BS: Miss Marple

Subject: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 08:19 PM

My thirteen year old is a passionate Agatha Christie fan, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple in particular. We've watching one of the DVDs from the two British series and I was wondering; is Joan Hickson, Miss Marple incarnate, still with us? The earliest of her version of the series has to be 15 or more years old, so it's hard not to expect the worst.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Pene Azul
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 08:38 PM

IMDb lists her date of death as 17 October 1998, and her date of birth as 5 August 1906.

Jeff

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 08:42 PM

Thanks. Heard when Jeremy Brett left us, but not this. So sad.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 08:54 PM

Hickson was apparently on the stage for many years, and had met Christie occasionally. I saw an interview with Hickson some years ago in which she said she had recently found a note in her papers that had been sent to her years before by Christie saying she thought Hickson should play Miss Marple. (Don't try to diagram that sentence!).

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 09:04 PM

She was a perfect Miss Marple, too. Miss Marple and her kindred spirit George Smiley are my favorite characters. The antithesis of James Bond and Dirk Pitt.

At my house we're willing to forgive the British Empire anything for refining the classic mystery and learning how to present it properly on TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 11:10 PM

Have you seen the A&E programs to do with Nero Wolf? These are the best around, since the old Perry Mason series, on American TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 11:16 PM

Yes, but they didn't make very many of them and they seem to be off the air. Shame, isn't it.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Peace
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 11:18 PM

I love Stout's Nero Wolfe series of books. They were the first good mysteries I read as a youth, and the TV stuff was pretty darn good.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 11:47 PM

Re: I saw an interview with Hickson some years ago in which she said she had recently found a note in her papers that had been sent to her years before by Christie saying she thought Hickson should play Miss Marple.

Nice sentence, SRS, worthy of P.G. Wodehouse himself.

My favorite sentence from Miss Marple is "By a shifty eye, I mean one that looks you straight in the face and never wavers."

An Archie Goodwin favorite: He knew that I knew that he knew that I knew.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 12:27 AM

I happened to find Nero Wolf playing tonight (Saturday) on the Biography Channel (a spin-off from A&E). My newspaper listing isn't complete for all of the cable channels, so I stumble onto things now and then that I didn't know were playing. I suppose I should break down and buy the damned monthly guide.

They were making a few a year for two or three years, but it doesn't seem to be in the works any more. Pity. They had a nice ensemble cast in that program.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: musicmick
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 01:24 AM

Yes, I thought Hickson was the best of all the Jane Marples. Helen Hayes was pretty good, too. They were both frail and slight and unashamedly old. I noticed that, while the TV shows were fairly close to the novels, the Hercule Poirot series did some real stretching, which was a shame because David Suchet was such a believable Belgian.
I kind of prefered the Basil Rathbone Holmes to Brett's because, let's face it, the Doyle short stories were so short of action or wit.
Turning the Holmes stories into pot boilers and portraying Watson as dumber than Captain Hastings may have been heresy but it made for better theater. The game's afoot.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: jaze
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 12:08 PM

I thinks some actors were born to play the characters they did. Joan Hickson was destined to be Miss Marple. Edith Hamilton was also born to be the witch in Wizard of Oz.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 01:08 PM

Margaret Hamilton. Edith wrote down mythology.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 01:38 PM

"Margaret Hamilton. Edith wrote down mythology."

Yes, but isn't that a charming transposition in it's way?

I guess while I'm mourning actors from British TV mysteries, I have to say I miss John Thaw of Inspector Morse. The show also had one of my favorite theme songs (the french horn theme is exquisite).

I wasn't aware of Thaws illness until he passed away, but I remember being in an Oxford book store where I learned Colin Dexter had ended the series. Bought an autographed copy of the book. The timing of they're respective ends seems particularly poignant.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 02:10 PM

You're right, Strick--I should have added a [grin] on that last remark of mine. I enjoy those kinds of convergences.

As for Morse, I think they must have known, considering how the series ended. It wasn't set up for a possible ambling return of a retired Morse.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 08:48 PM

"I thinks some actors were born to play the characters they did."

I played the Lion in Shaw's "Androcles." What does that make me?

