Curtain Up (47 page)

Douglas did indeed go on the following year to direct John Chapman's long-running Whitehall Farce
Dry Rot
; he was also engaged by Saunders to direct William Douglas Home's
The Manor at Northstead
, in a production which was to mark the start of Saunders' fruitful association with the playwright. Having been an actor before the war (collectors of Christie trivia may
like to observe that he had appeared as an actor opposite Francis L. Sullivan's Poirot in the 1937 television broadcast of
The Wasp's Nest
) and a prisoner of war for most of it, Douglas had turned to directing in 1945. Of his appointment, however, Saunders says simply, ‘Wallace Douglas had read the play at my invitation and visualised it so much as I did that I asked him to direct it. It was a very wise choice.'
⁸
He makes no mention of having offered Gregg the job or of Gregg having suggested Douglas, who was in any case represented by Film Rights, a company with which Saunders did a great deal of business.

Wallace Douglas was contracted at the end of July, three months after the script was finalised and two months before the first performance, although he appears to have been working with Saunders on casting prior to then. This time there was no messing around, and the director's royalty was a flat 1½ per cent from the start.
⁹
Douglas is the quiet man amongst Christie directors; he delivered two of her biggest hits but, unlike some of the others, seems to have had remarkably little to say on the subject. Gwen Robyns interviewed him for her Christie biography, in which he expresses his admiration for her ability to memorise and willingness to act upon his notes – apart from his suggestion that she change the play's ending.

It may well be that Hubert Gregg introduced his friend Douglas, just as he had been the go-between with the Attenboroughs. And it may perhaps be the case that he came up with the title of
The Mousetrap
. But his suggestion that he also came up with the ending of
Witness for the Prosecution
is bizarre in the extreme. There is no record of Gregg having been involved in any way with the development of the script, and the legendary final twist was added by Christie in long-distance correspondence with Saunders. Perhaps, of course, Gregg had suggested it to Saunders, who in turn had somehow subliminally suggested it to Christie in a way that made it feel her own; Saunders was very good at this, and Christie referred to herself as ‘hypnotised and always amenable to the power of suggestion' where he was concerned.
¹⁰
There is some correspondence that might appear to bear this out; but it seems
unlikely as Saunders, although supportive to Christie of her ending for the play, was clearly not entirely convinced that it would work. The issue at stake was that in the original story a murderer walks away unpunished. In the play's unexpected and dramatic ending the murderer is seen to face gory retribution from an unexpected source. My own belief is that Christie's advisors encouraged her to make the murderer face justice in the stage version; there was even some feeling that the play would not get past the Lord Chamberlain's office if crime was seen to pay. But I have no doubt that Christie herself came up with the means for achieving this, and the production files show that an order for stage blood was duly placed.

Saunders claims that he and Douglas made a list of thirty-six actors for the role of Robarts, which had become a good star vehicle in its expanded form, but that they all turned it down. ‘They just didn't believe this play could work, and the ending which Agatha had put in (it wasn't in the short story) was so spectacularly daring that I never knew until the first night on tour whether or not it would come off.'
¹¹
Whether thirty-six offers were actually declined we will never know, but there is correspondence on file to indicate that casting the part proved a problem. This includes a polite letter from Robert Morley, a Film Rights client, turning down the role, and some correspondence with forty-seven-year-old film star Roger Livesey (best known for 1943's
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
) in which he objects to the script's two biggest
coups de théâtre
(the impersonation and the ending). The latter elicited the response from Saunders, ‘I freely concede that something may have to be done about the ending of “Witness”,' although he leapt to Christie's defence as regards the impersonation: ‘This, to me, is a basic part of the play, and if you don't like that part then inevitably during production you would find yourself wanting to remove other oddities in the script. While one might end up with a play, I do not believe it would be a Christie play. Christie plays, whatever people may think of them, can I believe only succeed if they are written in black and white and not in grey.'
¹²

At one stage Saunders even suggests changing the role to a female barrister and offering it to Flora Robson, which results in one of my favourite no-nonsense Christie responses: ‘I know there are women barristers but one always feels that they are rather a joke.' I gift this to the feminist writers who make so much of Christie's alleged ‘collusion with patriarchy'. But in the context of 1953 Christie is right, of course. The first female barristers had been called to the bar in the 1920s, but in Christie's story Romaine makes unashamed use of her sexuality to bamboozle the self-satisfied and easily led male lawyers, and the focus of the play would have changed beyond recognition if the barrister had been a woman. It would have become a play about a female barrister. Which it isn't.

