Miss Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (1991 TV Movie) User Reviews

Solid adaptation, it owes a great debt to the charisma of Joss Ackland and brilliance of Jean Simmons.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 3 November 2015]

I truly love Joan Hickson's adaptations of Miss Marple, she is in my opinion the quintessential Jane Marple. It's one of my lesser favourites in the series. I'll try and explain why.

The novel itself isn't one of my favourites, I find the trickery of the murder works better in the book (in my mind) then it does on screen. In terms of production I find it safe, but still very good, when compared to other adaptations it's quite not there.

On the plus side the acting is superb, Hickson is as always excellent, Holly Aird is wonderfully youthful and vibrant as Gina. The legendary Jean Simmons is incredibly sweet, she gave a sensitive and believable performance of the fragile Carrie Louise. I am a bit biased when it comes to Joss Ackland, he is hugely charismatic, at times almost overpoweringly so, but here we see a restrained, dare I say touching performance, his voice makes him incredibly watchable.

The scene I enjoyed most of all I think was the stage play, Ruth looks on awkwardly, Miss Marple watches intently. It's there to show that events are sometimes smoke and mirrors, it's cleverly put together. I also like their later fireside chat where she talks about the robberies committed by starting the bonfires early.

I would still give it a score of 8/10, it is still an excellent production, it's just that I have such high regards for others in the series. I must say I find the later Marple a particularly good production from a frequently bemoaned series.

Not a particularly good adaptation

[ash880 · 6/10 · 11 May 2008]

The novel on which this adaptation is based was not one of Christie's best works to begin with. However the way the (first) murder was carried out in the book was brilliant. In this adaptation the exact details of the crime are left out; the plan of the house shown briefly in the earlier part is not brought up again to explain how the murderer got to the victim's room, nor is the sound of running footsteps heard by Alex Restarick elaborated upon. Without these explanations I fear the casual viewer may have some unanswered questions at the end of the film.

The film does, however, have its saving grace - in the casting department. Faith Brook and Jean Simmons in particular shine in their respective roles of Ruth van Rydock and Carrie-Louise Serrocold. The two sisters' friendship with Jane Marple is best seen in the rather touching final sequence.

Not one of the better entries in this series

[Iain-215 · 6/10 · 5 April 2008]

Sadly, this is not one of my favourites in the BBC Hickson series. I think they tailed off a little towards the end and this was one of the later ones to be made. It's not actually one of the best of the Marple books in my opinion and this adaptation sticks quite closely to the source material. The story had a previous outing with Helen Hayes as the very American Miss Marple and an aged Bette Davies as her friend Carrie Louise. Both characters are improved upon in this version - indeed Jean Simmons' portrayal of Carrie Louise was the high point of the film for me. Joss Ackland does a decent enough job as the frustrated do-gooder Lewis Serrocold but I'm not really a fan of this actor generally and the rest of the cast are so-so. The character of Ruth van Rydock is given more to do than in the book which works quite well but I missed the character of Miss Bellever (the excellent Frances de la Tour in the Hayes film).

It passes a pleasant couple of hours but there are better entries than this in the series.

Good in terms of acting and quality, but disappointing as an adaptation

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 11 October 2009]

Although I really liked this, it is a disappointment after the delightful Murder Is Announced. Then again the book isn't Agatha Christie's best, although it's well written and perplexing, it is for me one of the weaker Marple books. There were several things I liked about the adaptation, one was the acting. Joan Hickson is a sheer delight as Miss Marple, and Faith Brook and Jean Simmons were very effective as Carrie-Louise and Ruth. Their end scene in particular was very poignant. Joss Ackland has a little less to do, but he turned in a solid performance. The adaptation is beautifully photographed, and the music is stunning. However, I had a real problem with the pace, the adaptation does start off very slowly, and never quite recovers. Out of the Joan Hickson adaptations, it is one of the least faithful ones. The elements that made the book perplexing were either left out or a tad underdeveloped. Consequently the plot is hard to follow and I will admit the final solution left me baffled. Overall, disappointing but well acted and beautifully filmed, so worth a look. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Miss Marple comes to the aid of an old friend while solving yet another untimely demise

[davidhyatt · 10/10 · 8 September 2005]

Miss Marple is the best of friends with two aging sisters. One sister, who thinks the other is in danger, has Miss Marple to pay a timely visit. Upon arriving she encounters a host of garden variety misfits and reform school types, along with their keepers, sharing the estate grounds with her friend. All of this makes for a genuinely great plot that includes the murder of the family Patriarch by which Miss Marple further sharpens her already keenly honed crime solving acumen.

