The who? The what? Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose is a title asking two questions and, without further ado, here come the answers.
Nandor Fodor was a real man, a Hungarian-born parapsychologist (1895-1964) and former associate of Sigmund Freud who became a leading paranormal investigator. His preferred MO was to explain poltergeists and other spiritual apparitions as having a rational (psychological) explanation. People, he generally thought, believe this stuff into existence, they’re not being deceptive.
As to the Talking Mongoose, that was a famous case lofted into the public consciousness by the British tabloid newspapers, of an animal on the Isle of Man (which sits in the Irish Sea between the UK mainland and Ireland) with the power to speak, to make sagacious pronouncements and prognosticate, an animal whose voice could be heard but whose form was rarely to be glimpsed. The mongoose’s name was Gef, prounounced Jeff.
Writer/director Adam Sigal’s film deals with all of that, first the man, then the mongoose, in a cosy, Sunday afternoon thriller style, with Simon Pegg in the lead as the charmingly enigmatic Nandor Fodor, the great man having been propelled towards the Isle of Man and the talking mongoose by Dr Harry Price of the London Spiritualist Alliance, played in lively arthritic style by Christopher Lloyd.
Along for the ride is Fodor’s right-hand woman, the Watson to his Holmes, his assistant Anne, played by Minnie Driver. According to Sigal’s screenplay, Fodor is a man given to much musing and internal contemplation, whereas Anne is more personable, outgoing, normal. She, in effect, conducts much of the investigation and Driver steps admirably into the Miss Marple-shaped space that Sigal opens up for her.
Much of the action takes place on the Isle of Man, where the Irving family – Gef’s carers – are quite probably at the centre of a massive hoax, a suspicion only doubled when it’s discovered that the Irving daughter, Voirrey (Jessica Balmer), is quite the ventriloquist and is as adept at throwing her voice as she is at mimicry.
Tim Downie and Ruth Connell play Irving Ma and Pa as a pair of bright buttons, exactly the sort who might be grifters, if that’s what this is all about. Lurking to the side Paul Kaye, as a local drunk who knows more than he’s letting on, and Gary Beadle as Errol, the Irvings’ “man”, who reckons from the off that it’s all nonsense, but with such vehemence that it only somehow enhances the whole idea of Gef.
What’s going on here looks initially like a story about the post-truth world – make something up and it exists – but Sigal is more interested in the human desire for permanance, to make solid things that are less tangible, and he ties it all up with some hidden grief in the life of Nandor, who lived through the First World War and so must have experienced some loss, most people had.
It is a strange little film, composed as if based on a series of ageing photographs – figures centred in the frame, the camera largely static, not much movement – and oddly not really about the mongoose or Fodor, who doesn’t come across as particularly bright, for all his learning, and leaves the sleuthing to Anne (maybe Jeeves and Wooster is the right comparison, rather than Holmes and Watson).
There are some lovely interiors – old pubs as warm as whisky and leather for the scenes between Fodor and Price – and the overall impression is of a country house whodunit, except there’s no real crime to be solved and no flourish of a dénouement when all is revealed. It’s all as comfortable as old slippers.
Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2023
