job.
Mark:Poor o sleeps.
Sarah:No. He doesn't. He he purchased flat in his bed. The way he holds his little sheet. We see him do that more than once.
Sarah:Yeah. I can't sleep. How he sleeps.
Mark:I can't sleep.
Sarah:We should try and see what happens if we tried to sleep flat on our backs, holding the blanket.
Mark:And then when he jumps out of bed because he hears some noises, he well, first of all, that bed is a 1000000 miles off the ground.
Sarah:The the mattress is about 2 inches thick, and it's about 3 feet off the ground at least.
Mark:But when he jumps out of bed, he jumps right into his sandals.
Sarah:Yeah. His slippers.
Mark:His slippers.
Sarah:They're perfectly placed. It's like Wallace and Gromit, like a machine that just drops him right into his shoes. Though, I gotta tell you, I would have loved to have had a bed like that as a kid, because I never would have worried about a monster under my bed if I'd had that bed. Like, I can see clear to the other side. No problem.
Sarah:I don't even have to bend over.
Mark:I never worried about monsters because he was too busy reading comic books books I had stuffed under
Sarah:my bed. I still worry about things under the bed. No. After that CSI episode with Squeegle Oh. That weird guy under the bed.
Mark:Okay. There's one tall daisy, so Poirot has to pick it out.
Sarah:Well, it's not uniform, so of course he does. And somebody's poisoned miss missus Waverly in the night. Well, poisoned her at dinner, and she's sick now. What is the boiling water for? Why do you always need boiling water?
Mark:They need boiling water to make the rice for breakfast because that's all there is.
Sarah:No. It's kedgeree. So it's rehydrated smoked fish. At first, I thought, why is Hastings looking at his scrambled eggs like that? Like, what is this?
Mark:This is an episode of an attempt for Hastings to get food. Yeah. And they go to the
Sarah:they told me to the pub Go
Mark:to the pub to get breakfast. And he's like, oh, yeah. Let's have a beer.
Sarah:Yep. Two pints, please. But like, what kind of insult that your house guests leave to go eat somewhere else? Because it's so bad at your house. Like, when you at least pretend to be able to afford one breakfast,
Mark:you would think,
Sarah:Like, you scrounge up enough to impress these two people. But I How is he gonna pay Poirot? Waverly doesn't care. Oh, he's gonna pay him out of the ransom. I guess.
Sarah:So you asked why does Waverly go to Poirot? Yeah. Right? I think there's two reasons. 1, I think it's to convince his wife He's taking it really seriously.
Sarah:They've they've taken at least one of the notes to the police. Upset. Yes. She is convinced somebody's gonna steal
Mark:this shit. Herself sick. No. He did that too.
Sarah:And 2, I think it's to it's to provide cover because he's so convinced that Poirot won't figure it out that nobody can ever accuse him of having been involved in it because Poirot was there.
Mark:I'm surprised Johnny doesn't walk up to his father and go, why are you trying to kidnap me?
Sarah:The nurse says we're gonna go away and stay in a cottage for a while while you extort mom for money. What is Go to bed.
Mark:Most suspicious thing I could do? Everybody.
Sarah:Well, somebody put a note on his pillow while he was in the bath.
Mark:Is like, again, like, what are you doing? Why?
Sarah:Don't get rid of everybody. That would be stupid. Don't you tell me how to do my job, and I won't tell you how to do your job.
Mark:Speaking of people telling people to do their job, Jap shows up with the Keystone Cups.
Sarah:Well, they play the victory music. Yes. Here comes the cavalry music. Yes. Like, I'm surprised there aren't cops, like, hanging off the sides of the car.
Sarah:You know? There's bobbies everywhere. What changes Jap's mind?
Mark:I don't know. I guess that Poirot went.
Sarah:You think?
Mark:I think. But then how do they know to go talk to the builder?
Sarah:They've just go to the village and ask around. There's there can't be that many builders around.
Mark:Well, these things is like, can we go get breakfast now, please?
Sarah:I really need a beer. I'm really hungry. Kedgeree does not look like it would taste good. No. And I like fish.
Mark:And on the way back from town, we sing the song.
Sarah:The song is the highlight of this episode just like Indus Dan was in the last one.
Mark:You will not believe the rabbit hole I went down with this song.
Sarah:Well, you're gonna have to remind people of the song.
Mark:The song is 1 man mows a meadow. That's the name of the song.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:And it's a counting song.
Sarah:Right.
Mark:It's not a memory song or a game song. It's a counting song. So you say 1 man, 2 men, 3 men, 4 men, 5 men, 6 men, 7 men, 8 men, 9 men, 10 men, moe to maddo. And their dog. Yeah.