This is one of the better TV-Movie adaptations that preserves the plot from novel to the screen. The screenplay flows well, has no obvious holes or gaps, the acting is grade A, and the Directing is Superb. I highly recommend this particular film as one of the BEST Miss Marple TV-Movies ever!!!

Is it deliberately uninvolving by design or by flaw? Either way the outcome is the same

[bob the moo · 16 January 2012]

Despite thinking that I had seen the vast majority of the BBC Marple films, my second random one in as many days turned out to be yet another one I had never seen before. Sleeping Murder had been the first and had been surprising accessible and lively and the opening of Mirrors made me think it would be more of the same, with the American voices and the tone of the opening scenes. I was also familiar with the story as I had seen the ITV Marple films adapt it as well. Sadly They Do It with Mirrors turned out to be a real summary of what I tend to dislike about the Marple series.

Running long (particularly with adverts lasting 4 minutes every 10-15 minutes) the film really takes its time with everything but not in a way that hooks me. Ironically I felt that Sleeping Murder was almost too accessible and easy to follow, but yet at the same time I appreciated it for this. They Do it with Mirrors goes the other direction by quite some measure as it does almost nothing to assist the viewer in keeping up with Marple or indeed even CI Slack. Instead of clues or red-herrings what we are given are characters and details – but none of which really are much used until we enter that final room for the traditional reveal. Like tedg said in his review, the viewer here is never allowed to be taken along with the case – we are sitting in the final room with the rest of them, knowing who people are but learning stuff we didn't know before and couldn't have figured out.

The problem I have with this is that I feel excluded and just expected to wait rather than be involved in the mystery. The longer this goes on the less inclined I was to care and by the end I was really not paying much attention to it. There never appears to be much in the delivery to intrigue the viewer or make them think – I watched this knowing the story but yet still didn't really know where it was going and while I'm open to the idea of me being dumb, I think part of it was that the film wasn't actually going anywhere until it got to the final reveal. I'd like to say the pieces all fell into place at this point, but they don't because we hadn't been given pieces – only characters, no clues, no nuggets etc. The cast are solid throughout despite this; I do like Hickson as Marple and enjoy her way of playing it as all observation and gossip – the downside is that she does live in her head as a character so she needs the script to help her in terms of what the viewer can "see", she gets no such help with this one.

I'm not sure if it is deliberate or by design but this film was incredibly uninvolving – it offered me nothing throughout and then suddenly pulls the solution out of nowhere. It is difficult to care and before the reveal scene I had really stopped being interested since the film itself seemed so uninterested in me.

This Mirrors a murder and questions procedure

[gingerninjasz · 7/10 · 1 July 2023]

They Do It With Mirrors is an unusual Miss Marple adaptation. It's hard to put your finger exactly what it is, but the best I can come up with is that it comes across as an everyday crime procedure. In that I mean there is a murder, then the police question everybody and then there is a denouement and the culprit is revealed. And that is more or less exactly how They Do It With Mirrors is to watch.

It starts with Miss Marple meeting old friend Ruth Van Rydock in a hotel, who is concerned about her sister Carrie Louise. Now married to 3rd husband Lewis Serricold, they live at Stonygates, a sprawling mansion that has been converted into a home for delinquent boys - part of a pet project of Serricold's. Despite everything seemingly well, Ruth is convinced that there is something wrong at Stonygates and is fearful for Carrie Louise's life - but she doesn't know why. She asks Jane Marple to go and investigate, having already arranged for her to stay at Stonygates, and soon Miss Marple is down there as one of the inmates (sorry, guests).

