Up until last year, I’d only seen two of the dozen British TV movies and miniseries starring Joan Hickson as Miss Jane Marple. As a matter of fact I hadn’t realized there were that many. But last summer I picked The Murder at the Vicarage for a family movie night on a whim, and since then we’ve ended up working our way through all twelve. Now that I’ve seen them all, I thought it would be fun to do a ranking of them in the order of my favorites. As you can see, I’ve ranked them based on my overall enjoyment rather than strictly on their accuracy to source material, although I have to say that none of these films do any real violence to the original storylines.
A Murder is Announced (1985)
By far my favorite of the lot—a wonderful three-part adaptation that does full justice to one of my favorite Marple books, with excellent casting and performances. I don’t think I really have any bones to pick at all with this one, which is a rare thing when I watch a classic mystery adaptation.
The Moving Finger (1985)
This one surprised me, because it was one of my less favorite books! On film, though, I liked it a lot. The classic village setting where Miss Marple is so much at home, and a straightforward but clever plot involving anonymous letters and murder, all very well done.
The Murder at the Vicarage (1986)
I liked this one just moderately the first time I saw it, but found I warmed to it more on watching it a second time. I think it’s largely because of things like the charm of St. Mary Mead on film, the likeable characters of the vicar and his wife, and the particularly entertaining scenes of interplay between Miss Marple and her quasi-nemesis, the uptight Inspector Slack. All the key elements of the book are there, though I was a bit sorry they dropped a couple of small subplots that added texture to the story.
They Do it With Mirrors (1991)
Much, much better than the dreadful 1985 version. The casting is excellent in this one, and it has all the atmosphere of English stately-home-and-countryside that the other lacked. My one criticism would be that a few key clues are not really emphasized enough—they are present in the scenes where they belong, but are never touched upon in the eventual explanation, so if you hadn’t read the book you might easily overlook their significance. However, I enjoyed the overall effect enough that I didn’t mind this too much. (The shoehorning in of a bizarre modernist ballet sequence seems rather pointless, but doesn’t affect the plot).
Sleeping Murder (1987)
An almost faultless adaptation! It even comes across with slightly more color and personality than the book, which was a little vague and neutral when it came to setting. The only mildly annoying change was moving the climactic scene from daytime to night to try and wring a little extra suspense out of it, which has the unintentional side-effect of making the heroine’s behavior look rather idiotic. All else is perfectly on-point, however.
At Bertram’s Hotel (1987)
I actually think the film format does some favors to the later novels, which were a little rambling: the script is able to focus on the essential elements and streamline them into a good order. The adaptation of this one is pretty much flawless (and I loved the character of the cheerful police inspector who sings snatches of Gilbert and Sullivan to himself on the job). The only minor misstep is the casting of an actress with a very weak and husky voice as Lady Selina, since there is so much information important to the plot scattered through her gossiping conversations early in the film.
4.50 From Paddington (1987)
This one is one of my favorite Marple novels and the first of the Hickson adaptations I saw, so I have a soft spot for it (which is why it just squeaks in over Nemesis). It’s pretty accurate overall, but I think it’s a great pity they left out some of the most fun parts (Lucy’s string of proposals, for example, and the twist to the Martine subplot) and changed the second murder to something more obvious and garish instead of the very clever poisoning plot from the book. (Also I thought Cedric was badly miscast.)
Nemesis (1987)
Like At Bertram’s Hotel, this one does a really good job pulling together a rambling plot and making it a little more cohesive. Giving Miss Marple a traveling companion so she has a sounding-board to share her discoveries with makes good sense, though I found the invented character of her godson—or perhaps just the actor’s performance—not very interesting. I can also understand why the writers chose to change the fate of the accused man in the cold case, to add a little more sense of urgency, but it’s rather less plausible. Very good casting, performances and scenery, though.
A Caribbean Mystery (1989)
Not bad at all as far as accuracy of adaptation goes. I did feel that there was less of Miss Marple herself in this one, somehow (though her scenes with Mr. Rafiel were all very well done). The Hillingdon-Dyson subplot didn’t come off very well: it gave away some things too early and made excuses for others, and everyone involved except for Evelyn was too unappealing to even be interesting. I suppose, in the end, the Caribbean setting just doesn’t appeal to me as much as the English countryside—Miss Marple’s being a fish out of water is a main element of the story, but seeing it on film seems to emphasize it even more, making her seem just a little lost and on the fringes of things, even though she does eventually solve the mystery.
The Body in the Library (1984)
Though this is one of the classic Marple novels, somehow the film version didn’t quite cut it for me—the pacing dragged a touch, the tone wasn’t as sprightly as the book, and a lot of the minor characters were somewhat underdeveloped
The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (1992)
Accurate, and with the key scenes around the murder itself quite well done; but seemed to spend more time focused on the bickering among Marina Gregg’s unlikable entourage than on the mystery plot, and just a little more harsh and crass in tone overall. (And why is Inspector Craddock suddenly Miss Marple’s nephew? He did end up calling her “Aunt Jane” in the books after they had worked together for a long time and grown to be good friends, but somebody seems to have missed the point that they aren’t actually related!)
A Pocket Full of Rye (1985)
This one was always one of my least favorites of the books, a rather gloomy story without any really likable characters, and the movie does nothing to improve on that (on the contrary, it seems to take something of a relish in playing up the unpleasantness of the murders).
passage on the stagecoach each week, it’s a bit surprising the show didn’t last longer. Perhaps the series leads didn’t have enough star power, or perhaps the pleasantly understated characters they played didn’t have the swagger to compete with other, flashier TV Western headliners.