Miss Marple

Once again, Aunt Jane has to sort things out when a friend, Ruth, asks her to look in on her sister, Carrie Louise. You anticipate that Carrie has had it. In addition, you meet many unbalanced and seedy characters. While you are watching, you can miss the whole thing as they do it with mirrors.

Just a side note that the still pictures from this movie are on the back of the video case of "Murder at the Vicarage."

Well-paced, and the perfect English actors to match each part.

Currently watching rerun of the Miss Marple stories by Agatha Christie, starring Joan Hickson. What a pleasure they are. Decades old but great production values and acting, particularly on Joan Hickson's part have kept the series fresh. I'm afraid I'm probably of the desperately seeking something 'nice' to watch on TV age and the Miss Marple series fits the bill. I enjoy the settings & costumes as much as anything else and spotting actors early in their career. The main thing is it's calming enjoyable and 'nice' to watch at a time when there isn't much 'niceness' around. Do seek the series out.

If I remember correctly, I tried watching this series some time ago after finishing streaming the "Father Brown" series, up to Season 9, or after finishing the entire "Murder, She Wrote" series. I watched one episode and quit. Miss Marple just didn't seem to have a vivid enough personality to keep me watching.

Returning to the series this month, I found myself more interested in her and the stories being told. The stories have a nice complexity to them, and the soft, slow Miss Marple sort of grows on you. Also, I really liked John Castle, who played Detective Inspector Craddock. I wish he had been in all the episodes.

Aside from "Poirot", "Miss Marple" (1984) is my favorite Agatha Christie series. It's very well crafted, sticks reasonably close to the Christie stories and Joan Hickson is excellent in the lead. She is good because she is a minimalist type Miss Marple...mostly listening and getting other people to talk. I also think it's significntly better than the more recent Miss Marple series...for many of the reasons I mentioned above. Even a relatively poor episode of this series is very well done and is well worth seeing and faithful to the spirit of the stories. Well made and I have no complaints...and I usually like to complain!

A series of murder mysteries, based on the famous Agatha Christie novels. In the quiet English village of St Mary Mead lives an elderly lady, Miss Jane Marple. Beneath the unassuming exterior lies a razor-sharp, deductive mind, a mind perfect for solving murders. And that's what she does, incredibly well.

Great series, the definitive Miss Marple series. Very intriguing mysteries, as one would expect considering the writer. Joan Hickson is perfect as Miss Marple, imbuing Miss Marple with quaintness, fade-into-the-background anonymity and incredible intellect.

The settings are generally great too, capturing the quaintness and peacefulness of the English countryside and English life after WW2.

Another telling factor is how well developed and colourful the secondary characters are. Miss Marple's character is not enough to carry the show and the secondary characters help the engagement levels enormously.

Not perfect though. The first few mysteries are brilliant, for the reasons described above. However, from Sleeping Murder onwards the secondary characters ae less engaging and the settings less idyllic. The mysteries are still quite intriguing though.