I heard one of the characters say this line in “The Jetty” movie, with Jenna Coleman, a British film. It’s one of those “British detective” stories. *And, I just realized, “why am I not watching the end of this movie,” because the episode just ended, so this must be a series and not a movie.
They are in a hospital hallway, or near a waiting room, and there is a woman coughing and the young woman’s partner says the following to her, “It’s not the coughing. It’s the coffin they carry you off in.” A neat little turn of the phrase.
I’m not really paying much attention to this movie. It is like all the hundreds of British detective movies and TV shows I have watched over the years. I wonder if it might not be closer to a thousand shows because I have watched most of the “Midsomer Murders” (136 episodes), all of “Inspector Morse,” “Inspector Lewis,” and “Endeavour,” (which was Inspector Morse’s first name, hated by him). And how about “Shetland,” “Broadchurch,” “Prime Suspect,” “Father Brown,” and all of those versions of “Agatha Christie” stories? “Poirot,” (70 episodes with David Suchet) “Miss Marple,” “Luther,” “The Tunnel,” and “Foyle’s War.” How many episodes & movies, and how many different actors have played Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson? And there have been few, if any, actors playing Sherlock Holmes that I haven’t liked. Which probably says I like the characters of Holmes & Watson, more than the actors. I do recall not liking a Romanian version of Holmes. It may have not been a Romanian actor, but it was some like country. I even liked “Enola Holmes,” although it was probably the young actress, Millie Bobby Brown that I enjoyed more than the character. Do “The Falcon” and “The Saint” qualify?
I like British humor and the way Brits tell their stories. But, after enjoying many years of Midsomer Murders, I no longer want to revisit any of those episodes. I wish there were more Agatha Christie stories, because the few that are rehashed I know well, very well. I love “Ten Little Indians,” or is that “And Then There Were None?” I even re-formatted the entire script of “Ten Little Indians” that I found online. Whether she intended for her story to be acted out on stage, in a movie, or were TV shows even a possibility when she first wrote this (and no they weren’t), she wrote the dialogue of this story as if.
I actually liked the last version of this story that I saw with an ensemble cast, although I am partial to the 1940s B&W version. Why did I like this version? Because Vera Claythorne had committed the vile act of intentionally encouraging the little boy she had care of, to swim to his death, because she was in love with his older cousin (father/cousin/father/cousin)? And with this vile act, she did deserve her own death, no matter how good the sex might be with Philip Lombard.
I recall the first version that I saw where all of the Indians, but one, were actually killed off or died, was a surprise. I seem to recall that ALL died in her original story, but later, depending upon whether the young lovers trusted each other, one or two might survive. Then I guess the story title should have also been changed to “Ten Little Indians Died, All But One.”
I do like “The Lady Vanishes.” What? The bad guys were trying to keep her quiet, or possibly even kill her, to keep her from offering witness to the killing of someone by a Royal (from a country other than England).
Would “North by Northwest” qualify? Or how about, “Frenzy?” Yeah, I think they might. And the image almost comes back to me of the crazed serial killer (did they even use that term when this movie first came out) had to track down the woman’s body riding in the back of a lorry, and pry his “stick pin” from her dead, nude body. And who was that actress? Anna Massey, (daughter of the actor, Raymond Massey) who was actually married to Jeremy Brett, for a time (Anna, not Raymond). Brett played Sherlock Holmes in 41 episodes during the 1980s and 90s. About twenty years earlier, a much younger Brett (dubbed) sang, “On the Street Where You Live,” to Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.”
Several years ago, I was binge watching the Sherlock Holmes episodes with Jeremy Brett, and at some point I recognized that the actor must actually be sick, in real life. So, I googled about the actor, and yes he was both mentally & physically ill especially in the last 10 years of his life. He died of a heart condition, but also suffered from bi-polar disorder.
Bill Gibson, II 