PalmA Briton arrives in Mallorca and is unpleasantly surprised to find all the hotels in Palma fully booked. No, it's not a summer like today's. It's a winter in the 1930s, almost a century ago, and this is how it begins. Problem in PollensaThe story that Agatha Christie set in this Mallorcan town, which she knew firsthand because she spent her summers there. We remember the queen of crime and her ties to the island, fifty years after her death on January 12, 1976.
Agatha Christie's books are considered among the most widely read in world literature, second only to the Bible and her compatriot William Shakespeare. It's not necessary to imagine her as a sedentary lady simply because, as she herself confessed, her best crime plots came to her when she was shortening her sentences. She was a nurse in the First World War and traveled practically the entire world, partly due to the work of her second husband, who was an archaeologist.
This is also one of the reasons why a good number of her novels are set in exotic locations—for the British reader, of course. Murder on the Orient Express She is one of the most famous, and traveling on the Orient Express was an experience she had firsthand. "I never remember a face," she confesses in her autobiography. Instead, "places remain in my memory."
One of these trips around the world took her, in the summer of 1932, to the Port of Pollença. Back then, tourism was far from the monoculture it would become. Only a few eccentric artists—and those with financial means—could afford to travel for pleasure. Like her compatriot and colleague Robert Graves, who arrived in Deià in 1929. Although, in his case, the connection with the island became permanent.
When she made the short list of the things she liked most—just six lines—the British author included "sunlight, going to the beach, bathing, and swimming." So he presumably had a wonderful time enjoying the Mallorcan sea in summer—compared to the climate back home—back when you didn't have to wait in line to reserve a spot for your parasol. It seems he really liked the scenery around Pollença and used to take walks as far as the lighthouse.
A week in Sóller
Problem in Pollensa (Problem at Pollensa Bay"Pollença," first published in 1935, is the story that inspired this Mallorcan setting. It's a short story, about twenty pages long. There's no murder here—oops!, apologies: that slipped out—but there is a complicated matter to solve. The protagonist isn't either of his two most famous characters, Poirot and Miss Marple, but another, Parker Payne, who has a knack for untangling any puzzle. However, it's Pollença that lends its title to a collection of stories that accompany it, some of them featuring the astute Belgian detective or the shrewd British lady.
Upon disembarking from the boat that brought him from Barcelona, Parker Payne discovers that the hotels are full: "Palma had become fashionable. English and Americans were going to spend the winter in Mallorca." As were travelers on the Imserso program. In the center of Palma, he finds only a cramped, airless hotel, where he's unwilling to stay. The hotel owner's reaction is genuinely Mallorcan and proves that Christie must have known the islanders well. He shrugs and says, "What do you want me to say?" He only needs to add "however." Parker Payne has to look for an alternative: Sóller, Alcúdia, or Pollença are other possible places to find accommodation. The Hotel Formentor, recently opened in 1929, is out of the question, because, a taxi driver warns him, the prices are exorbitant. It was "a place for the wealthy." Finally, Payne finds lodging at the Hotel Pino d'Oro in Pollença. Its owners don't speak any languages—it seems we're talking about the prehistory of tourism—but he finds "the peace and quiet" he was looking for in a room with a sea view. The other guests at the establishment are also foreigners: there are British, Germans, and Danes. Not everyone feels so comfortable in Mallorca: one rather eccentric young woman calls it a "horrible island" and says she's dying of boredom.
Agatha Christie describes Pollença at the time as "a little fishing village," with a bar and a few shops. The only discordant note: an "artists' colony," with girls wearing trousers and boys "with berets and long hair" talking about abstract art. Payne also spends "a very pleasant week" in Sóller.
It seems logical to identify the 'Golden Pine' with the Illa d'Or hotel, with a very similar name, which had opened shortly before, also in 1929. Therefore, Christie would have stayed at this establishment. However, this is not so easy to ascertain. She could have done it at the Seis Pins – hence the 'Pine'. Or at the Mar i Cel, which appears in the story starring Payne as the 'Butterfly Hotel'.
It also seems that Christie visited Mallorca on more than one occasion. Many years later, in the sixties, when the number of visitors had grown spectacularly, she was involved in a curious anecdote. The millionth tourist – like the song – was awaited with all the honors, and the one who stepped off the plane was the world-famous writer. But that recognition didn't go to her, but to a couple who were traveling on the same flight.