Mark:See, this is what they
Sarah:It's like b I n g o, that kind of song.
Mark:Funny you say that. Oh. Because the two things. 1, there's a conspiracy that the man who mows the meadow is also the guy who is a dog. That's b I n g o.
Sarah:O. No. Because that's a farmer.
Mark:There's a Reddit post about it. But
Sarah:wait. Bingo is the dog who's going to mow the meadow? Conspiracy.
Mark:But wait. K? But wait. The number one video on YouTube for 1 man Mosa Meadow is a Bluey video. Mhmm.
Sarah:Bluey's Bluey the cartoon dog.
Mark:Bluey's sister goes in, gets on the toilet, sings the song for a while, looks between her legs, gets off the toilet, flushes it, and walks away, and is very excited about going, yep, like the dog.
Sarah:So it's a potty training song?
Mark:Maybe. She hasn't watched the dance. Except for what is Bluey's sister's name?
Sarah:Bingo.
Mark:Bingo.
Sarah:You've uncovered the conspiracy.
Mark:She looks between her legs.
Sarah:I pushed the button. I
Mark:watched the entire thing. She's just sitting there.
Sarah:Singing 1 man, 2
Mark:man, and then great that Bluey is a great show that for kids. I think it's a great idea to have potty training videos to make it normal for kids to make the whole thing. I I'm all for this, but the fact that her name is Bigo proves that it's father Brown outside of the building.
Sarah:I'm surprised I didn't hear you in the music room go, bingo. I've solved the mystery.
Mark:I have an understatement of the century, Sarah. Mhmm. Are you ready for the understatement of the century? Yes. Is not for the rough stuff.
Mark:No.
Sarah:That's what JAP says. JAP knows him. Poirot is not gonna get in a fist fight. He might stick his cane out and trip somebody. That's about the most violent I think he would get.
Sarah:Though he was a policeman. Yep. So he probably has some skills. Yep. He can play golf mysteriously.
Sarah:You know? So you never know. Might have some some kung fu or something that we don't know about.
Mark:So then we have the middle 20 minutes of this episode or at least it feels like the middle 20 minutes of this episode where the artificial clocks count down.
Sarah:The boy okay. So it's almost noon. Yes. The Bobby's say, we got him. Yes.
Sarah:Everybody rushes out of the house to go and see Rogers, the guy they've caught, leaving the child completely unattended. Okay? I get that. It's stupid. I get it.
Sarah:They all rush out. He's out there. He's got a package that somebody's some geezer has given him with chloroform and a note and stuff on it, but he doesn't know what's in the note. Okay. Fine.
Sarah:They see the boy in the car. Beep beep.
Mark:Dad. Yep.
Sarah:He's driving away. Yeah. Right? But then they all rush back into the house and look around.
Mark:They chase. No. No.
Sarah:Wait a minute. What are they looking for? I don't know. Do they think he's actually still in the house? Like, that was a fake Johnny.
Mark:He's right there banging on the window. Everybody's on not a way that you kidnap a child, by the way. Like, that child could have opened the door and ran away.
Sarah:Well, no. Because his nurse is driving the car saying, hey. Bang on the window and wave goodbye to your dad.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:He's not being kidnapped. If he was, he would have screamed. Okay. Plus plus when everybody rushes out to go see Rogers, they think is the culprit. Right?
Sarah:Yeah. She takes the kid through the hidden passageway in the library and down a half mile tunnel.
Mark:Yeah. What do writers do before the Secret passageway? Secret passageway.
Sarah:That's not a free soul, by the way. No. That's never a free soul. No. We talked about that during midsummer.
Sarah:Yeah. That's a connecting passage.
Mark:Really? It's another way into the house.
Sarah:Yeah. And a lot of houses of that age would have a tunnel like that, but it would lead to an outbuilding where the summer kitchen would be.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Right?
Mark:Which makes more sense.
Sarah:So a tunnel like that would have been used by servants to bring things like washing and food back and forth from
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:You want and outbuilding.
Mark:You want if you're gonna build one of those things, you wanna make it useful because you built it a half mile underground. That's really long. That's a really long tunnel.
Sarah:I wanted more of Poirot in the tunnel. There should be cobwebs that bother him. He's like when he comes out, there should be cobwebs in his mustache. They they Instead, they're just like, Nice garden.
Mark:That's a great tunnel Mhmm. That they don't use well enough.
Sarah:His little flashlight Yeah. Are you supposed to have to hit it to make it work? Is that how it works? You, like, shake it to make it work? Oh.
