Miss Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1992)

An Exercise In Nonsense

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Hard to pin down the year of this episode from autos. Many anachronistic models spanning more than one decade-more like 2decades. Did not spoil the episode for me as they were great to see and so many super clean, no dust or rain spots. I loved them all. 2018 now so all were vintage today.

I know I'm missing something because so many reviewers have found this a flawed but admirable adaptation, whereas I found it torpid and not very interesting, outside of some of the performances.I couldn't follow the plot or the reasoning behind it until the last few moments, after the suicide, when all was revealed in a cascade of off-hand comments that was too fast for comprehension by slow and deliberate minds.Claire Bloom still looks good after a career of more than forty years, although she may no longer be the delectable Lady Anne. (Who is?) And John Castle as Miss Marple's nephew, a police inspector, seems very handsome with his silver hair. His expression is sober and intense except when he appears to smirk. At any rate he's more interesting as a character than Joan Hickson herself, as Miss Marple, who is recklessly intuitive and has little presence except as what used to be called a little old lady before we all came down with a serious case of rubella, I mean political correctness. Rubella. I believe that may have been the name of my fifth-grade English teacher. Yes, it was. Miss Rubella DeGroot. She always hated me for mispronouncing "irrevocable".Kidding aside, I was lost in the intricacies of the plot and I'm still lost. I don't know, for instance, what the portrait of the Madonna and child had to do with anything.Damn, I miss Hercule Poirot in these mysteries. He was always willing to take the time to explain things slowly and in some detail, repeating them as necessary, as if speaking to a young child. That's what some of us duller bulbs need. Less intricacy and less gossip and more Explanations For Dummies.

The village is all of a buzz at the news that the Hall has been bought by American film star Marina Greg and her husband Jason Rudd. When Greg throws a garden party of the locals it ends badly whenever a local woman from the St John's suddenly falls ill and dies. The autopsy finds that she has been poisoned and that it most likely came from a drink – a drink intended for Marina Greg. With such a high profile murder on his hands, Superintendent Slack calls for help in the form of DI Craddock, who also happens to be the nephew of one Miss Marple. With her insightful mind and his detective work the future is bright but the ongoing threats against Greg shows that time is not on their side.It is ironic that some fans of the BBC's Miss Marple don't rate this film as highly as some others because personally I think this is one of the more enjoyable ones I have seen recently, probably for the same reasons that others don't. It might be the presence of American accents, or the use of the film world as a backdrop or the use of humour within the plot and characters but somehow this film had more life and energy to it than some of the other films. The plot moves along quickly and we have the death within thirty minutes rather than the usual hour; this means we spent little time dawdling before the story starts. After this point it keeps up a good pace and is enjoyable from start to finish. The mystery itself benefits from the pace and avoids the trap of being deadly dull, becoming something that feels a bit lighter and more entertaining – although fans of CSI will still struggle with the rather sedentary pace it still has in common with the rest of the series.The addition of comedy to the character of Miss Marple is welcome, as is the way she is a bit edgy and rude at times (well, by comparison anyway). Hickson takes to this well – playing off her housekeeper well and having a frustration that I hadn't seen before. Castle works well as her nephew and leads the investigation well as a sort of sidekick to her. The presence of Bloom and Newman add a bit of class to proceedings and by virtue of being American help to loosen the rather tight corset that this series always wore. I thought Gregory's (Fenn) accent was awful but when I found out he was American I realised that it must just be an all round bad performance rather a problem with accents. Support is roundly good and all do their bit to keep the film moving by never being too stiff or "English".Overall this is not the film that will win fans of the MTV mystery series (CSI etc) but it is one of the lively films from the BBC Miss Marple series. The story, characters and tone all work together to produce a rather flowing story that has more interest and pace to it than I have seen in other Marple films and it made it more fun than usual.

I have a problem with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Although Agatha Christie always considered her as the ideal Miss Marple (way before she even played the detective) I think she is too slow, too boring, too anything but exciting. The TV movie has nothing to do with the 1981 Angela Lansbury - version, but has everything to do with the book. In the 1981 version, lots of characters had been dropped that were in the book, but in this tv movie, every detail has been respected. But I missed the catty relationship between the two movie stars like in the 1981 film.