befus's Full Review: Agatha Christie's Marple - Series 1
I've been a fan of Agatha Christie's mysteries for over twenty years. When I began reading her books, I reserved most of my admiration for the ones that featured detective Hercule Poirot, the small but large-egoed Belgian sleuth.
But something's happened in the intervening years. While I still appreciate M. Poirot's dashing adventures, my most recent foray into Christie's novels finds me enjoying the stories that star the demure spinster Jane Marple. Maybe it's because I'm getting older myself and can appreciate Miss Marple's down-to-earth and realistic take on human nature. Maybe it's because, in those intervening years, I've realized how few really wonderful female detectives have graced the pages of fiction. Miss Marple, that resident of St. Mary Mead who loves to drink tea, bird-watch, and knit, is one of the finest.
So it was with enthusiasm that I recently watched the four Miss Marple movies packaged as the Agatha Christie's Marple - Series 1 DVD collection. These movies, all made for television in 2004 and 2005, mark a new Christie era on film with a new actress bringing Miss Marple to life. I was excited to discover that the title role was filled by Geraldine McEwan. The 74 year old is a well known British actress but I only recently “discovered” her in the funny role of Holofernia in Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost.
I’m not overly familiar with the other film and television portrayals of Miss Marple, though there have been several (and the history of the role is detailed in a brief extra in the DVD special features). So unlike some who may have felt that Helen Hayes, or most likely Joan Hickson is the definitive screen Marple, I watched without preconceived ideas of how the part should be acted. Even so, McEwan’s sprightly, energetic Miss Marple surprised me. In the books one senses the character’s gentle sense of humor, but there is nothing subtle about McEwan’s portrayal. She’s proper and certainly looks the role of a prim, old-fashioned lady, but the “tough as nails” spirit that one glimpses in the books is played up here. She goes head to head with local police inspectors, puts herself forward quite aggressively when necessary, and enjoys herself enormously, especially when she knows she’s at least two steps ahead of the professional investigators. McEwan plays Miss Marple with a beaming smile and an expressive voice. She just radiates curiosity and intelligence. One can’t help but like her!
The biggest difference in the interpretation of the character comes through the back story provided for Miss Marple by the screenwriters. This is especially emphasized in Murder at the Vicarage where we’re allowed flashback glimpses of a younger, more passionate Jane than we might have imagined ever existed. I’ve not read every Miss Marple novel (there are twelve in all) but I’ve read several plus some short stories, and I don’t think Christie ever hinted at her sleuth’s back story. Certainly she never gave it this kind of detail. While the flashbacks are handled with creative skill, and while it’s plausible to suppose that anyone who understands human nature as deeply as Miss Marple must have lived deeply herself, I think I might have preferred that her background remain more of a mystery.
My favorite part of the new series just might be the music composed by Dominik Scherrer. I’ve had a hard time getting the zestful, energetic title tune out my head. It’s a suspenseful sounding piece that also reminds one of a dance. Somehow it manages to sound both merry and a bit haunting, two qualities that befit an Agatha Christie mystery.
The Four Films
The collection comes with four films, each presented on its own DVD. The case has a picture of McEwan on the cover, while the separate discs each feature a picture of a prominent character in that particular story. Each disc has brief extra features, usually filmographies for several of the main cast members. The first DVD in the collection, Murder at the Vicarage, also contains a few other special features that pertain to all four films, including background material on Agatha Christie and a lengthy “making of” featurette that highlights each story and showcases interview time with McEwan.
Murder at the Vicarage
I enjoyed this solid retelling of the very first Miss Marple novel Christie ever wrote. The filmmakers took some liberties with the timeframe: the novel was published in 1930 and the film is set in the post-WWII era. But that’s understandable; they wisely chose one era for the whole series. I don’t see how they could have done it otherwise, and this particular era (not incidentally the timeframe in which the majority of the Marple novels were written) turned out to be a good choice. In this and the other three stories, there’s a definite feel of post-war optimism, not to mention the late 40s provides a rich palette of stylish colors, costumes, make-up and decor.
Murder at the Vicarage is set in Miss Marple’s home village, St. Mary Mead. It’s a quiet, rural place where one might think not much happens, except of course, a lot does. As Miss Marple is fond of reminding us, one can see just about every kind of wickedness there is even in a small village…and because of the smallness, one can see it quite close-up, usually through one’s sitting room window!
Colonel Protheroe (the marvelous Derek Jacobi) is an onerous man. No one in the village likes him. His beautiful but strained wife Anne (Janet McTeer) can barely stand him, and he frequently embarrasses or infuriates his young adult daughter Lettice (Christina Cole). He’s almost deaf, he’s rude, and most people in the village, including the Vicar (Tim McInnerny) and his lovely young wife Griselda (Rachel Stirling) have fantasized aloud about how they’d like to do him in if given the chance. Yet for all that, everyone is shocked when he’s discovered shot in the Vicar’s study, slumped over a writing table. Suspicion immediately falls on his wife who has been having a not-so-clandestine affair with the local artist Lawrence Redding (Jason Flemyng). But what about the newcomer Mrs. Lester (Jane Asher) who met with him secretly not long before his death and seemed to know the Colonel better than anyone might have suspected? Then there’s the fact Miss Marple, who just happened to be sitting in her garden right across from the vicarage that day, saw plenty of comings and goings on the road and on the vicarage lawn right around the fatal hour. It’s great fun to watch her put all the pieces together, even the ones that baffle Inspector Slack (Stephen Tompkinson in a terrific turn) who doesn’t know whether to bean her or bless her for her help.
