The Pale Horse

I have been a fan of Agatha Christie for about eight years now, reading her books and the adaptations based on her work. I just love her compelling stories, memorable characters and atmosphere you get when reading. The Pale Horse I was sceptical of, the book is wonderful and one of the best of her later works and I was worried it would be another Sittaford Mystery, Nemesis or At Bertram's Hotel. While not the best of the series, The Pale Horse is far better than I thought it would be, and I was actually expecting it to be worse than it was.

My only real quibble is the pace, the middle segment dragged a bit and had a couple of scenes that either didn't move the story forward as much as ought to have done or were a little too long. That said, the dialogue has its good spots, and the direction is solid on the whole with some interesting little things. The story is compelling mostly even with the changes, it is coherent with a very impressive, chilling atmosphere and intriguing final solution, while the production values are superb with beautiful photography and settings and the music just adds to the atmosphere the adaptation does have. The acting is very good, Julia McKenzie is a terrific Miss Marple and JJ Field also stands out as he manages to do something special with a role that could have been uninteresting or obvious, everything from the body language, voice, face and little things were very well done and contributed to a very good performance.

All in all, much better than I thought it would be. Is it a faithful adaptation? Things are changed certainly, but it is not a complete re-write, and very watchable on its own terms. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I like this Pale Horse better than the 1997 one which did not have a Miss Marple character. This one with Julie McKenzie as Miss Marple was very different than the 1997 version. There were a lot of surprises and intrigue.

As always in Miss Marple and the police work together and spend a lot of time at the end of the movie with all the characters explaining who did what and how they came to their conclusion of who committed the crime.

At the end it was a big surprise ending for me. I just did not expect the way it turned out. This movie had a lot of unexpected surprises and it made it very interesting.

Julia McKenzie is as good as Joan Hickson as the mischievous Miss Marple;both are closer to Christie's character than the sturdy Margaret Rutherford in George Pollock's sixties movies.

I read "the pale horse" a long long time ago but I remember the black magic,an unusual subject for the writer.Note that Ariadne Oliver was replaced by Jane Marple.The first sequences ,in a foggy street ,looks more like a Sherlock Holmes adventure ,but what remains takes place in one of these small villages where the old lady pulls the rug from Under the cop's feet.It includes a (mortal) equivalent of Viagra-not in the book-,a list of people who mysteriously died after staying in that "Pale Horse" (from the Apocalypse?),a priest who was murdered after confessing a dying woman,a secret ceremony in which the three witches invoke the evil spirits ,a man in a wheelchair who might be able to walk (and kill?).

I'm not one of those to bash the film just because it doesn't completely and exactly mirror the book. I didn't read it anyway, so judging from what we actually saw in the movie, it's safe to say that gloomy, dark whodunits go very well with the rural, romantic landscapes of English countryside. The production is on its usual high level with Julia McKenzie in the role of Jane Marple, and she actually manages to pull it rather well off. I never really liked Joan Hutchingson, so McKenzie fit the bill much better. The Pale Horse is a small town inn where Marple stays to inquire into the murder of her friend, father German, who dies the same day she received his the letter,after tending to a dying woman who gives it to him, with a list of names. What follows is a series of murders all of which are somehow linked to the The Pale inn, whose owners present themselves as witches with special powers able to control other people's psyche. Eventually, Marple discovers that there's nothing surreal about the murders and lures the culprit into the light by one of the most impressive twists I've seen in the Marple series. The downside is that it takes a bit of time until you work out the connections between the characters and their motives, and it's somehow clear from the very start that the inn owner is up to no good. There are certain echoes of "The Ninth Gate" here, albeit probably unconscious. All in all, good Sunday fun in spite of a few rough spots along the way.

The Pale Horse has some fine actors and performances, albeit a few chosen for popularity rather than their acting prowess. The production value is without fault and Julia McKenzie delivers another strong turn as Miss Marple.

As another long-term fan of Agatha Christie - I was introduced at a young age by my mother, and as someone with a reading difficulty, having me watch the televised version first helped me develop my reading skills - I get upset when people attack these versions of the stories, just because there are changes to suit the storyline. It's like criticizing art that has come from a school of a great painter. While some elements of the stories haven't been handled with the greatest of care, these new updated versions are bringing the world of Jane Marple to a younger audience. I like to take each tele movie as a story on its own - I can see the distinct differences, but can appreciate why sometimes it is necessary to adapt the stories to meet the needs of modern set of viewers, whose attention span and ability to read between the lines might not be as astute. I personally have watched Margaret Rutherford, Helen Hayes, Joan Hickson, Angela Lansbury, Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie all play the role, and for my generation I prefer Joan Hickson onwards. Watching Margaret Rutherford as Marple puts me to sleep as those productions are slow and plodding. For the purist out there, these stories were not aimed at you, but rather at a cross sectional transcontinental audience. Considering the many levels they have to appeal to, I think they do very well.

If Ms. Christie's books are to appeal to the next generation, the stories will have to adapt slightly to appeal to them.