Watch Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage For Free

Fresh and Exciting

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I don't believe there are any spoilers. I enjoyed this one. It was easy to have compassion for the varying characters and their situations. Miss Marple was as observant and as keyed in to the actual situation as ever.I've seen this one often and will again.

Colonel Protheroe is a resident of St. Mary Mead and a loathsome man. A magistrate, forceful, opinionated and tyrannical. It comes as no surprise when he's shot dead, plenty of suspects including his adulterous wife, her lover, his ex wife, and a local petty criminal. Hailing from the same village it comes as no surprise that local sleuth Jane Marple is first on the scene, much to the annoyance of Detective Inspector Slack.The first Miss Marple story that Christie wrote, and a classic plot, one that could have been delivered in a too heavy handed way, with the killer seeming obvious, but the production team managed to divert attention and keep the viewer guessing.Plaudits to the casting director, who did an exceptional job, primarily with the pairing of Paul Eddington and Cheryl Campbell, they are exquisite as the Vicar and his wife, Campbell manages to be sympathetic, funny and utterly charming, I would say she's the standout.The St. Mary Mead gossip team are wonderful, so believable, Rosalie Crutchley and Barbara Hicks are delightful, with the latter returning six years later for the final episode. I love the dynamic between Miss Marple and slack, the annoyance would last years.The music is excellent throughout, helping to add mystery to the story without being too much. As always a huge focus on attention to detail, the fashion, cars etc all on point.A cracking mystery 9/10

Hickson is by far the best Miss Marple onscreen. Her performances make these cozy mysteries really entertaining. The screen adaptations in the series are a bit uneven, but I enjoyed all of them. I especially liked this one, "A Murder is Announced", and "Sleeping Murder". The production values for the series were quite good, the supporting actors always at least passable and sometimes far better than that, and they didn't take too many liberties with the stories. But Hickson's performances are uniformly excellent.

It is difficult to understand ITV's decision to remake the Miss Marple series, because in Joan Hickson we have the definitive interpretation of Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth. This particular story, Miss Marple's first fictional outing,dates from 1930, but the writer, T.R. Bowen has skilfully updated it to the 1950s. The script is witty and the cast is endowed with such acting stalwarts as Paul Eddington and Rosalie Crutchley. If the plot does not seem so original now it is because Christie's work was so often copied, and what must have seemed innovative in 1930 now appears to be hackneyed. All that said it is a story well told and worth a couple of hours of anyone's time.