mark.waltz
Fun, star filled mystery, this cut off from the Hercules Poirot films went back to an already familiar Agatha Christie character, Miss Jane Marple. Less "tweedy" than Margaret Rutherford who played the part in several well remembered 1960's films, Angela Lansbury is every bit as clever as her predecessor if less snoopy, only sticking her nose in if she happens to smell a clue.This entry has Miss Marple's town a agog over the arrival of a film crew and its major stars, filming "Mary Queen of Scots". Playing the leading role is the still gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor whose director husband Rock Hudson is trying to protect her allegedly fragile state. Taylor's old rival (Kim Novak) shows up to play Queen Elizabeth and this begins a series of amusing bitch fights between the two divas, interrupted on occasion by murder. Who would want to murder la Liz, and accidentally kill an over zealous fan and her assistant? While the local police zoom in, it's up to Miss Marple to really dig deep to figure it all out.Among the suspects are Tony Curtis as a crass producer, Geraldine Chaplin as a blackmailing secretary, the nasty Novak (who wants to change history to increase her part at Taylor's expense) and Taylor or Hudson for mysterious reasons of their own. The witty and calculating script will keep you guessing, and long after you have seen it, you'll want to revisit what lead its star to T.V. immortality as a New England variation of the same character. The ending is tragically heart wrenching.
Jonathon Dabell
Following the all-star Agatha Christie extravaganzas Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile, a similarly impressive cast is assembled for The Mirror Crack'd. The difference this time is that the story is not one of the many Hercule Poirot entries that Christie wrote; instead, it features her 'other' celebrated creation, Miss Marple. One of the main problems with the film is that Miss Marple doesn't really feature enough in the action. She is confined to her home for much of the film, meaning there are long stretches where she is absent from the screen (worse, this makes her ability to solve the murder by piecing together second-hand information, descriptions and accounts very hard to swallow. It's like asking us to believe Sherlock Holmes figured out the Hound of the Baskervilles mystery without going to Dartmoor, without leaving London... heck, without even setting foot outside 221b Baker Street!)A film crew descends on the small English village of St. Mary Mead. They are there to shoot a costume picture about the times of Queen Elizabeth 1st and Mary, Queen of Scots. The lead role is to be played by Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor), once an international superstar and multi-Oscar-winning actress, now a forgotten face (she gave birth to a mentally retarded baby after contracting German measles during her wartime pregnancy, and subsequently suffered a severe nervous breakdown). Another key role is to be played by Lola Brewster (Kim Novak), a bitchy diva who revels in engaging in a war of words with Marina. Others present include the director, Marina's husband Jason Rudd (Rock Hudson); the producer Marty Fenn (Tony Curtis); Jason's production assistant and possible adulterous partner Ella Zielinsy (Geraldine Chaplin); and a whole entourage of actors and crew. During a pre-shoot party, a local busybody named Heather Babcock (Maureen Bennett) approaches Marina and bores her with a story about how much of a fan she is of her career. Later Heather dies after drinking a poisoned cocktail, possibly intended for Marina. Scotland Yard policeman Dermot Craddock (Edward Fox) arrives to find out whodunit. He calls upon his injured, housebound aunt, Jane Marple (Angela Lansbury), who lives locally, to seek her expertise in uncovering the killer.Lansbury is great as ever as Miss Marple, though she needed way more screen time than she is given. The verbal sparring between Taylor and Novak is enjoyably done, while Hudson plays Taylor's husband pretty well. Perhaps the best of the supporting performances comes from Fox as the Scotland Yard detective - a deceptively canny policeman who also happens to be a movie buff. Some of the actors are a little wasted, like Curtis, Chaplin and Charles Gray as a butler. The resolution to the mystery is decent enough, with sufficient red herrings thrown in to keep the killer concealed, but the closing scene is rather confused. John Cameron's score has a habit of launching off into an ill-fitting 'sexy' saxophone style which rarely fits the mood of the film, while Guy Hamilton directs it all in ploddingly efficient fashion. Not the best Christie adaptation ever made; nor the worst. A passable entry, but, given the calibre of the talent involved, it could and should have been much better.
petrelet
Sorry to say it, but IMHO this is a really bad production, particularly considered as a mystery film and particularly in comparison with the BBC productions (1992 and 2010) which show how this material should really be handled. Curtis and Novak play a film producer and a camera-hugging starlet as heavy-handed stereotypes straight out of a "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoon. Of course both can do better - clearly it's the director's fault for allowing/encouraging it. Taylor and Hudson try to provide some balance but can't overcome Hales's screenplay and Hamilton's direction. Both of the latter appear to believe that the viewers have never heard of Christie, Marple, or mysteries, and have to be forcibly guided through the game with cheats and walkthroughs. Plot points and clues which are subtly introduced, or discovered through deduction, in the novel (and in the BBC versions) are here spelled out loudly, notoriously, early, and with audiovisual effects.