All seems well, but as this is an Agatha Christie something HAS to be wrong, but quite what Miss Marple can't put her finger on. It's certainly a bustling place packed with people. Also at Stonygates are Carrie Louise's daughter Mildred Strete, her daughter Gina Hudd and her American husband Walter, plus the Restarick brothers Alex and Stephen, who help Lewis Serricold with the boys, but also have their eyes on Gina, who enjoys their flirting - Walter, understandably, is less than happy about this. Dr Maseryk is also there on hand to help with the delinquents, which includes a young pre-EastEnders Jake Wood among their number, while another lad, Edgar Lawson works as a secretary for Serricold, but seems increasingly paranoid. The seemingly happy home looks complete when Carrie Louise's stepson Christian Gulbrandsen arrives unexpectedly for a visit, but he looks troubled by something and later Miss Marple overhears him and Lewis Serricold talking about concerns for Carrie Louise's health and keeping something back from her. But before she can find out more, events take a dramatic twist when Edgar flips and accuses Serricold of betraying him. Lewis tries to placade the boy by taking him into his office while the others watch an old reel of film, but while there the lights go out, gunshots are heard - and there is a body lying dead in a room. But it isn't Serricold who is dead, but Gulbrandsen, killed in another room the other end of the house.

It has to be said that it takes nearly an hour to get to this point, and what follows afterwards is Inspector Slack and his assistant Sgt Lake arriving at the mansion to conduct police inquiries, little suspecting the grey haired cobra is laying in wait for him. And what follows is Slack questioning the various guests of their movements, while around them various minor or major incidents happen. Minor incidents include Gina's love triangle with the Restarick brothers and her increasingly disenchanted American hubby Walter. More major developments are when Miss Marple learns from Lewis Serricold that someone has been trying to poison Carrie Louise. But who? And why?

Contrary to some opinions, They Do It With Mirrors is not a bad mystery overall. It takes it's time with introducing the various characters and it's numerous storylines before the crime is committed. But at times it feels a little eccentric and rambling in it's plotting, and before the crime is eventually committed you do wonder if they've actually forgotten to add one in! And once the deed is done, it mainly occupies Slack's efforts to question the suspects, while offshoots of plot interject the interrogations, such as the love triangle and the fact that another murder is committed when a witness is lured to the theatre by one of the Restarick brothers playing detective, little realizing that someone has overheard his plan. Again it feels a little eccentric in it's plotting, but nevertheless "Mirrors" holds your interest. The flaw with the 2nd murder is that it happens rather late, leaving little chance of us the viewer to figure out who among the household could of done it.

It's helped by some decent performances from the cast, which lift this from the ordinary. Joss Ackland is surprisingly muted from his usual eye catching portrayals, but his subtle playing of Serricold is actually a plus and he doesn't overwhelm the production. And he's helped by Jean Simmons, note perfect as the gentle and bewildered Carrie Louise who sees all that she thought of as certain slowly being queried by the shock of her stepson's murder and the later revelation that someone has apparently been trying to kill her. Jay and Christopher Villiers have different personalities as the Restarick brothers, and each play their roles well. Jay is the more sensitive lovesick Stephen, but it's Christopher who is more fun and amusing as Alex. But the most eye catching for me is Holly Aird as Gina, giving an effervescent performance that is as pert and perky as her many other attributes, even if at times her character is surprisingly insensitive to her husband's feelings when flirting with the Restarick brothers. I find it hard to really criticize Neal Swettenham as the paranoid Edgar, as he does decently enough in a difficult role, but it did feel more like a performance than truly delving into a troubled man's mind. However, he does provide a hugely enjoyable moment when he gets questioned by Inspector Slack (David Horowitz). Horowitz is great in this, and for once you thoroughly sympathize with his impatience at the more "PC approach" that is foistered on him by Dr Maseryk (Saul Reichlin), who insists on sitting in on Edgar's interview while Edgar proves to be evasive. But Slack proves wonderfully inventive in his questioning and ties Edgar up in knots by asking about the "voices in his head", before getting so fed up by Maseryk's interruptions he snaps and throws him out. It's a great scene, while there's also a surprising glimpse into Slack's personal life with his passion for magic that actually proves to supply Miss Marple with the answer to how the murder was committed.