Eventually the role went to David Horne who, as Saunders says, was ‘a first class character actor but in no sense of the word a box-office draw. David looked the part and, as it was quite clear no star was going to do the play, I dived in at the deep end. From then onwards we were committed to a no-name cast.'
¹³
What he fails to mention is that Horne had appeared as Father Borrowdale in the brief West End run of
Murder on the Nile
. In 1964 Saunders was to cast Flora Robson in the role of a female QC in a courtroom drama called
Justice is a Woman
(although Robson withdrew from the production due to illness). The play was written by Jack Roffey, whose
Hostile Witness
he had produced two years earlier.

The part of Romaine proved no easier to cast, but eventually went to Patricia Jessel, who had played a small role for Saunders in one of his first projects,
The Ex Mrs Y
. Known principally as a Shakespearian actress, both with Donald Wolfit's company and Stratford's Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, she had impressed Saunders when he saw her playing opposite Peter Ustinov in
The Love of Four Colonels
. She was not a star, but the role of Romaine was to make her one. Her performance in the London production of
Witness for the Prosecution
would win her Equity's Clarence Derwent Award, and Saunders described it as ‘one of the finest pieces of acting I have ever seen in my life'.

In a lively three-month correspondence between Saunders
(in London) and Christie (in Iraq) at the beginning of 1953, we see the producer skilfully cajoling the absent playwright into completing her script. They also discuss other aspects of the production, including advice from the legal consultants and casting. I reproduce this in full in the following pages, and have kept my own commentary to a minimum so as not to interrupt the delightful exchanges between the two as this definitive courtroom drama is created.
¹⁴

Christie to Saunders: 24 January 1953

Dear Peter,

A friend of ours at the Embassy is flying home tomorrow so I have given him the rewritten script of the end of the play as I thought it would probably get to you quicker. I've got a carbon copy, of course, so let me know in due course if nothing turns up. I think I've got it just as you want it now – with the double punch – or indeed treble punch . . . and thank goodness no need for any explanations to hold up the Curtain.

I'm more than ever convinced that you must have your head over the casting of Romaine. The point is she must be a personality – and if not the kind of personality I had in mind – one slightly adapts the lines. After all Lady Angkatell was not at all my Lady Angkatell – but she most decidedly was a Lady Angkatell – so all went well, jelly babies and all! Yes, Ann Todd is a good actress. I don't think blondness matters. Two others I've thought of were Irene Worth and Constance Cummings. But anyone you fancy.

I'll see if I can think of anything to improve the ‘letters' scene in court – if one could lead up to their production a bit? The difficulty is that it must be the actual production of the letters that (supposedly) breaks her down, because they are (supposedly) completely unexpected.

If anything strikes you about the play write out to me on the various points. I rather want not to look at it or think of
it for a few weeks and then come back to it fresh. The scene between the solicitor and Counsel can be worked up when one has a better idea of who might be cast for the parts. They should be a contrast to each other. I visualise at the moment Counsel as big and blustering and Mayhew as neat and precise – but it doesn't matter really.

We arrived two days ago rather weary from our wanderings having had flu on the way and spent two days in Rome in an expensive Hotel, taking our temperatures and ordering trays of weak tea.

Glorious sunshine here and already quite warm.

Tell me the news from time to time

Love to the Dicky Birds [I wonder if this is a reference to ‘Dickie' Attenborough and Sheila Sim?]

