FROM BOOK TO SERIES: hERCULE POIROT

 I never considered this would happen when I started this  blogging series ... but it has ... this story is NOT a stand alone story ... it actually was published in a compendium ... no, that's not the word ... in a collection of short stories, gathered and then published together in a book.
I am not sure if this because the stories were first published in magazines/papers which was common during the Great Depression and World War 2, all around the world.

But let's not get off on a tangent ... let's talk about

THE JEWEL ROBBERY AT THE GRAND METROPOLITAN

The BBC series episode begins with a peek at an old movie - the jest is about the pearl necklace, which was stolen and had disappeared without a trace for many years ... well now its back - and going to be the center piece of a new stage production.

We are introduced to several different characers .... the first being a doctor who orders Poirot to take a vacation .... Hastings decides the seaside is best, and away they go.

They bump into the producer of the play and are invited to Opening Night - and Poirot agrees to go ... just to be "attacked" by paparazzi ... he is totally incensed!  And I find that rather interesting, after all - while Poirot likes to pretend that he doesn't like publicity, we all know he actually craves it.

Then the necklace gets stolen ... Inspector Japp shows up, and Poirot refuses to help solve the mystery -- he's supposed to be resting his "little grey cells", and its a way to stick-it to the producer for setting him up for free publiicity!!!

In the background runs a small comedy bit where people keep asking Poirot for 10 ginnies becuase the recognize him ... aparently there was a ploy that newspapers did at the time where it was like a living "Where's Waldo?" ... they would send out a person and dropped clues to where he might be at ...
And in the episode, the man happened to look very much like Hercule Poirot ... but we don't find out what happens with this bit until the very end.

Miss Lemon shows up - bawls Hastings out for allowing Poirot to do detective work when he was supposed to be resting (she whips these boys in shape!!)  ... she does her bit to help Poirot get background information on people.

Poirot has the producer of the play ARRESTED ... and when he is asked why, he simply replies "All publicity is good publicity" ... oh this was a funny scene ... 

Needless to say - Poirot solves the mystery and all ends well.

Kind of ...

Then I searched the web for an audio version of the book - I cannot tell you how many times I had to listen to it, the ones I kept finding were putting me to sleep - likely because of the reader and not the story, or it was because I wasn't feeling very well at the time ... I did find one version which I stayed awake for AND they even included a screen shot of a sketch which appeared in the story ... very interesting, they hadn't even touched on a sketch in the episode.

Since this was a short story, the total reading time was only 33 minutes!
So I can understand then needing to stretch things out in the episode - but they added sooooooo much!  Almost too much.

In the BOOK, the whole thing takes place at the Metropolitan Hotel (its not the Metropolitan Theater as in the episode) ...

There is NO play ...
There is NO director/producer
There are NO actors
There is no INSPECTOR JAPP - although he does get mentioned in the book, he does NOT actually show up.

Poirot has to deal wih the local police force ... not Scotland yard.  Which makes sense - it would be like calling out the FBI or CIA over a jewel robbery ... not generally done ... there are specific qualifications in order to call them out (in the US, murder isn't one of them either ... but it might be in Europe, I don't know)

Againg -- NO body count here.

But Poirot makes short work on solving the crime.

Oh and the vacation -- Hastings PAYS for it because he INVITES Poirot to go with him.

No doctor.
No Prescript for a rest.
No Miss Lemon!!!!
No Where's Waldo, either!!!!

Just a couple guys out for a restful weekend ...

and One set of pearls found.

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The thing that really caught my attention was the Metropolitan .... you see IN America, we really do have a "Metropolitan Theater" ... I believe it's in New York ...
When my oldest daughter was very young (aged 2 0r 3) we would listen to it on Saturdays over the radio ("wireless") during lunchtime and if it was coming from the Metropolitan, we could enjoy the most beautiful operas!
It would continue to play as she took her nap ...
My kids grew up calling Classical music, "Tea Party Music", because they considered Saturday lunches as "Tea Time" with Mom ...
It only happened in the Wintertime, since during the summer we were often at the grandparents resort and they were either off doing work all day (Grandma kept them very busy) or they were scampering around trying to have fun that didn't end up at the hospital ... like WE were raised, well, hubby was raised - we didn't go to a resort very often as children - but I do remember a couple of trips.

Any how -- see, one of those tangents -- in the book the Metropolitan is a HOTEL ... kind of like the Ritz-Carlton in New York, I think ...
Think of the hotel in "Home Alone 2:Lost in New York" ... that kind of thing ...
$300/night type of thing.

I don't know if its still there, but in this story - it's one of the fancier hotels at the time ...

It just annoys me that they "Americanized" the story ... like we couldn't possibly understand that things are different over there.  If we have questions, we know how to find the answers to things.

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Okay ... EMBEDDED videos ....these are NOT MY VIDEOS ... I put them in so yiu can listen to the story yiurself ... 
BUT THIS TIME i have an extra special treat -- I found a YouTube of the actually SERIES episode!!!

Now you know how I feel -- watch the show, then read/listen to the story ... that way you won't have the story completely ruined.

But in this case -- its almost like they are two tatally different stories, so I guess it doesn't really matter which you do first.

SERIES (there could be a second part to this,I have not watched it myself)

STORY