LES PETITS MEURTRES D'AGATHA CHRISTIE: QUAND LES SOURIS DANSENT (FRANCE 2)

Commissaire Annie Gréco (Émilie Gavois-Kahn) of the Commissariat de Lille is back with Inspector Max Beretta (Arthur Dupont) and psychologist Rose Bellecour (Chloé Chaudoye). Launched in January 2021, the 1970s era of France 2's long-running period crime drama Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie continues with the excellent Quand les souris dansent.

Not based on an Agatha Christie novel, Quand les souris dansent was penned by the talented Belgian scriptwriter Thierry Debroux (1) and directed by Alexandre Coffre (Les Aventures de Spirou et Fantasio). It was actually filmed before Mourir sur scène, the episode aired by France 2 in December 2021 after Le Vallon. Madame Maude runs a high-flying prostitution ring hidden behind a very exclusive club attended by politicians and industrialists, like Rose Bellecour's father Arnaud or the member of parliament and future finance minister Thierry Faucon. 

 

When Maude is found strangled in her office, the investigation of Commissaire Gréco is complicated by the presence of Capitaine Cassandre Leclerc of the DST (Direction de la Surveillance du territoire) because the establishment is the key to an important oil contract with Uganda. Max meets Flore, one of Madame Maude's girls, and offers Faucon a ride. The case shakes up Annie for some personal reasons. Rose infiltrates Maude's club but once a psychologist, always a psychologist. Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie takes a break from its trademark fast-paced comedy with something more intimate, though the episode doesn't exclude humour.

"Madame Maude" is of course a reference to Fernande Grudet aka Madame Claude, who ran a network of expensive call girls for rich and powerful clients before making the news in France during the 1970s. Thierry Debroux's work is served by a cast of quality: Olivia Côte (César Wagner) as Cassandre, Valérie Dashwood — who previously appeared in the episode Le cheval pâle — as Maude, Louise Grinberg (Mona), Aude Legastelois (Death in Paradise) as Flore, Carolina Jurczak (Marion), Jean-Louis Cassarino (Faucon), Vassili Schneider (Antoine), Jean-Benoît Ugeux (Serge), Ener Tambwe (Janus), etc. 

 

Also with Quentin Baillot (Alexandra Ehle) as Commissaire divisionnaire Servan Legoff, Benoît Moret (Pathologist Jacques Blum), Christèle Tual (Barbara Bellecour), Grégoire Oestermann (Arnaud Bellecour), Nicolas Lumbreras as hippie hotel owner Bob, Savério Maligno (Rateau), Alexandre Russo (Cassard) and Maryne Bertieaux (Delphine). Co-produced by Sophie Révil's Escazal Films and France Télévisions, with the support of Pictanovo and Région Hauts-de-France. Produced with the participation of TV5 Monde and RTS Radio Télévision Suisse. Sophie Révil and Denis Carot are the line producers. James Prichard, Basi Akpabio and Leo Desoyza are the associate producers for Agatha Christie Ltd.

 

Cvetanka Atanasova is the production manager. Music composed and conducted by Stéphane Moucha. Cinematography by Jean-François Hensgens. Production designed by Moundji Couture. Costumes by Céline Guignard. Edited by Sophie Fourdrinoy. Casting by Michaël Laguens. Main title sequence designed by Romain Segaud. Characters created by Flore Kossinetz, Éliane Montane, Gabor Rassov and Sophie Révil. Distributed by France Télévisions Distribution. Quand les souris dansent will be shown by France 2 on April 29th.

(1) Thierry Debroux wrote several episodes for the previous eras of Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie.

Special thanks to Christophe Kerambrun.

https://lespetitsfans.wixsite.com/lpmac/les-petits-fans
https://twitter.com/lespetitsfans
https://twitter.com/ACCriminalGames

 

See also: 

 

https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2021/12/les-petits-meurtres-dagatha-christie-le.html 

MONEY. MURDER. ZURICH. (DER ZÜRICH-KRIMI) - EPISODE 13: BORCHERT UND DER VERLORENE SOHN (DAS ERSTE, 2021)

Launched in 2016, the brilliant 90-minute crime drama Der Zürich-Krimi returned in December 2021 on German pubcaster Das Erste with Borchert und der verlorene Sohn. Borchert und die bittere Medizin followed in February 2022.

Der Zürich-Krimi stars the great Christian Kohlund (Das Traumhotel, Black Forest Clinic) as the melancholic Thomas Borchert, an "unlicensed attorney" who works in Zurich for lawyer Dominique Kuster and often acts as a private investigator. Ina Paule Klink (Wilsberg) co-stars as Dominique. Pierre Kiwitt plays Police captain Marco Furrer (1). Robert Hunger-Bühler, who plays Dominique's father Dr. Reto Zanger, is absent from this episode. The other regulars are Susi Banzhaf as Regula Gabrielli (Dominique's assistant), Andrea Zogg as taxi driver Beat Bürki, and Yves Wüthrich (Urs Aeggi, Furrer's deputy).