For the mystery/action set, I don't think Diana Rigg in the "Avengers" has ever been surpassed.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: musicmick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 12:28 AM

Am I the only one who was bothered by the comic book Poirot of Ustinov? He was not the worst Hercule (that distinction belongs to Tony Randal) but he was a yard shy of Finney and a mile south of Suchet. Besides, Dame Agatha was specific regarding the physical appearence of Poirot. Perhaps, the producers of the Ustinov movies felt that, if the public would accept Margaret Rutherford and Angela Lansbury as Jane Marple, they would buy a gargantuan Poirot.
Incidentally, when I said that the Sherlock Holmes stories were sorely lacking in action and humor, I meant that they were poor material for a visual medium.
I am glad that the Nero Wolfe series is getting some recognition. It is the best American made detective show. It has none of the plastic skinned Hollywood glitz of the network fare. It seems to bathe in a Modigliani color scheme (did I spell that right?), not unlike the Warren Beaty "Dick Tracey" film, but more believable.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 01:21 AM

Aside from the stories themselves in Nero Wolfe, I always enjoyed the different roles that the actors in the program played each week. Ironicially, or perhaps not, the noir feel and the ensemble cast of Nero Wolf bear strong similarities to the mystery that Tim Hutton's father Jim Hutton worked on as Ellery Queen.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 05:47 AM

I also think that David Suchet is the most convincing Hercule Poirot. He has all those little mannerisms including that walk with the very small steps that really produce a definitive character.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 08:47 AM

Ustinov was never a good Poirot. The worst acting of his career. I never believed Finney's performance, either. Suchet carried it off perfectly, though I could see other actors playing the part.

Rutherford's hyperactive Miss Marple was simply hard believe and harder to watch.

Yeah, STS, I enjoyed the ensemble structure of Nero Wolfe, too. It was like watching an extemely good repertory company, wasn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 10:12 AM

With the application of good hairpieces and costuming, they really did have quite a repertoire. There was one in particular you love to hate--the short bald guy--who would next turn up in a toupee as a totally urbane character and you'd be half-way through the program before you realized who he was.

Miss Marple/Hickson had some great helpers. I particularly liked John Castle in his various appearances in the program, but the annoying local policeman (can't remember his name) was always so good at being snotty. They did let that character evolve to show that he wasn't completely obtuse. Miss Marple must have come from a very large family--she had a remarkable number of nieces and nephews! Her strength was in her recognition of human nature.

What I enjoyed so much about Morse was the culture and literary material that were integral to the character. Great music and being an egghead (his crossword puzzles, reading the classics, distinct musical preferences, etc.) Remember the episode when the incendiary cassette case was found in his shelves--up to that point, Morse was meerly hurt and puzzled, but when Lewis told him it was something by Toscanini he was highly offended. "I wouldn't have it in the house!"

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: musicmick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 12:54 PM

That policeman was played by David Horovitz who, once played a villain on a Poirot episode. I seem to remember that the only relatives of Jane Marple that Agatha Christie mentioned were her nephew, Raymond West, his artist wife, Joyce, and the girl who married the clergyman. Was her name Stuff?
Does anyone remember the Miss Marple movie with Helen Hayes as Jane and Bette Davis as her unsuspecting friend?

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 12:56 PM

"There was one in particular you love to hate--the short bald guy--who would next turn up in a toupee as a totally urbane character and you'd be half-way through the program before you realized who he was."

Well I remember the actor. I assume you mean the one who played the bullying "Mr. Strickland" in Back To The Future. Didn't make my life any easier.

The DVDs don't give adequate credit to the cast of Miss Marple, but I think the character you mention was called Jenkins and he worked his way all the way up to Superintendent in The Mirror Cracked.

Morse would have made a fine guest star on "Fraiser", wouldn't he?

BTW, we're starting to like some of the new series coming on the USA Network. My boys have loved "Monk" from the beginning and the first episode of "Touching Evil" wasn't too bad. I was worried about "Touching Evil" since I knew it was yet another American adaptation of a British series and I remember what we did to Robie Coltrane's "Cracker" a few years ago. TE is very different but it works much better than I expected.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: GUEST,Jaze
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 01:26 PM

So sorry. It was Margaret of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 02:34 PM

What a hoot--Morse on Frasier! They'd probably end up launching him and the barcalounger over the balcony. (I haven't watched much of Frasier, but what I've seen I've always enjoyed).

