A Double Dose of Murder and Mayhem

Left to right: Elsa Lanchester, David Nivens, Peter Sellers (partially blocked), James Coco, James Cromwell

The monsoon continues, with a brief respite on Saturday. DD#1 and I hiked in the drizzle with the collies, then rewarded ourselves with some yummy ice cream from Hagen-Dazs (I got dolce de leche). DH did what chores he could outside (without sinking knee-deep in mud; trimming the lilacs will have to wait for now). I'd like to dry off before I mold.

Being in my year of mourning means I'm limited as to what kind of entertainment I can attend.
Live music- no
Sporting events- maybe (but I'm not really interested in those)
Movies- generally no (I'm planning to ask my rabbi for an override when the last Harry Potter movie comes out; some things cannot wait.)
TV- OK in my community.

So after dinner, DH found Murder by Death rebroadcast on some obscure channel (believe or not, the Wealth TV channel. What a hoot!). We saw this when it first came out 35 years ago and loved its whacky zaniness. Or is that its zany whackiness? Whatever it is, it's hilarious. The all-star cast is phenomenal. Imagine a young Maggie Smith trying out her timing so that she'll be perfection as the Dowager Counter of Grantham in Downton Abbey. James Coco plays Hercule Poirot, only in the movie he's called Perrier (Sam Spade, played by Peter Falk in a try-out for the Colombo years, is called Sam Diamond). You get the picture- and the corny jokes. Peter Sellers plays Sidney Wang (a Charlie Chan send-off; I had a professor in grad school named Sidney Wang, so I found his character particularly endearing).

After Murder by Death, the real Hercule Poirot (well, as real as a fictional detective can be) was on the Orient Express on PBS. David Suchet who plays Poirot is a great actor, whether he's the scoundrel Melmotte in The Way We Live Now or the infinitely-fastidious Poirot. This episode, by the way, was filmed on the actual Orient Express. Best Line: "We're in Yugoslavia, M Poirot! The backside of Europe!" Naturellement, Poirot solves the mystery of the murder on the Orient Express.

I should hire Hercule Poirot to solve the mystery of the missing sock. Le mystère de la chausette qui est manquée. Gripping to every knitter, n'est-ce pas? "No, hot chocolate!"