There's a surprising softening in relations between Slack and Miss Marple by the end of the mystery that is quite touching. Joan Hickson was 85 at the time, and there was no guarantee that she would be around for the final adaptation, so maybe this was included in the script just in case. It's nice also to see the character of Sgt Lake (Ian Brimble) developed, and he looks to be enjoying himself as he watches Slack's discomfort with Miss Marple. The ending is dramatic as it is moving, and it's impact is felt on those that are left behind, made poignant by the reel of old film in the closing scene, as Miss Marple and those remaining view footage of themselves when young in the past, not knowing then what life or fate had in store for them. All in all, it's a decent mystery with an unusual structure that can hinder at times, but is aided by some bright and decent performances. And Holly Aird can drive me around in that car anytime!

Sordid squalor

[Dr_Coulardeau · 10/10 · 12 February 2011]

Miss Marple in this story goes down to the bottom of the sinister pit of ugly greed. A father is using his own son to cover up his own crime and the son is accepting to do that in order to finally get out of his bastard status and be recognized as a legitimate son. And the end is even more pitiful than this plan would sound to normal minds. This film is directed in such a way that the setting, which is sinister in many ways, appears so at least one hundred times more than it actually is. A certain Agatha Christie had apparently read some of her classics like "Women in Love" and the death of two lovers at the end of the book. She also had managed to integrated "Romeo and Juliet" in her tale. But what is essential is the fact that a rich heiress is trying to use the money she got from her husband in a fund to help young criminals be rehabilitated but she does not see the greed that surrounds her in all possible ways and makes her attempt at being a good lady in a harsh society so vain and definitely dangerous for her own health. Too naïve she is and endangering her own life by bringing around her the people who have multiple reasons to get rid of her.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

How Do You Saw A Woman In Half?

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 19 March 2012]

Joan Hickson as Agatha Christie's intrepid Ms. Jane Marple gets invited by an old friend Faith Brook who is concerned about her sister Jean Simmons. Jane as a solver of murder mysteries has a reputation which is why Brook seeks her out. And as Simmons is also a friend of Ms. Marple she's only happy to help.

It's only too true, but the attempts at homicide toward Jean Simmons come later. While the lights are out, another guest is murdered, one who had something to tell Simmons, but never got to do it.

Between Simmons and Brook they've got quite an assortment of relations and Simmons's husband Joss Ackland has turned the estate into some kind of experimental school for young juvenile offenders in post World War II Great Britain. So you've got some lovely delinquents having a run of the place as well.

The suspect is pretty obvious in the fact that he's giving all kinds of disinformation to the police. But how he did it is the real mystery here. And there is an accomplice who has a key role.

Remember at the very end Hickson asks the question just how does a woman get sawed in half by a magician? That answer tells everyone including the audience who the killer is.

Nice quality Agatha Christie mystery with Joan Hickson as a doggedly determined Ms. Marple.

They do it with Mirrors

[coltras35 · 8/10 · 12 April 2024]

Miss Jane Marple came to Stonygates in fulfilment of a promise to an old school friend to find out what was wrong at this most unusual college, now being run by the friend's third husband and housing, besides two hundred juvenile deliquents, the stepchildren of her previous marriages.

As soon as she arrived Jane Marple knew thet her friend was right: something was wrong at Stonygates. What she saw around her was illusion, not reality. In the words of the conjuror "They do it with mirrors" But who? And why?

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple shines again and is joined by a big cast -Jean Simmons added a touch of old Hollywood class - and it's an engaging adaptation, though the plot slackens to the end. The denouement at the end isn't too involving- lacks gravitas.

The Helen Hayes version is better

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 24 September 2008]

This Agatha Christie novel has been adapted for the screen once before, in 1985, with Helen Hayes as Miss Marple: that film is called "Murder With Mirrors", and is, in my opinion, better than this later version: the mystery is better-constructed, with the huge red herring of the "poisoning" getting built up right from the start, and apart from a weaker Carrie Louise (Bette Davis was obviously in poor health at the time), the older version had more engaging performances in most roles. For example, while both Ginas were pretty delightful, in MWM her husband was also a likable fellow and you wanted them to "kiss and make up"; in TDWM Todd Boyce is so dismal in the same role, you hope the poor girl will divorce him! Despite being about 15 minutes shorter, MWM does a better job of explaining the plot, while TDWM's resolution feels rushed. It's really a 5/10 movie, but I gave it an extra point for the profoundly sad final shots - easily the best moments in the film.