Mark:Oh, I forgot to mention that.
Sarah:I love that Rogers says that the guy who gave him the package was a geezer, and he was a toffee nose toffee nose in a monkey suit. Yep. And then Parro says, toffee nose monkey suit? We use that clip in our fake interview with them. It's really, you know, the nurse made the butler's niece dressed like a chauffeur in jodhpurs and everything.
Sarah:Yeah. She must have been, like, here, take this package. You think she had her hair down when she approached him? He was a long haired guy and a weird voice.
Mark:I love how Poirot is just like, okay. I'm leaving.
Sarah:Yeah. I'm out. I've got 40 minutes between now and my train. That's enough time to pack meticulously, solve this crime, and get to the station. Are we ready?
Mark:Well, I think he also knows that him packing is gonna spawn the dad into action.
Sarah:Oh, yeah. He's gonna say, where are you going?
Mark:There's a really nice scene here where Hastings taps his car. Like, he it's like a nice tiny bit of acting. He taps his car? Yeah. He's sitting in the car waiting for Poirot.
Sarah:Oh, like, like, I'll be right here.
Mark:He's like, I gotcha. I'm right here.
Sarah:Mhmm. Poirot at least trusts him to get a ride to the train station in the car, but no further than that. So Waverly poisoned his wife ever so slightly to get her out of the way and then says, where are you going? And Poirot's like, well, I have the address where he's being held right here.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:It's blank. I know because I'm waiting for you to write it down for me. And Waverly is like,
Mark:Yeah. And the sad You got me. It's like sad trombones. Womp womp womp. And then there's no there's no he's having an affair with Treadwell's niece.
Mark:No. There's no mother-in-law. No. Both of those things would have added to this.
Sarah:Yep. But they also would have been kind of predictable.
Mark:They would have.
Sarah:If only
Mark:As predictable as the Laconda drive running out of gas.
Sarah:If only he had just said my wife, maintaining that my family home, my ancestral family home means a lot to me. Is there any way we can keep the restorations going and sacrifice in other places? Because it really matters. None of
Mark:this would happen. Okay. Let's let's just imagine that they are, in fact, out of money. They're serving people no food
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Basically. Rice and rehydrated fish. Mhmm. He should be, like, adult enough to not ask that.
Sarah:Like like I can only assume that she has the money, but she's just not willing to spend it on anything, like, not food, not restorations. She's tight.
Mark:Okay. Even
Sarah:because he thinks she can afford to pay the ransom.
Mark:If she's that tight, I'm also, like, is she as evil as he is? Like, because they're starving themselves.
Sarah:Yeah. Well, they're not starving.
Mark:But they also have 40 servants.
Sarah:There is that too. Maybe. Like, you don't even need a cook to make kajari. No. Anybody could do it.
Mark:Oh, you caught me. What are you gonna do now? I'll I guess I'll fess up.
Sarah:I'll never do it again. What? What? Poirot
Mark:doesn't story ends, like, even worse than that.
Sarah:Poirot doesn't even care Yeah. To, like, make sure that he admits it to his wife. He could go home and completely lie and say, we found him. It's fine. Everything's fine.
Sarah:You know, like, what is Jap gonna say?
Mark:I I don't know.
Sarah:I brought all these policemen out here for nothing.
Mark:And what really bothers me is this show is so good. And at this point, we're 3 episodes in. We have a wealth Oh, yeah. Of Puaros
Sarah:story. They choose this one?
Mark:Why did they choose this?
Sarah:I can only think that the production company only had permission to do short stories and maybe the estate limited what they could do. Like, you can do these. It might
Mark:be that because
Sarah:Because they didn't have faith in them yet. And then once they saw this 1st season, they were like, whatever you want, go for it.
Mark:Yeah. We'll give you these 10 stories.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:Right.
Sarah:And that's it for right now.
Mark:But
Sarah:I can only think that that was the case. If And that they also only had so much liberty with the story lines. They could only, like, because the the Christie estate is very well managed by Yeah. Her grandson.
Mark:Yeah. And it should be.
Sarah:And it should be. So they don't give a lot of wiggle room with the plot No. If you're gonna produce one of her stories.
Mark:No. And let's be honest. You get these 10 stories for your 1st season. I'm doing this story as early as possible.
Sarah:Get it out of the way.
Mark:I'm do Clavin Cook's a great beginner.
Sarah:Yep.
Mark:And, but, like, this is get this one out of the way as soon as possible.
Sarah:I think I would have tried to
Mark:avoid it. Thing is this one is cheap.