The Body in the Library
This story, based on the third Miss Marple novel published in 1942, has a garish and glamorous feel. Miss Marple is astonished to receive a phone call from her good friend Dolly Bantry (Joanna Lumley) announcing that the body of a young blond woman she and her husband have never seen before has turned up in their library. It turns out that the murdered girl, Ruby Keene (Emma Williams) was a dancer at a resort/nightclub a few towns over. Mrs. Bantry, ever enthusiastic about her friend Jane’s detecting abilities, decides that she and Jane should go spend some time at the resort.
Chief Inspector Melchett (an agitated Simon Callow, who can’t quite believe Miss Marple’s audacity) stays a few steps behind our intrepid detective as they both try to puzzle out the strange clues surrounding Ruby’s death. It turns out that Ruby was about to be adopted by the rich and invalid Conway Jefferson (Ian Richardson) much to the dismay of his son-in-law Mark (Jamie Theakston) and daughter-in-law Adelaide (Tara Fitzgerald). Both of them have been like his children since their spouses, his actual son and daughter, died in an accident, the same accident that left Conway crippled. Did someone want to thwart the adoption scheme? Or is something more sinister going on?
Although there are some fun moments in this story, most especially the performances of Lumley and Callow, this adaptation deviated oddly from the source material. The ending, in fact, was downright un-Christie feeling. Even though I’d not read the book in a long time, I instinctively knew that the ending had been changed and in a way that Christie herself would not have written it. I still can’t figure out what purpose that change served.
A Murder is Announced
I’ve never played the parlor game where a “murder” is dramatically enacted for party-goers to solve, but mystery writers understandably love this set-up. As usual Christie added her own unique twist: the murder “game” is announced in the local paper but the woman who is supposedly hosting the event, Letitia Blacklock (Zoe Wanamaker) doesn’t seem to have a clue as to why. She knows, however, that the townspeople will likely turn up in droves, so she brings out the sherry and charmingly invites them all in. They all stand around waiting for the clock to show 7:30, the time of the supposed “murder.” And at precisely that time, someone attempts to rob the house. The lights go out, mayhem ensues, the robber tries to shoot the hostess and then apparently turns the gun on himself after he fails. It’s not a game! What’s going on here?
If I sound scant on details regarding the names of characters and actors, it’s because there are almost too many to keep track of. This film suffers from slow pacing and complicated action involving a few too many threads. I’m happy that Miss Marple arrives on the scene (she just “happens” to drop in for an extended visit with an old family friend who was at the scene of the crime) and can unravel all those threads, but I enjoyed the unraveling the least of all four films.
4:50 from Paddington
If my enthusiasm flagged a bit during the two middle discs, it picked back up and then some with the creative and exciting final story, 4:50 from Paddington. This was my definite favorite of the four, well-acted, well-paced, played with great humor and even hints of romance.
Miss Marple’s friend Mrs. McGillicuddy (Pam Ferris, whom most people will know from her brief but billowing screen moment as Harry Potter’s awful Aunt Marge) actually witnesses a murder. She glimpses it from the window of her train, in the window of a train running directly opposite. She gets a good glimpse of the girl being strangled, but not a very clear glimpse of the murderer. Still she and Jane figure out where the body must have been dumped from the moving train, although it has yet to turn up and none of the authorities will believe that there’s been a murder at all.
Enter Miss Marple’s young friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow (Amanda Holden) who eagerly agrees to pose as a maid on the estate where Miss Marple is sure the body must be hidden. Right down to her stylish clothes and car, she’s a terrifically Hitchcockian heroine: blonde, beautiful, plucky and in suspenseful danger more often than she realizes. Screenwriter Steven Churchett (who also wrote the screenplay for Vicarage; clearly my favorite writer of the bunch) and director Andy Wilson give the whole story a wonderful Hitchcockian flavor. The dreary somewhat sinister estate of the dysfunctional family under suspicion (yes, Lucy finds the body) is a brilliant setting.
Miss Marple manages to place herself close to the action, staying with an old friend, middle-aged and somewhat geeky Inspector Awdry (Rob Brydon). He’s loath to have beautiful Lucy put herself in such constant danger, but needs her help since she’s on the inside. There are wonderful and down-right funny performances here, especially David Warner as Luther Crackenthorpe (the head of the family), Ben Daniels as drunk brother Alfred, and Michael Landes as the handsome American widower son-in-law who falls for Lucy. I think I suspected just about everyone in the story at some point, and the ending, though far-fetched, was believably quirky and delightfully satisfying. Very Christie!
My star ratings for the individual movies would vary, but despite some adaptations that will make Christie purists wince, my overall rating for the collection as a whole is a solid 4 stars. I especially recommend the first and last stories in the collection, which provide marvelous fun. McEwan anchors them all with her engaging and highly enjoyable performance as Miss Marple. The series has continued with the filming of the other eight novels, and the second batch is already out as the “Series 2” collection. Fans of Miss Marple and Geraldine McEwan have much to look forward to.
~befus, 2007
Recommended:
Yes
Viewing Format: DVD Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
MOVIE DVD - Portrayed on previous occasions by such actresses as Margaret Rutherford, Helen Hayes, Angela Lansbury and Joan Hickson, Agatha Christie's...More at Barnes and Noble
Four of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple thrillers are adapted for the screen in this collection of the popular British TV show. "The Murder at The Vicar...More at HotMovieSale.com
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