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i must have seen a different film!!

Excellent but underrated film

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I had only seen a few Agatha Christie based film and TV adaptations before this one, including And Then There Were None and Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express, I was initially not sure whether to watch this film at all, directed by Guy Hamilton (The Colditz Story, Goldfinger, Live and Let Die). Basically in the small English village of St. Mary Mead, home of Miss Jane Marple (Angela Lansbury), a big Hollywood movie company have arrived to make a movie about Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. The movie stars famous stars Marina Rudd (Dame Elizabeth Taylor) and Lola Brewster (Kim Novak), Marina arrives with her husband, the movie's director Jason (Rock Hudson), Lola arrives with her husband Marty Fenn (Tony Curtis), Maria is angry that Brewster is going to be in the movie with her, they loathe each other. Marina has been getting death threats, she attends a party at the manor house Gossington Hall, with a number of celebrity and the locals invited, her devoted fan Heather Babcock (Maureen Bennett) corners her with a long and boring story, when she does eventually walk away she drinks a cocktail that has been poisoned and dies. Scotland Yard Inspector Dermot Craddock (Edward Fox) is assigned to investigate the murder, his aunt Miss Marple helps him, it is assumed that the poisoned drink was meant for Marina, but they are determined to reveal the real murderer. A number of other hidden facts are uncovered along the way, including Rudd having an affair with production assistant Ella Zielinski (Geraldine Chaplin), but in the end Miss Marple reveals that Maria murdered Babcock, for giving her German measles while she was pregnant, causing her child to be born with mental retardation, Maria is found dead from supposedly poisoning herself. Also starring Anthony Steel as Sir Derek Ridgeley, Dinah Sheridan as Lady Amanda Ridgeley, Oriane Grieve as Kate Ridgely, Thick Wilson as The Mayor, Richard Pearson as Doctor Haydock, Charles Lloyd Pack as Vicar, Eric Dodson as The Major, Carolyn Pickles as Miss Giles, Charles Gray as Bates the Butler, Margaret Courtenay as Mrs. Bantry, Wendy Morgan as Cherry and Pierce Brosnan as Actor playing 'Jamie'. This was four years before Lansbury started playing Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote, she is alright as the cuddly old sleuth, many of the all-star cast members play their parts fine, but it is all to no avail as the script is lacklustre, to be honest I drifted off a quarter of the way through, a fairly boring mystery. Adequate!

Set in 1953, the third in the Brabourne/ Goodwin series of Christie adaptations is set in a chocolate-box English village full of stereotypical characters - the vicar (Charles Lloyd Pack), the mayor (Thick Wilson), the bourgeois lady (Margaret Courtenay), the gossipy homemaker (Maureen Bennett), the Major (Eric Dodson) and Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury). Into this edenic world comes a troupe of American filmmakers producing a historical drama centered around Queen Elizabeth: led by a pair of warring actresses (Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak), an egotistical director (Rock Hudson) and a megalomaniac producer (Tony Curtis), they find the English way of life quaint yet ultimately irritating. Guy Hamilton's film gains much of its comic impetus from the clash of cultures, especially when Taylor's Marina Rudd deigns to walk through the village fête, attracting more than her fair share of admirers among the villagers. In the end the pseudo-sophistication of the Americans is outwitted by Miss Marple's ingenuity as she solves the case of an apparently motiveless murder. Compared to the other three adaptations, the plot of THE MIRROR CRACK'D is relatively straightforward; the ending is a little peremptory, suggesting that it might have been tacked on to the film at a later date. Lansbury's Miss Marple directly foreshadows her performance as Jessica Fletcher in the long-running television series MURDER SHE WROTE, her apparently genteel exterior concealing a mind like a steel trap. Edward Fox turns in a nuanced performance as the dogged Inspector Craddock, doggedly pursuing his investigations in spite of the Americans' best attempts to divert him, either through rudeness (as in Hudson's case) or through performance (as in Taylor's case). Eventually, however, even his efforts prove futile as compared to Miss Marple.

This isn't the best film adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery or even in the top five. Those would probably be Murder on the Orient Express, Evil Under the Sun, Witness for the Prosecution, the Judith Anderson version of And Then There Were None and Murder, She Said with Margaret Rutherford but this does have some pleasures to be found within.Chief among those pleasure is the cast. Guy Hamilton, who followed this up with Evil Under the Sun, managed to corral a great deal of high quality talent. Angela Lansbury makes an okay Miss Marple but her obvious makeup detracts from her being completely believable in the part. Geraldine Chaplin is also fine as Taylor's assistant although her part doesn't offer much depth. Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson team well giving off that old time movie star glamour, this was Rock's second to last theatrical feature and the last time he looked really well on the screen, but it's not their story that really sets off sparks on screen. The real scene stealer who walks off with every second she's on view is Kim Novak in an absolute gem of a comic performance. She looks sensational and the barbed dialog she and Liz share is worth the price of admission itself. The only real drawback is that the story is an obvious ripoff of Gene Tierney's personal tragedy and from that angle, since it sticks so close to the details, it is in rather bad taste. However the story was widely known so could have been considered in the public domain.Overall a well made, pleasant entertainment.

Sorry to say it, but IMHO this is a really bad production, particularly considered as a mystery film and particularly in comparison with the BBC productions (1992 and 2010) which show how this material should really be handled. Curtis and Novak play a film producer and a camera-hugging starlet as heavy-handed stereotypes straight out of a "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoon. Of course both can do better - clearly it's the director's fault for allowing/encouraging it. Taylor and Hudson try to provide some balance but can't overcome Hales's screenplay and Hamilton's direction. Both of the latter appear to believe that the viewers have never heard of Christie, Marple, or mysteries, and have to be forcibly guided through the game with cheats and walkthroughs. Plot points and clues which are subtly introduced, or discovered through deduction, in the novel (and in the BBC versions) are here spelled out loudly, notoriously, early, and with audiovisual effects.