Yours

Agatha

Saunders to Christie: 28 January 1953

Dear Agatha,

I cabled you today having just read the WFTP ending. It is quite wonderful. Everything I saw in the finale is now there, and I can't wait to get on with it.

The Mousetrap obstinately continues to play to full houses, so it may be some time before I do it, but I feel I should start my plans now and will either do it next September or about Christmas.

Leo Genn, who is a distinguished actor, and was also a barrister connected with murder cases, is reading the script and says that, providing there is not a lot of work to be done (and, of course, there isn't), he will be very happy to give any help he can.

I enclose two photographs as suggested for Leonard and Romaine. Will you please let me know whether I am working on the right lines?

Patricia Jessel plays one of the wives in The Love of Four
Colonels, but if you happen to have seen The Platinum Set she plays the mistress. She is a brilliant actress, and is a rather younger version of Sonia Dresdel. Outside star names I cannot think of anybody I would prefer. Her actual age is 32.

Jack Watling played Flight Lieut. Graham in Flare Path, but you will almost certainly remember him as the son (not the young boy of course) in The Winslow Boy
. . .
[Watling is being suggested here for the role of Leonard Vole, which was eventually played by Derek Blomfield]

I am having your new ending incorporated into your draft, and I will get Leo Genn to do us a little bit of ‘legal fun', and I will then send you a copy of the script for your observations.

Have you any strong feelings about including the jury on stage? Does it worry you if the judge and counsel address the audience, who would be the jury? . . .

No more news, except that Aubrey Dexter [playing Major Metcalf in
The Mousetrap
] has been ill for a week, and Tony Huntly-Gordon [the production's senior stage manager] has been playing for him . . .

My kind regards to Max,

[Peter Saunders]

Christie to Saunders: 1 February 1953

Dear Impressario Pete [sic] Saunders . . .

Very glad the revised end meets approval. I will admit that I think it is better myself!

Patricia Jessel looks all right and as I have said, I leave it in your hands. I thought you had to have a ‘name'? I saw Four Colonels but can't remember anything about the wives except for Diana Graves who once acted in a play of mine [she played Jacqueline de Severac in the pre-London tour of
Murder on
the Nile
] and who appeared to me to be singularly miscast as the French wife, and who had dyed her black hair golden to make it even more unconvincing!

I have been thinking about the opening of the play and it seems to me the 2 clerks are stagey and rather a waste and if you've got to pay two people, how would it be to have an elderly clerk, rather a type (years with the firm etc) and a pert young woman – material for a laugh or two vaguely resembling the Gudgeon Doris gambit? Also I think Mayhew could be worked up – very precise and pedantic and dry as dust and some exchanges between him and elderly clerk – and also a few laughs between him and Leonard – Leonard as the naïve young man not realising he can be really going to be arrested for murder and rather endearing himself to the old lawyer by his naïve observations.

I'd like to hear what you think of working up Act I on these lines? Does Act I want to be longer?

And now for the Gypsy's warning. Are you really sure you want to do a play like this? I can see it's a big undertaking. The Mousetrap formula seems to be a fairly safe one. Intimate murder, not taken too seriously, with plenty of rather obvious domestic humour. Even if it's not liked, I don't suppose you go down much on it. But I do feel W.F.T.P. runs a risk of being Saunders' Folly – so I don't want to urge you into it. End of Gypsy's warning.

I enclose a letter which I think you will enjoy. It is from the Leading Twin of my friends the Richmond Twins aged thirteen, impossible to tell apart and great friends of mine. I arranged with Cork to get them seats [for
The Mousetrap
], but it seems to have gone wrong and their mother rang up the box office and was put on to someone ‘with a very nice voice' – sounds more like your secretary than one of Edmund's minions – anyway all ended well, and this is certainly an exact account of the effect produced by the play on Miss Emma Richmond. Keep it for me, if you don't mind, as it's one I'd like to keep [he must have returned the child's letter to Agatha, as it is missing].