Joan Hickson as Miss Marple visits a girlhood friend, Jean Simmons, at Stoneygate, run as an institution for disturbed boys by Simmons' husband, Joss Ackland. There are numerous other guests and relatives. And when a character in this kind of story describes the family's relationships as "tangled," you can BELIEVE that they're tangled.
Some old friend of the family comes from the city to check the Institute's books and is shot dead for his pains. There are even more suspects than usual because, after all, there are a dozen or so mentally ill young men running around. We see two of them enacting the duel between Mercutio and Tybalt from "Romeo and Juliet" and watch them suffer an amygdala hijack and go at one another with a real knife. And then there are jealousies, intrigues, and one young man who acts as an assistant to Ackland and claims to be the son of Winston Churchill. (The period is post-war.)
I guess I'm rather a dim bulb because I found it hard to understand some of the actions of the characters. Ackland's motive I could grasp. But those of his suicidal son? I'm in the dark, just as the characters are when the fuse blows, the movie projector stops, and the house is thrown into darkness.
There seems to be more bang for the buck with Hercule Poirot than with Miss Marple. Poirot -- David Suchet in the TV series -- is quirky. He is to Sherlock Holmes what matter is to anti-matter. But Hickson as Miss Marple reminds me of my dear old Grandma from Durham, a dreary city in northeast England, a nice old lady who was always sticking her nose into things. Miss Marple suffers also from having a face as interesting as a bowl of porridge.
Joss Ackland, for once, with his deep baritone and mountainous presence, doesn't wobble his jowls. His character may be murderous but he's not without guilt and sensitivity. Jean Simmons is no longer the young Ophelia or the teeny bopper Estella in "Great Expectations" but still smolders with a dark and ancient beauty. The nutty kid -- to whom another character refers as "Mister Pecan Pie" -- overacts. There are two understated comic scenes. One in which the deluded kid reveals to Miss Marple that he is the son of Churchill. ("I see," she replies, looking away.) The other consists of hints that Inspector Slack would love to become an amateur magician and is always hiding that fact from everyone else, always on the verge of being caught with his bag of paraphernalia and always embarrassed by it.
Some old friend of the family comes from the city to check the Institute's books and is shot dead for his pains. There are even more suspects than usual because, after all, there are a dozen or so mentally ill young men running around. We see two of them enacting the duel between Mercutio and Tybalt from "Romeo and Juliet" and watch them suffer an amygdala hijack and go at one another with a real knife. And then there are jealousies, intrigues, and one young man who acts as an assistant to Ackland and claims to be the son of Winston Churchill. (The period is post-war.)
I guess I'm rather a dim bulb because I found it hard to understand some of the actions of the characters. Ackland's motive I could grasp. But those of his suicidal son? I'm in the dark, just as the characters are when the fuse blows, the movie projector stops, and the house is thrown into darkness.
There seems to be more bang for the buck with Hercule Poirot than with Miss Marple. Poirot -- David Suchet in the TV series -- is quirky. He is to Sherlock Holmes what matter is to anti-matter. But Hickson as Miss Marple reminds me of my dear old Grandma from Durham, a dreary city in northeast England, a nice old lady who was always sticking her nose into things. Miss Marple suffers also from having a face as interesting as a bowl of porridge.
Joss Ackland, for once, with his deep baritone and mountainous presence, doesn't wobble his jowls. His character may be murderous but he's not without guilt and sensitivity. Jean Simmons is no longer the young Ophelia or the teeny bopper Estella in "Great Expectations" but still smolders with a dark and ancient beauty. The nutty kid -- to whom another character refers as "Mister Pecan Pie" -- overacts. There are two understated comic scenes. One in which the deluded kid reveals to Miss Marple that he is the son of Churchill. ("I see," she replies, looking away.) The other consists of hints that Inspector Slack would love to become an amateur magician and is always hiding that fact from everyone else, always on the verge of being caught with his bag of paraphernalia and always embarrassed by it.