Very like Dame Agatha, but hard to follow the plot

[FISHCAKE · 7/10 · 15 March 2001]

This version tries to bring Christie's story accurately, but the editing is so choppy the details of plot are often hard to follow. Not to worry, though, intuitively if not deductively, you'll spot the murderer without much trouble. Good cast, especially Jean Simmons, and great scenery make it a pleasant watch. Joan Hickman, though, as Miss Marple just didn't quite cut it for me.

They Do It with Mirrors

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 26 May 2019]

Miss Marple visits old friends. Ruth van Rydock and her sister Carrie-Louise Serrocold. Ruth is worried about her sister' health.

Carrie-Louise is married to Lewis Serrocold who uses part of the estate as an institute for young offenders. Christian Gulbranson is an trustee who arrives for some urgent business and who is later found dead.

Joan Hickson is excellent as Miss Marple. However this is not one of the better BBC adaptations and I can understand why they held it back.

It takes a while for the murder to happen, until then we are introduced to all sorts of odd characters such as a young man who thinks he is the son of Winston Churchill. Two brothers who inexplicably flirt with a married woman.

It all seemed too padded. There should be more tension as there should had been an assortment of suspects. After all it is set in an institution where young men have criminal records or mental health problems. However the reveal was rushed and did not exactly make sense. I think this could had been done and dusted in a hour.

Look out for a young Jake Wood as one of the reform school boys.

Bowen Shoots Christie

[tedg · 18 October 2003]

Spoilers herein.

Dame Agatha must be turning and turning. She spends her energy finding that thin edge between disclose and confusion to tantalize us into a game. It is among the most engaging trick in all literature.

But along comes the heavy boot of TeeVee which (apparently) demands that people don't want to think, so jettison all the clues and games. Bowen's other adaptations usually plod on and surprise us all at the end. We are not detectives, but among the puzzled people in the parlor to whom explanations are made late.

But this is the worst. Christie often gives indirect clues by setting a theme: here it is illusion, the illusion of magic, of theater, of film, of ballet. He saves all this but makes it blunter. He saves some of the red herring events, but doesn't ripen any of them: what was the `student' doing by sneaking out?

Why do the brothers seriously chase a married woman? Of all the Hickson Marples, this one has the greatest distance between the coherence of the book and the incoherence of the adaptation.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

My favorite Miss Marple is played by Joan Hickson but

[grandmabrat · 7/10 · 12 February 2021]

The background music for this series is the worst in the world. Other than that this is a great series. Best scenery, great plots, great actors. You've seen it before but not this well, except for the awful music. They do better plotting and better scripts so you know the background and the setting, but the awful music. Find a way to edit out that awful music and I would watch these every day.

Quiet a poor production

[Kingslaay · 5/10 · 3 January 2019]

This was quite a poor dramatisation and illustration. It felt too long and drawn out. When we finally arrive to the murder and how it was executed it was very rushed and they annoyingly did not show how it was done, they just said who did it but not how. In Agatha Christie stories the greatest value is delivered at the end when the how and story comes full circle. The viewers were cheated of this.

Not a good production at all and a waste of time.

A Tangled Web.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 19 December 2011]

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.

Couldn't finish watching it

[martin-intercultural · 4/10 · 22 October 2020]

I bought the whole series on DVD. But this closing instalment left me unimpressed. There are so many characters, some of them American, even Miss Marple struggles to keep track of who's who, who's whose ex-husband's son etc. None of them are particularly likeable or attractive, or interesting enough to make you care about them. A lot of speechifying goes on about "the youth are our future", nature vs. nurture, battling bureaucy... Yawn; and hardly the stuff Agatha Christie mysteries are made of. The direction looks inexperienced. The actors are either trying to get it over with or too keen to steal the show. Worst of all, Miss Marple becomes just an extra in this mess.

Not a good adaptation

[alanmarsden · 5/10 · 23 December 2019]

I watched this after watching the Julia McKenzie adaptation and to be honest was disappointed with both adaptations. I read the book about 40 years ago so couldn't remember much of the plot. The McKenzie version altered a lot of the characters and situations. Walter for example was portrayed as a bit of a wimp in the McKenzie version, but a more believable pragmatic man in the Hickson version. No explanation was given as to why Rasterick arrived late and went straight to his room in the Hickson version on the night of the first murder.. My main complaint however was that in both versions, Edgar and a middle aged Lewis can outrun presumably fairly fit policemen to the lake and end up drowning. Obviously, nowadays the police would have to do a health and safety assessment before entering the water, but would this have been the case in the 1950s????