Crimes in Raixa and Formentor
Agatha Christie died in 1976, but only a few years later Mallorca served as the filming location for the cinematic adaptation of one of her most famous stories, Death Under the Sun (Evil Under the Sun(actually 'Maldat sota el Sol'), not surprisingly, directed by an island enthusiast, Guy Hamilton, and starring another: Peter Ustinov, in the role of Poirot.
This was good publicity for the island, in those times when nobody remotely thought that the increase in visitors should be curbed. So much so, that when it premiered, David Ansen's review of the Newsweek He declared that "Guy Hamilton's film is far more effective as an advertisement for Mallorca than as a thriller." Something which, it must be said, didn't exactly paint Hamilton in a favorable light. However, artistic merit took a backseat to the propaganda it represented: Hamilton was awarded the Molí d'Argent prize for promoting Mallorca with Death Under the Sun
The curious thing is that, in the fictionalized account, the action doesn't take place in Mallorca, but in Greece, taking advantage of the similarity of the landscapes. Even more curious is that at no point does anyone suspect that the murderer—there is a murder, of course—could be a local: only the foreign visitors, who are staying at the same hotel, are suspects.
As has been the norm in productions inspired by novels by the British author, the rest of the cast was truly stellar, with film stars such as James Mason, Maggie Smith, Roddy McDowall, and Diana Rigg—famous for the series the Avengers and much more recently for her role as Olenna Tyrell in Game of ThunderNicholas Clay – the Lancelot ofExcalibur– and Colin Blakely, who played another illustrious detective, Dr. Watson, in The private life of Sherlock HolmesAnd Jane Birkin, who knew Mallorca well, having spent time there with her then-husband, film composer John Barry. Locations used included the Raixa estate, Cala Fornells and Caló d'en Monjo in Peguera, Cala Deià, and Formentor. Footage of Dragonera was also used.
Much more recently, Agatha Christie and her inseparable Poirot had yet another encounter with the Mallorcans. It was in 2021, during one of the Teatre de Barra cycles, short plays that are periodically staged in bars in the Blanquerna area of Palma. A matter of principleDirected by Bernat Molina, with Aina Cortés as Agatha Christie and Jaume Sureda as Poirot, the British writer, in yet another twist, complicated the Belgian detective's life with a succession of possible starting points for new cases to solve. Christie knew another archipelago well: the Canary Islands. She spoke of Las Palmas in 1977 as "the ideal place to rest," although "today it has become a large tourist center and has lost its charm," when she visited. You can imagine what she would say about Mallorca ninety years later. Information compiled from texts by Matías Vallés and Antoni Janer Torrens, Agatha Christie's autobiography, and her narrative Problem in Pollensa, in addition to the Wow Mallorca website of the Mallorca Literary Foundation.
Poirot, a Formentor fan
Six times he portrayed the multifaceted British actor of Russian origin, Peter Ustinov, the sophisticated Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie, in as many productions: Death on the Nile (1978), Death Under the Sun ( 1982), Thirteen at the Table ( 1985), Dead Man's Folly (1986), and Death (1988). Probably no other actor has played this character so many times; except for David Suchet, perhaps the best Poirot of all time, who starred in a television series.
Christie had a real soft spot for her creation, to the point of saying she would keep it, saying, "for the rest of my days." And so it was: months before she died, she killed off the character in the last story, aptly titled Teló . Christie was struck by the fact that Poirot's portrayals were usually tall, imposing men: like Ustinov, who was over six feet tall. But she imagined him as rather shorter. Like Suchet, who was 5'6".
Peter Ustinov was a regular visitor to Mallorca, with trips spanning four decades. In fact, he bought a house in Port d'Andratx to spend his holidays. Later, he traded that corner of the island for the Hotel Formentor—yes, the one that seemed so expensive to the taxi driver in Mallorca in the 1930s. He sailed the Mallorcan waters aboard his sailboat, the My Nitchevo . In 2000, Última Hora awarded him a Siurell de Honor.
Every summer, aside from Ana Obregón's public appearances and the emeritus king's regattas, the other two unmissable events were the stays at the Hotel Formentor of Concha Velasco and the quintessential Poirot interpreter. Ustinov spoke a mixture of Spanish and Italian with which he made himself understood. He didn't just come for vacation. He was the narrator for the Balearic Symphony Orchestra in a concert with accompanying text in 1997. Further proof of his versatility.
