The Pale Horse

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?).

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!!!

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.

Okay, it isn't easy finding enough Miss Marple stories in the Christie canon to create a full-fledged series. But the producers have done a nice job of wedging her into one of Christie's most ingenious tales. Like "The Mirror Crack'd," "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" and "Murder on the Orient Express," the tale features a wonderfully original plot device -- in this case, a whole new approach to contract killing. Throw in a kind of British take on re-creating the Salem witch trials and you have a mordantly murky and entertaining mystery. Purists may take umbrage at Miss Marple wandering off her own turf to solve a series of seemingly occult murders. But if it's a well-told mystery (as this one is) and doesn't otherwise twist Dame Agatha's story, why not?

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