  

« Antonius Bildermann. Kenne ich seit über 40 Jahren aus dem Sportverein. 

- Sie haben mal Sport gemacht?

- Dominique! »

 

Biotech entrepreneur Antonius Bildermann, an old friend of Borchert, would like Thomas and Dominique to prepare a wedding contract for him as he's about to marry the much younger Mira Gül. The lawyers witness tension between Bildermann and Julian, one of the two sons he had with his ex-wife Stefanie. Julian Bildermann is abducted soon after while jogging and his kidnappers demand 3 million Swiss francs. Thomas warns the police and offers to deliver the ransom. He brings back the young man safe and sound but one of the kidnappers is found dead.

 

« Jetzt pass mal auf, du Arschloch! Ich schmeiße das Geld ins Wasser so schnell kannst du gar nicht schauen! »

Captain Furrer thinks Julian staged his abduction. Borchert must solve a puzzle made of family secrets. The excellent Borchert und der verlorene Sohn was penned by Rainer Ruppert (Alphateam - Die Lebensretter im OP, Verbotene Liebe) and directed by Roland Suso Richter. The guest cast includes none other than Uwe Kockisch (Commissario Guido Brunetti in Donna Leon) as Antonius Bildermann and the always fabulous Götz Otto (Der Clown, Tomorrow Never Dies) as a mobster named Eric Meier. Also with Johannes Meister (Julian Bildermann), Oskar Belton (Florian Bildermann), Kirsten Block (Stefanie Bildermann), Idil Üner (Mira Gül), etc. Produced by Graf Film with Mia Film for ARD Degeto and Das Erste. 

Produced by Klaus Graf, Annemarie Pilgram and Michal Pokorný. Katja Roesch, Ondřej Nerud and Sandra Moll (ARD Degeto) are the production managers. Filmed in Zurich and Prague. Music by Michael Klaukien. Cinematography by Max Knauer, BVK. Production services in Switzerland provided by Christof Neracher for Hugofilm. Made with the support of the Czech Film Fund.  Episodes 1 to 9 of Money. Murder. Zurich. (the international title of Der Zürich-Krimi) are available in the United States and Canada on the SVOD service MHZ Choice. Distributed by Beta Film.

 

(1) Katrin Bauerfeind played Dominique Kuster in the first episode. Felix Kramer played Police captain Marco Furrer from episodes 1 to 6. 

 

https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2020/04/money-murder-zurich-der-zurich-krimi.html (Episode 7) 

https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2021/03/money-murder-zurich-der-zurich-krimi.html (Episode 6)

https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2020/04/money-murder-zurich-der-zurich-krimi_26.html (Episode 5)

https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2019/07/money-murder-zurich-der-zurich-krimi.html (Episodes 3 & 4)
https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2019/06/money-murder-zurich-der-zurich-krimi.html (Episodes 1 & 2) 

See:

https://www.daserste.de/unterhaltung/film/der-zuerich-krimi/index.html
http://www.kohlund.com/
https://www.graffilm.com/en/company.html

THE IPCRESS FILE (ITV)

[Favourite of the Month] [Spoiler-Free review] 60 years after the publication of Len Deighton's classic espionage novel and 57 years after its famous movie adaptation, the short-sighted spy known as Harry Palmer is back with brilliance in The Ipcress File.

 

This  6 x 45-minute television series premiered last month in the U.K on ITV. AMC + will air it in the U.S.

Written by British author Len Deighton, The IPCRESS File (1962) was centered on an unnamed working class spy of a small intelligence agency called W.O.O.C.(P). (1). Harry Saltzman, co-producer of the James Bond films, turned the book into a movie. Directed by Sidney J. Furie and released in 1965, The Ipcress File starred Michael Caine as a spy with glasses called Harry Palmer. The actor played "the anti-007" in two other cinematographic adaptations of Deighton's work: Funeral in Berlin (1966, directed by Guy Hamilton) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967, Ken Russell).

 

In 1968, the project of a fourth Harry Palmer film (adapted from Horse Under Water) was abandoned by Saltzman. A different production team made the movie version of Spy Story (1976), directed by Lindsay Shonteff, with Michael Petrovich as "Patrick Armstrong". Years later, Michael Caine became an ex-spy named Harry Anders in Blue Ice (1992), helmed by Russell Mulcahy. The character was actually based on the Tad Anders series of novels by Ted Allbeury. The legendary actor finally put on the distinctive glasses of the real Palmer again in Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), two movies shot back-to-back under the direction of George Mihalka and shown directly on U.S. cable.