My daughter was chuckling at my enjoyment of one of the Harry Potter movies last week. "You really like those, don't you?" she queried. I told her that what I enjoy is the supporting cast. I described (but couldn't remember Cracker as the name) the mystery Robbie Coltrane was in where he was big, sloppy, smart, and troubled. Look at all of the others--Gemma Jones, Zoe Wanamaker, Julie Walters, John Hurt, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, John Cleese, etc. Many of them have visited British mysteries along with being on their own programs. (Gemma Jones was Morse's first deceased love-interest in one of the very first programs).

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 03:11 PM

And Gemma Jones was the Duchess of Duke Street before that.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 04:51 PM

Yes, that's where I first encountered her. Loved that program!

The next Professor Dumbledore will be played by Michael Gambone, who was in the short-lived Maigret series, set in France. I've always enjoyed his appearances--and by his filmography, can see that he's quite a prolific actor.

(I haven't forgotten what Rap said about Diana Rigg--she has done some very edgy and unusual mysteries herself in the last dozen years. But in those you won't see her in spandex in a gilded cage.)

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: michaelr
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:47 PM

Michael Gambon was great in Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective", which has just had a Hollywood remake starring "Snortin'" Robert Downey, Jr.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 11:43 PM

The Internet Movie Database is wonderful for boosting one's memory--I was trying to remember the name of the actress (Patricia Hodge) in the short series based on a character created by Antonia Fraser (Jemima Shore Investigates). And then I remembered several other things she was in, including as Portia in Rumpole of the Bailey. Leo McKern was cast extremely well as the crusty old attorney.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Flash Company
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 07:31 AM

Joan Hickson as Miss M, Suchet as Poirot And Jeremy Brett as Holmes were all excellent. I think that Brett brought out the one factor in Holmes that all other portrayals play down, namely, his arrogance.
The other one which I liked was Iain Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey. Absolutely spot on.

FC

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 10:14 AM

I have a set of tapes of radio plays around here of Lord Peter Wimsey. I've seen some episodes with Ian Carmichael, and after confirming it with a search on Petherbridge realize I've seen those also.

Geez. I seem to have spent some time watching and/or reading mysteries.

Then there are the new ones on this side of the pond, movies of the Tony Hillerman Indian Country mysteries in the Four Corners region (the intersection of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado). I like them in general, but I think they changed Joe Leaphorn too much.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 10:41 AM

The problem with Hillerman on TV is what makes his work good in books. My sister-in-law doesn't like any of the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee books claiming that nothing ever happens. She's right, of course, but what's interesting is why it never happens. The whole point is the difference between our cultures that drives the plot away from what you expect.   Trying to depict the cultural differences in fairly stoic culture makes for a stilted TV mystery though, which is why I believe they changed Joe so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:02 PM

And what about Roy Marsden as Dagleish and who was the actor in the Cadfael series? He was great. Diana Rigg in Motherlove was grand. I would have to say that Morse and Rumpole are my all time favourites, but this post has sure churned up the old memory.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:09 PM

Indian cultures aren't "stoic," and that's a stereotype that shouldn't be used to describe those books, either. The action is mental--there is a lot more internal voice going on in those novels that doesn't translate as well. (They're also great roadtrips/travelogues through the desert southwest.) Redford has to figure a way to see these people moving around without benefit of the energy of their thoughts translated on the screen.

It's awfully hard to come up with solid American contributions to the mystery genre, at least that are on a par with the British ones. I did always like Perry Mason the series and they're still fun to watch in reruns. Barnaby Jones is one my mom watched but I never did. Remington Steele was always a tongue-in-cheek drama that had more to do with maintaining a disguise than solving mysteries. Thinking back, Darren McGavin's The Night Stalker series was a pretty unique contribution to the genre, in an occult sort of way.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: clueless don
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:13 PM

Although I thought the Hollywood movie of "The Mirror Cracked" was dreadful, I thought Angela Lansbury did a good job as Miss Marple - much closer to the character as written than Margaret Rutherford. I have long suspected (perhaps this is common knowledge, and I just don't know) that it was this performance by Lansbury that inspired someone to cast her in "Murder, She Wrote".

