This is the second of twelve in the TV series starring Joan Hickson as Agatha
Christie's Miss Marple, the spinster nosey parker solver of murders in quiet
English villages. Hickson is the Miss Marple that Christie deserved after
the silly (but enjoyable) Margaret Rutherford series, a film from Angela
Lansbury and two TV films from Helen Hayes. Christie had passed away before
this series began in 1984 but years previously she had written to Hickson,
after seeing her on stage in her Appointment with Death, that she hoped someday
she would play Miss Marple.
It took Christie a long time to warm up to her Miss Marple character. Hercule
Poirot was her bread and butter for years though she tired of him eventually.
Her first Marple book came out in the 1930 Murder at the Vicarage but she
didn't return to Marple until 1942 with The Body in the Library, then another
and then another long gap. In total she wrote twelve Miss Marple novels and
the TV series covers them all. The nice thing about these adaptations is
that they actually stick to the books. The Rutherford series was a mash for
Marple fans - two of the films came from Poirot novels, one was entirely
made up and the other changed things about considerably. A TV series came
after Hickson's starring Geraldine McEwan and later Julia McKenzie, but it
too fiddled quite a bit with the books. I have never understood that. Christie
was the best selling author of all time - why did script writers feel the
need to muck things up. Always for the worse.
Having just read A Murder is Announced (1950), I could see that the three-part
(3 hours) TV film was completely faithful to the degree of often using the
same dialogue as the book. And it is very good. This was one of Christie's
best novels in my opinion though a bit farfetched perhaps. A notice has been
placed in the local paper that a murder will take place at Little Paddocks,
the home of Miss Blacklock. No one has any idea who placed it and what it
is all about but a handful of curious neighbors show up at the appointed
time - the lights go off - the door opens - a man tells everyone to put their
hands up - and a gun begins firing. The last shot kills himself. An apparent
accident. Inspector Craddock doesn't know what to make of it and is advised
by a superior to go talk to an elderly lady staying at a hotel nearby. What
on earth for? Because she has the most brilliant criminal mind in England.
Miss Marple knits and reads the evidence and says this seems obvious. Obvious
that he shot himself, you mean? Oh no, obvious that someone put him up to
it and murdered him.
Hickson is tremendous - captures Marple perfectly - quiet, unassuming, observant
of everything around her and a mind like a steel trap. Those moments when
something occurs that makes her brain click as to the killer's identity are
nearly chilling as she stares straight ahead with her pale blue eyes and
you know justice is on its way. Hickson was born in 1906 making her 78 when
she began the Marple series. The last one was in 1992. She passed away in
1998. She was primarily in theater in her younger days but did film as well
- usually in small bit parts that I have come across - a couple of them in
Christie based films. She was in a few TV series as well but when BBC decided
to make the definitive Miss Marple films, they wanted someone like the Marple
of the books and decided on Hickson. I watched all of these years ago with
my mother who loved Christie and passed that on to me. My father on the other
hand was pure hard boiled detective stuff (also passed on to me) and would
refuse to watch them with us!
