Miss Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1992)

Lack of good storyline.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The Rover P4 taxi driven by Inch, is unlikely to have had a 1979 model Motorola car radio, in the 1950s

I know I'm missing something because so many reviewers have found this a flawed but admirable adaptation, whereas I found it torpid and not very interesting, outside of some of the performances.I couldn't follow the plot or the reasoning behind it until the last few moments, after the suicide, when all was revealed in a cascade of off-hand comments that was too fast for comprehension by slow and deliberate minds.Claire Bloom still looks good after a career of more than forty years, although she may no longer be the delectable Lady Anne. (Who is?) And John Castle as Miss Marple's nephew, a police inspector, seems very handsome with his silver hair. His expression is sober and intense except when he appears to smirk. At any rate he's more interesting as a character than Joan Hickson herself, as Miss Marple, who is recklessly intuitive and has little presence except as what used to be called a little old lady before we all came down with a serious case of rubella, I mean political correctness. Rubella. I believe that may have been the name of my fifth-grade English teacher. Yes, it was. Miss Rubella DeGroot. She always hated me for mispronouncing "irrevocable".Kidding aside, I was lost in the intricacies of the plot and I'm still lost. I don't know, for instance, what the portrait of the Madonna and child had to do with anything.Damn, I miss Hercule Poirot in these mysteries. He was always willing to take the time to explain things slowly and in some detail, repeating them as necessary, as if speaking to a young child. That's what some of us duller bulbs need. Less intricacy and less gossip and more Explanations For Dummies.

This was the last of the BBC Miss Marple adaptations to feature Joan Hickson in the title role. Hickson is still wonderful and her banter with the excellent Margaret Courtney as Miss Knight is some of the best stuff in the film. Courtney played Dolly Bantry in the big budget earlier version of this story (with Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak et al) but in this version Gwen Watford makes a very welcome return as Mrs Bantry. Indeed, the locals provide the most enjoyment in this adaptation and its nice to see some more old faces from 'Murder at the Vicarage' turn up.The incoming Americans are not so successful. Claire Bloom is really too harsh and hard-bitten as Marina Gregg and Elizabeth Garvie isn't anything like as sympathetic in the role of Ella as Geraldine Chaplin in the earlier film. Far from perfect though the earlier film is, I couldn't help comparing certain roles and finding the later version wanting. David Horovitch rolls out his world weary, cynical Slack once again but it was nice to have John Castle back as Craddock (why was he Miss Marple's nephew this time?).On balance, despite the liberties taken with the source material, I think I preferred the earlier big budget version of this story. Hickson and the other locals however are well worth watching.

Commenting on film is in the long run a matter of advising on who you can trust and who you might want to avoid.I can tell you that one person who to avoid is the adapter of this, Bowen. He's been involved in other Christie adaptions and is so brutal in how he handles the core mechanics of what Christie created, he's so evil in his intent he murders the thing.So either you can avoid this, supposing what you want is a good mystery after the fashion that Christie created so wonderfully...or you can watch it and try to deduce why Bowen murdered it so, what there was about his intent that made this happen. The mystery at this level is quite fascinating, especially if you look at the other Christie screenplays he's done. Its a metadetective narrative: why did he do it? What's the motive?Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.