elshikh4
It is so elegant picnic, through elegant places, and among elegant people. You're accompanied by lovely music, serenely-colored cinematography, and sedate directing. This is my kind of "afternoon", "calm down", "have a nice time", movie. Yet it has more to it. More of what can exceed the eye enjoyment to the mind enjoyment.Talking about the eye enjoyment; Taylor, Hudson, Novak, Lansbury, Chaplin, Fox, and Curtis are all here and doing well. I believe it wasn't the tradition back then with movies based on Agatha Christie's novels, rather it was another battle in the war between cinema and TV since the late 1950s, where mobilizing many stars was always a good weapon. I love to think sometimes that the good the TV reaches, in terms of quality and popularity, the more these star-studded movies are made. Notice well that the 1970s was the golden age of the "crime solvers" shows on TV, thus gathering all star cast for a crime solver movie at the time was more like "we can fight fire with fire" from the cinema side !Lansbury was wow as Miss Marple. Maybe that what made her win the role of Jessica Fletcher, in the TV show (Murder, She Wrote) 4 years later, which was less connected to Miss Marple and more Agatha Christie-like. It lasted for 12 seasons for some reasons; one of their first is Lansbury's exceptional charm. However, pardon me all, Elizabeth Taylor stole the show this round. While being not one of my favorites, I have to admit that Taylor showed some acting muscles as the unsettled, yet deeply wounded, movie star Marina Rudd. Still the scene of interrogating her by Edward Fox's character is the top of this movie, one of the evidences why she's considered an acting icon, and an interesting intro to the movie's intellectual core; which was presented somehow in its title.Now Taylor plays an actress who acts on everybody in real life as a victim, while being the actual killer. At that specific scene, she was trying to resist the investigator by her only weapon : acting. However, he exposed every try with his movie culture and certain love for that star. The original "crack in the mirror" happened when she couldn't resist anymore, and the divider between her played character and real self collapsed; thus she could see the criminal in herself, not the victim, which pushed her to committing suicide eventually. Throughout the movie there were many other cracks, between fiction and reality, however deeper. One when you watch the stars of the 1950s, after passing their prime, making a movie – in the 1980s – where they act as stars in the 1950s, after passing their prime, trying to make a movie ! Remember the hints about Hudson as a has-been, Taylor as unstable.. these are wicked cracks in the movie's mirror for sure ! (At least while the 1950s movie within the movie didn't complete, the movie of the 1980s did!).Another cracks, not less wicked, when Hudson and Curtis, while playing film director and producer respectively, speak openly about some of the movie industry's facts, such as "the director gives the producer an ulcer", "the matter of which actress's name will be written first is defined by which one sleeps with the producer!". They're shown as rude jokes, but maybe there is a mirror crack there, where we watch not a tame image of something, but the real deal ! Surprisingly the biggest "mirror crack" this movie has is the fact that it's nearly based on real story. As I read, American film star Gene Tierney, while pregnant with her first daughter, contracted German measles after a performance she did to the American soldiers in June 1943. Because of her illness, her daughter was born disabled. Tierney met that fan later, and learned that she had sneaked out of quarantine, while sick with German measles, to meet the star after her performance for the American soldiers in June 1943. Christie inspired the incident, showing maybe the scariest revenge a star had on an importunate fan.Actually cinema, as an art and world, had enough share of satire in this movie's conscience. It is shown as a devise which doesn't tell right history but makes its own version of it; e. g. changing the historical fact of what Queen Mary's guards wore as long as it didn't please the director (!). Not only this, you can powerfully touch a darkness that the cinema's glossy world contains : e.g. 2 stars smile for a photo while insulting each other whisperingly, a seemingly nostalgic conversation between a star and her devoted fan turns into a murder, a joyful party that contains a murder done in so cold blood.. etc. It's the main smart irony here : fiction vs. reality, shapeliness vs. ugliness, or simply the image reflected in nothing but burnished yet cracked mirror.That itself is pictured brilliantly. While the image is smooth, colorful, and bright, we have – in the same time – a fan who deformed a star's baby, a star who killed her secretary, a producer who tried to kill his wife, and a star who killed her fan, then herself at the end. The serene image, a mark of director Guy Hamilton's movies, represented the catchy element that it used to be, and – also – a fine contradiction with the disturbing events, as if all of that beauty is a mask to cover the beast, which consolidated the movie's both artistic and intellectual personality.So, as you see, I enjoy this movie, and not only for its good mystery, stars, and image. It does have more to it. That's why it's one of the best Agatha Christie's adaptations. In most of the other adaptations you may find nothing else good mystery, stars, and image !