Atmospheric

[lucy-66 · 20 May 2002]

Christie gets in some well aimed digs at fashions in philanthropy and lets reformatory boss Lewis Serocold spout on about the need to trust young offenders and betray a creepy symbiosis with one of the delinquents who should clearly be in a cosy asylum somewhere.

Would ya just kill someone already!

[onepotato2 · 2/10 · 5 October 2009]

Impossibly slow-moving murder mystery. Amateur theatrics, manor houses, ineffective detectives in trench coats... it's very British. There are at least twelve major characters in it. After 15 minutes things are moving so slowly, that a viewer begins wondering "Shouldn't someone be dead by now?" But you still have half an hour to wait. Finally, with twenty minutes left in the movie, things haven't even gotten interesting, and no one stands out as a culprit or as a character. You don't care about the victim, so you sure won't care who did it. The editing is inept. Scenes don't even develop before some intrusive, distant snippet is inserted. The actress playing Marple doesn't look shrewd, instead looking addled most of the time. She might be the least effective actress to play Miss Marple.

It's a mess.

The Helen Hayes Version is Better

[Warin_West-El · 4/10 · 21 January 2023]

IMHO, this is a very odd script. We're introduced to a wealthy, mentally-twisted family that is supposedly helping abused boys recover from their childhood traumas.

Then, out of left field, the filmmakers throw in a subplot involving a theatre and some actors. Which really didn't coalesce with the main plot.

Later on, there is the spectre of the lead female protagonist being slowly poisoned. However (inexplicably) the people who believe this is happening to the woman remained mum. Thank God Miss Marple spilled the beans. Why anyone would knowingly allow a woman to be poisoned without warning her is an antisocial paradigm that was never credibly explained.

This slow, ponderous episode was unnecessarily convoluted and dramatically disjointed. Perhaps there was a mystery in there somewhere . . . Nevertheless I didn't see one.

Based upon other reviews, I sought out and watched the Helen Hayes version. IMHO, it's more fun to watch. Leo McKern was particularly effective as the inspector who served as a foil to Miss Marple. Sadly, Bette Davis was poorly cast. She was ill at the time of filming and it showed.

I enjoyed everything Helen Hayes did, with the exception of a gratuitous monologue by Miss Marple reciting Shakespearean passages. That scene was totally unrelated to the main plot and served no purpose other than to reassure Ms Hayes that she could still deliver the bard's lines with a flourish.

The takeaway is: both versions are poor mysteries. Which indicates the fundamental problem with this story was the plot written by Agatha Christie. Reviewers may fault the actors or the filmmakers but the real culprit was Dame Christie herself.

Another bad adaptation from Agatha Christie.

[deloudelouvain · 3/10 · 13 April 2023]

Yet again I've been fooled by the high ratings a movie gets on here. It's not the first time an Agatha Christie adaptation caught my attention to end up as a disappointment. Every book I read from Agatha Christie is just better than the movies or series and this one wasn't an exception. I thought this one was actually quite boring to watch. I'm amazed some reviewers thought the acting was good. I thought the exact opposite, it was all overacted, bland and not very believable at times. No disrespect to the older actors but some are just good to play in low quality soaps, which they will by the way. Nothing wrong if you like that kind of low quality acting, I just don't. I think I will just stick to the books in the future, they're better anyway.

Inspector Slack Makes the Show

[aramis-112-804880 · 3 May 2023]

This last and least of the Hickson Marples serves one important purpose: to complete the Inspector Slack story arc. Slack (David Horowitz) appears in fewer novels than these TV adaptations suggest, but his involvement is a great source of comic relief through the series.

Apart from that. This story of a stately home of England turned into a home for troubled boys is somewhat lacking.

After Slack, the best feature of this piece is a couple of brothers (played by real-life brothers Christopher and Jay Villiers).

Marple reconnects with old friends but with no real sense on comeraderie. It takes a long time for the murder to appear and the ending is particularly gruesome.