The Mystery of the Blue Jar

Dr Lavington (Michael Aldridge) is a medical man of the soul.

While on holiday to try to write a book, he comes across articled clerk Jack Hartington. He looks tired, spooked even. Jack claims that while playing golf early in the morning he heard a woman shriek; "Murder! Help! Murder!"

There was a young French woman nearby but she claimed not to have heard anything.

This event was repeated again and Jack is worried, which is why he has sought Dr Lavington who is staying in the same hotel as him.

Jack also has an uncle staying at the village, whose house he goes to often. His uncle has a blue jar where they put the umbrellas in. However when a seance his held, the blue jar suddenly becomes bait.

This is a very wordy episode. It really is a matter of whether the noises are in Jack's head or it is a part of an elaborate scam? I think the direction could had been a bit more exciting. When it comes to it, it is Jack's uncle who works things out.

Being a ginormous fan of this phenomenal female writer, I purchased the DVD boxset of "The Agatha Christie Hour" quite a long time ago already, but somehow, I've always been reluctant to watch. That's because the name Agatha Christie stands synonym for convoluted and compelling murder whodunits, and these 50-minutes tales right here are a mishmash of styles & genres. Some of them are crime/thrillers, but there are also drama stories, comedies and even love stories! One must remain open-minded, so eventually, I will watch all short movies, but I'm not in a hurry. I absolutely wanted to start with "Mystery of the Blue Jar", however, because I know that tale by heart. It was included in a narrated version on an audio-CD I once owned and repeatedly listened to. The story isn't great, but it has a fantastic and truly original twist at the end that you can't possibly see coming. Before watching any other tales of the "The Agatha Christie Hour", I had to see how convincingly the climatic twist of "Blue Jar" got processed.

Well, this episode/short film was quite a disappointment! I knew from beforehand the tale was very talkative, so I can't really blame it for the slow pacing and dull moments, but the whole thing is so damn lifeless! The people who voiced my ancient audio version were a lot more vivid and passionate, the mystery was a lot more tangible and the infamous climax was bleaker and more abrupt. The story is about a young law student Jack Hartington who hears a woman's voice cry "Murder! Help, Murder!" every morning at 7:25 when he's at the golf court. The beautiful French girl who lives nearby with her ill father doesn't hear the screams, and Jack fears that he's losing his sanity. Luckily, the acclaimed psychiatrist Dr. Lavington offers his help to investigate where the screams originate from. The original denouement of this tale is genius and, like the other reviewer cleverly pointed out, a typical Christie trademark, but somehow this TV-version "softened" it into a weak footnote with a forced happy ending.

While this fellow ends up looking the prize turkey of the piece as it goes, he and his aged relative fare the best in the end, which establishes the settled order of -- well, the settled order. The miscreants are not depicted here as meeting their justice, but we kind of know they will. Instead, we see the young enterprising chap and his aged relative succeeding to their course of well intention into continued well being. Right ho.

Well acted early short story with a touch of the supernatural. While Christie, like any prolific mystery genre author, dealt some in the supernatural, she never exalted it as darkly supreme. This was rightly handled in this instance, I thought.

Bung ho.