Sarah:Oh, yeah. It's really inexpensive to make.
Mark:Cheap to make, not like the one where they're on the boat. Yeah. That's more much more or the one where they're in Italy. Mhmm. Those are both expensive to make.
Mark:They had to go to Italy.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. So Or build sets, which is expensive too. Yeah. Well, that's the adventure of Johnny Waverly.
Sarah:But I
Mark:have it.
Sarah:Oh, wait a minute. There isn't one.
Mark:There isn't one. After the credits, we were just talking about kidnapping of Johnny Waverly. Till almost the sixties, it was called the kidnapping of That
Sarah:wouldn't make it any different.
Mark:It should be the kidnapping of Johnny Waverly by his stupid dad.
Sarah:The adventure of not talking to my wife. I have a surprise for you.
Mark:Oh, okay.
Sarah:I have a horrible movie.
Mark:Oh, okay.
Sarah:I haven't had a horrible movie in a long time.
Mark:Is it Life Force? No. Because Treadwell is in Life Force. Movie I mentioned to my friends this weekend, which can only be summed up in 3 words, naked alien vampires. But, because I noticed that on his IMDB page, he has an uncredited role as a guy
Sarah:who Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What are you doing looking at IMDB pages of the actors in the episode? That's my job.
Mark:To see it. Uh-huh. So Cheater. I'm not cheating. Okay.
Sarah:Well, I just happened to have picked a movie with Patrick Jordan who plays Treadwell, the butler in it. Okay. Now I'm suspicious of you. Okay. You're cheating.
Mark:I'm not cheating. I've seen my force a number of times. Naked.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:Patrick Alien and vampires.
Sarah:Patrick Jordan is in, like, 75 movies.
Mark:He's a busy boy.
Sarah:He's an older guy even by this time.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:He started his career when he was in his teens and took any role that anybody offered him. He's Unnamed whatever five, he took it. Okay? So he's got lots of movies, but the movie Plus
Mark:the bill and all sorts of other stuff.
Sarah:But the movie that I have chosen, he is the star of the movie. Oh. He's not some uncredited, just happens to be in it. He stars in
Mark:the movie. Stars in the movie. Yes. Like, top top billing?
Sarah:Yes. Wow. Main character.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Okay? Are you ready for the plot synopsis? Hit me. A descendant of count Dracula returns to his ancestral village to take revenge on the people who destroyed his ancestor.
Mark:Oh, is this a Hammer movie? No. Okay. And it's not Life Force? Mm-mm.
Mark:Because though there are vampires in Life Force, they're not like Count Dracula. No. They're energy vampires.
Sarah:No. These are blood suckers.
Mark:Okay. Blood suckers. That's like the plot of 16 I know. British movies in the seventies. I know.
Mark:So I can't
Sarah:tell. I'll give you another, like, little clue. So if you've seen it, this will this will give you an idea. Okay. Patrick Jordan, the butler in this episode, plays a doctor in the village who is the ancestor.
Sarah:Oh, he's the vampire? Kinda.
Mark:Kinda? Well, it's not doctor Phibes because that's another actor. I don't know.
Sarah:This movie is called k. The amorous adventures of a young postman.
Mark:What? That's what it's called. That makes no sense at all. That's a 19 seventies softcore movie.
Sarah:Yeah. Okay. But Dracula. Okay. So vampires, village, doctor.
Sarah:So
Mark:Okay. None of those words are in that title.
Sarah:So Patrick Jordan plays a doctor who is also a sex researcher who sets up an institute in a little village where his ancestor was killed.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:And for Are you sure
Mark:this is an alien vampire? Wait a minute.
Sarah:For some reason, he decides his subject of study is gonna be the 2 postmen who are in town. Okay. So he questions them about their relationships.
Mark:We know about postmen.
Sarah:And who they're attracted to. Oh, if they're like Midsummer Postmen, we know all about them.
Mark:Dark harvest.
Sarah:And one of them is, like, I think becomes a vampire, and the other one is the amorous one who is an idiot and goes around doing stupid things.
Mark:Is this carry on sex research shows? I'm telling you hell it was for me.
Sarah:Telling you. I watched clips of it. I read multiple descriptions. I read the VHS back. None of it gives you any more sense of what this movie is about
Mark:The movie poster.
Sarah:What I have just told you.
Mark:Must be amazing.
Sarah:It it's a close-up of a postman looking stupid.
Mark:Who doesn't have, like, fangs or
Sarah:No. No. No. He just looks goofy.
