Murder Ahoy
Director: George Pollock
Year: 1964
Rating: 6.0
This is the final film in the Margaret Rutherford
series of Agatha Christie's four Miss Marple films and the one I was most
dreading. I watched all of these a few eons ago and the only one I recalled
with any clarity was this one which I remembered as just being very silly.
Rutherford all dressed up in official navy duds and the goofy captain of
the ship played by Lionel Jeffries as pure British farce. Well, I guess over
the years I have softened around the middle because this was quite as I recalled
it - very silly - but I enjoyed it. A certain comfort exists with our three
returning characters - Miss Marple, her right hand man played by her real
life husband Stringer Davis and the always befuddled Inspector played by
Charles Tingwell - and it makes for easy predictable watching. It sort of
makes me wish there were a few more of these though in a quick cameo both
Rutherford and Davis are in another Christie film as their characters - the
abysmal The Alphabet Murders in 1965 with Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot.
Christie's friends forbid her from seeing it. I wish mine had done the same.
Speaking of Christie, all of these films have tiny tributes to her - a book,
a play - in this one there are two that I caught - as Miss Marple looks for
a mystery The Doom Box that she thinks inspired the killings she passes by
a Christie novel, Three Act Tragedy featuring Poroit - and later she refers
to Mousetrap a few times which of course is the title of her long running
play which has been running in London since 1952. In fact, this film makes
no pretense of being based on a specific book - after making mincemeat of
the first three supposed adaptations why bother.
Miss Marple has become trustee of a foundation that funds a ship that trains
unruly youths in the way of the sea and discipline. When one of the other
trustees dies from a sniff of poisoned snuff right before he is about to
tell of something he has discovered Miss Marple of course investigates after
the police laugh at her theory. She dons Navy attire and her authority as
a trustee to come aboard and stay there. Bodies begin to drop or in one case
actually rise on the yardarm of the ship. Marple sets a mouse trap for the
murderer with herself as the cheese. She has to undergo a lengthy sword fight
through the ship to survive (with the help of Mr. Stinger) - it isn't exactly
Errol Flynn against Basil Rathbone but it is a good effort. These are fun
films though not to be taken seriously for a second. For good Miss Marple,
I can't recommend the TV episodes with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple enough
- they are brilliant.
Rutherford had a few more films in her after this one but by 1967 it was
becoming apparent that she was in the initial stages of Alzheimer when she
could not remember her lines for a play. Mr. Stringer of course stayed by
her side till her death in 1972. He was to pass away a year later.