 

This year, Harry Palmer returns in a clever and stylish reinvention — for once the word is appropriate — of both The IPCRESS File novel and its film adaptation. This captivating six-part thriller produced by Will Clarke and Andy Mayson's Altitude Television was written by John Hodge (Trainspotting) and directed by James Watkins (McMafia). Joe Cole (Gangs of London, Peaky Blinders) is the new Harry Palmer. Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody, Murder on the Orient Express) plays agent Jean Courtney. Major William Dalby, their boss, is played by Tom Hollander (Doctor Thorne, The Night Manager). English actor and musician Ashley Thomas (Top Boy) plays CIA agent Paul Maddox.

West Berlin, 1963. British corporal Harry Palmer has a lucrative black market operation, lifting army goods and selling them to the east thanks to a local contact, until he's arrested by the military police and jailed in England. Meanwhile, the Minister of Defence faces a problem and Major Dalby, chief of an independent and "provisional" intelligence unit called the War Office Operational Communication, thinks that Prisoner 17315 Palmer is the solution. Peter Dawson, a nuclear scientist working on a neutron bomb project, has been kidnapped. Dalby wants to buy him back to Jan Pilsudski, the chief suspect, before Dawson is delivered to the enemy. Harry is the only known link to this Polish smuggler active in the Berlin U.S. sector because they did black market together.  

 

Jean Courtney is sent by Dalby to negociate field assistance from the CIA with Paul Maddox, an African American officer, in exchange of information on Soviet master spy Colonel Gregor Stok. Harry Palmer accepts a proposal from Dalby and tries to retrieve the missing scientist in East Berlin. Though things turn bad, Palmer manages to get an important clue. The search for Professor Dawson leads Harry and Jean from an experimental clinic in the English countryside to Beirut and on an island in the Pacific Ocean where the Americans test the neutron bomb. Colonel Stok and Dalby have a conversation about the major's past. Who can be trusted and what does IPCRESS mean? 

 

The Ipcress File scriptwriter John Hodge and director James Watkins pay a subtle homage to the movie (right from the opening of the first episode) without rehashing it. The series format allowed a reworking of the book and film plots, including  a considerable development of the characters. Harry Palmer is the son of a docker and a textile worker, a graduate of the Imperial College in Mathematics and a hero of the Korean War. His separated wife lives with one of his pals and she's waiting for their divorce. Joe Cole is definitely an apt choice for the smart and irreverent young spy growing in confidence as the mission progresses.

 

Called Jean Tonnesen in the novel, Jean Courtney was a supporting character in the film (2). Here Jean is living with her upper class parents and she has doubts about her future marriage. Her family and fiancé ignore that she's a highly qualified intelligence agent. They believe that she works for the BBC, "making tea at the World Service". Lucy Boynton gives to her role the perfect balance between glamour and depth. Dalby, the patrician head of W.O.O.C., epitomizes the reimagining of the source material. The major, portrayed with his customary talent and distinction by Tom Hollander, is definitely not the character played by Nigel Green in the first adaptation (3).

The Ipcress File does a splendid job with the reconstitution of the 1960s, which reminds of spy films or series from the era, and it makes an amazing use of the locations. Viewers visit Cold War Berlin (like in Funeral in Berlin), Lebanon or Finland (see Billion Dollar Brain) but the series was filmed in Liverpool, Cheshire and Croatia. Ashley Thomas and the rest of the cast are excellent, especially Anastasia Hille (Alice), Josha James (Chico), Swedish actor David Dencik (No Time to Die) as Colonel  Stok (4) and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor (General Cathcart). Also with Paul Higgins (Minister), Brian Ferguson (Randall), Nora-Jane Noone (Karen Newton), Matthew Steer (Dawson), Corey Johnson (Skip Henderson), Irfan Shamji (Carswell), etc.

An Altitude Television production in association with ITV Studios and the Liverpool Film Office. Exec produced by James Watkins, John Hodge, Steven Saltzman and Hilary Saltzman, Sandy Lieberson and Alexander Deighton, Andy Mayson and Andrew Eaton and Will Clarke. Produced by Paul Ritchie. The elegant and surprising music was composed by Tom Hodge (McMafia). Cinematography by Tim Maurice-Jones BSC. Editing by Stuart Gazzard. Production designed by James Price. Lili Lea Abraham is the art director. Costumes designed by Keith Madden. Maxine Carlier is the set decorator. Titles by Lipsync Design.

 

(1) For the problem of the meaning of W.O.O.C.(P)., read this interview of Len Deighton: https://deightondossier.blogspot.com/p/len-deighton-exclusive-interview-nov.html

(2) Played by Sue Lloyd, who returned as Jean in Bullet to Beijing.

(3) Colonel Ross, played by Guy Doleman in The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain is absent from this version.

(4) Played by Oscar Homolka in Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain. Derren Nesbitt played him in Spy Story.

 

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220217-the-ipcress-file-the-rebel-spy-who-is-the-anti-james-bond

https://spymovienavigator.com/podcast/steven-saltzman-an-interview-with-the-executive-producer-of-the-ipcress-file-6-part-series/ 

https://www.cntraveller.com/article/where-was-the-ipcress-file-filmed

https://keesstam.tripod.com/harrypalmer.html