Mark:So you would, like, see that and go, oh, well, it's a romcom about
Sarah:And then you flip the VHS box over Yeah. And all the ladies on the back are kinda half dressed.
Mark:Well, yeah.
Sarah:It's the 70 ladies. Yeah. And one of them has fangs, and you're like, What?
Mark:Yeah. I've never seen that.
Sarah:The amorous adventures of a young postman.
Mark:Never seen that movie.
Sarah:One point for me. Yeah. It's been a long time since I had a got a point from a bad movie.
Mark:That's a point.
Sarah:Well, you can go watch it now. What what was the other movie that he was hawk? What was Patrick Jordan was in another movie with Jack Palance, and it's like a D and D movie almost.
Mark:Yeah. It's called Hawk the Slayer, which I think I've seen 10 times. It was a the small town where I grew up, my friend worked at Max Milk, and they had videos there and there was like
Sarah:That was a convenience store. It was like a very small selection of rentals.
Mark:50 videos and we watched them all over and over. And this was like a D and D
Sarah:Hawk the Slayer.
Mark:Hawk the Slayer.
Sarah:It has Jack Palance who, is Ripley's believe it or not guy.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:What else was he in? He's,
Mark:the main the first villain in the beginning of Batman 89. Yeah. But he's And, the cowboy movie, City Slickers.
Sarah:City yep. That's right. He's the he's the cowboy in City Slickers. Yep. But in this in this movie, Hawk the slayer, he's like an evil wizard dude who wears a helmet that covers one of his eyes.
Mark:Covers one of his eyes. I kept I remember distinctly as a teenager wanting to fix that helmet so that you could see both his
Sarah:turn it around a little bit. Because it's like the opening is wide enough to show both of his eyes, but somebody's, like, bonked him, and it's spun a little bit on his head.
Mark:I remember we saw this, and then we saw Conan, the Schwarzenegger Conan, and we're like, oh, that's
Sarah:my bad. Supposed to be.
Mark:That's what it's supposed to be.
Sarah:Well, there's one scene in Hawk the Slayer where the main good guy gets his magical sword ripped out of his hand, and then he wills it back into his hand, and it's so clearly reversed footage. Yes. They just reversed the footage to put it back in his head.
Mark:We were we were so, like, at that point in time, we're all
Sarah:Like, you just hit rewind. That's not special effects.
Mark:We were all pepped up on Star Wars and all pepped up on special effects movies and playing D and D all the time, this was definitely our wheelhouse, and I can remember going, they just reversed the footage.
Sarah:Well, Treadwell, AKA Patrick Jordan, is also in that movie, but I wasn't about to use that one as my horrible movie because I knew you'd seen it.
Mark:Hawk the Slayer. Yes.
Sarah:It looked so bad. I knew you'd seen it. Well, that is the adventure of Johnny Waverly. What and season 1 episode 3 of Paro. What's next week?
Mark:Oh, boy. Do I have something next week?
Sarah:Yes.
Mark:Are you ready for it?
Sarah:Uh-huh.
Mark:It's, naked artistic models, which is 4 and 20 blackbirds.
Sarah:Yes. Much talk about soup. Soup. And crumble. Crumble.
Sarah:And artist models.
Mark:Yes. Season 1 episode 4, 4 and 20 blackbirds.
Sarah:It's Christy breaking one of the cardinal rules of mystery and using identical twins.
Mark:Yep. Though, the it's interesting how she uses it.
Sarah:But Oh, yeah. No doubt. And she hadn't she hadn't joined the magic circle of mystery writers yet and and agreed to the rules No. Right, when she wrote it. So it's okay, and it's awesome.
Mark:So that'll be out March 11th, March 18th. We have the 3rd floor flat, which we love that episode also. And then after that, 2 remix episodes and some other special things to come because
Sarah:Our 200th episode is coming. This is 197 right now that you're listening to.
Mark:Our 200th episode is coming, and also the second half of March and the entirety of April are bonkers town for us. Eclipse.
Sarah:The whole town's already losing its mind, and it's more than a month away. It's just Anyhow.
Mark:Insane. They're telling schools that people will not be able to drive anywhere.
Sarah:No. They won't. So because everybody will be looking up, running into each other like crazies. Just our kind of people. Okay.
Sarah:Bye, maniacs.
Mark:Bye, maniacs. Thanks for joining us on the Mystery Maniacs podcast. If you enjoyed our crazy podcast today, don't miss out on future episodes. Follow us on social media for updates, beyond the scenes content, and exclusive sneak peeks. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word.
Mark:Bye, maniacs.
Sarah:Okay. We may have to cut that because what you just said just doesn't make sense.
