The Pale Horse

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.

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

Yes there are bound to be the usual people that don't like it because Joan Hickson isn't in it and Miss M shouldn't be in it, but, she is here and i'm glad she is. Julia Mackenzie i think is making a wonderful Jane Marple and here she is wonderful, she is getting better with every outing. This is one of Christie's darker novels, I loved her work when she explored black magic and the occult. Fantastic casting, minor parts for class acts like Linda Baron and Nicholas Parsons. Tom Ward, Sarah Alexander, Jonathan Cake are fantastic, but i was so impressed at how good JJ Feild and Pauline Collins were. Heaps better then the ITV version from a few years ago. Seems that there is a lot of effort and money into making these films a visual treat. This is one of the best!!!

The Pale Horse mystery by Agatha Christie is arguably one of her best stories. It is a story that is on another level and more than just a motive by one of the characters. We saw an elaborate scheme or set up that was almost fool proof. Witchcraft was the supposed centre and cause for many so called natural deaths. Dig deeper and you see a non practicing lawyer taking bets for predicting the deaths and the owner of the Pale Horse Inn also collecting money for the witchcraft. However digging deeper you find the true head of the scheme who is a figure in the dark that actually executes these murders carefully and disguising murder as natural causes. This story is so intriguing and remarkable that perhaps adding action and thriller on a bigger scale would be worthy of a James Bond film.

However the film adaptation was poorly executed. The story was told so badly that it was hard to follow in its entirety. Often stories are paced very badly. You have close to nothing revealed in 3/4 of the film and then a big complex story with no backstory is given quickly to close the case. The audience is wondering how we jumped from A to Z. Sadly a few Poirot episodes have followed the same trend with little revealed throughout and a hasty summary at the end. A good film would have clues distributed evenly before the big reveal. Overall great story but poorly told and portrayed.

It's been years since I read the Agatha Christie canon -- and I read every one -- but I don't remember all of them well enough to do a comparison with the book to the movie.

"The Pale Horse" is a Christie book that does not feature Jane Marple, and yet, here she is. Before I go on, I need to say one thing. I don't know why the producers of this series decided to change Christie's stories. However, Acorn Media owns something like 67% of the Christie estate, and apparently, in the negotiations, Christie's relative, Mathew Pritchard, who heads the estate, put no restrictions on the sale. So all of this is okay with the estate. In other words - if they don't care, why should we?

In this story, Miss Marple receives a letter from an old friend, Father Gorman, with a list of names and a Biblical quote. The same day she receives the letter, she reads that Gorman was murdered right after attending to a dying woman.

Miss Marple is right on it, traveling to the area where Mrs. Davis lived and checking out her room. There, she finds the same list. On tracking down the names, she finds out that all of the people have recently died. She also discovers a reference to the Pale Horse Inn, which ties in with the Bible quote. She stays at the inn and begins to investigate.

I found this particular movie a little confusing and hard to follow. The subplots were not woven in together as well as they should have been, making it a little disjointed. I did like Julia McKenzie, who is a fine actress.

I wouldn't say this is one of the best of the series, but it's okay.