The Hickson shows were great. I even loved the theme music!

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: GUEST,James
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:39 PM

I think Helen Mirren was born to be Jane Tnnison, she is marvelous in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 02:18 PM

clueless, there's no connection. There's nothing at all suspicious about Lansbury, who played Miss Marple in a movie, playing a modern Miss Marple-like character who lives in an Americanized verion of St. Mary Meade in a TV series with a name suspiciously like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple book called "Murder She Said". :D

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 02:39 PM

I thought Murder She Wrote was a travesty and was a very crude attempt at being a mystery. Ms. Lansbury's considerable skills were certainly wasted in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 09:21 PM

I enjoyed many of the Murder, She Wrote guest stars, though. If you looked at the program as a retrospective of American film history, who else would have had Hurd Hatfield (The Picture of Dorian Gray) on as an intermitent guest, and had Kathryn Grayson, a goddess when she was in her prime, return to acting to play one of her beauty-shop friends? Look at all of the famously-past-great who happily appeared on the program. I always guessed who done it early on, but it wasn't so much about the mystery, it was about the casting.

When she was absent some weeks, she had such greats as Keith Mitchell (I remember him best for Henry VIII and His Six Wives but I've seen him many other times in things), Jerry Orbach, and others. Like I say, that was a lot of fun but for other reasons than mystery.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 10:17 PM

Seems like there's always one CBS program that's recycles stars that might be considered a little past their expiry date.

Remember Diagnosis Murder?

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 11:41 PM

Yes, I always liked Dick Van Dyke in the other stuff he did, but in that series he both literally and figuratively shrank.

Ah--I have flashed on another that was very nice in it's first iteration--Burke's Law with the sexy and urbane Gene Barry. My mom always watched that one and I was a kid paying attention, just old enough to know that Burke was quite the playboy and to know what that entailed. I think the attempt to bring that one back was a disaster. Like Perry Mason, the sequels never really worked, at least, not for me.

This has been a very nice thread, thanks for starting it, Strick.

It wasn't exactly a mystery, but did you ever see the quirky Peter Seller's movie The World of Henry Orient?

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 12:13 AM

"It wasn't exactly a mystery, but did you ever see the quirky Peter Seller's movie The World of Henry Orient?"

No, but I've heard of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 07:44 AM

Cadfael, I believe was played by the actor Derek Jacobi.

Does anybody know if the series of Miss Marple stories starring Joan Hickson have been brought out as DVD's?

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Jeanie
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 08:23 AM

Strick and SRS: "Diagnosis Murder" is still going strong here on UK television ! It has become 'cult viewing' for me and my daughter in the school holidays (it's generally shown on early afternoon TV here). We giggle and heckle and have a generally uproarious time throughout: plotlines and acting so appallingly ludicrous as to be brilliant. If ever taken ill, DO NOT GO TO THAT HOSPITAL !!! (Likewise, do not visit the cosy Midsomer Villages - more murders per square inch than blades of grass on the cricket greens. -(I wonder whether the "Midsomer Murders" series has reached the States ??)

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:47 AM

"Does anybody know if the series of Miss Marple stories starring Joan Hickson have been brought out as DVD's?"

Yes, I believe they cover the entire series now. I think we have them all. Last I saw the best prices were at www.deepdiscountdvd.com, but I've been able to beat them from time to time at the usual sites, Amazon, etc. so check around.

No sign of "Midsomer Murders" here I've seen, Jeanie. Surely they can't have more murders per capita than St. Mary Meade and Cabot Cove?

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:57 AM

Yes, I love Midsomer Murders, and I agree--how can it be that no one higher up has noticed the unusual domino-effect density of murders that occur in these tiny villages? They certainly have some entertaining plot twists!

I enjoyed Cadfael, but had to sometimes wince at the twentieth century political sensibilities layered over the twelfth century environment. It may seem contrary to some, but what we understand today is not identical to what we understood 800 years ago, minus the science. Our cultures are cumulative, and as new ideas come along they are considered radical and even threatening for a while until they are accepted in general (what Kuhn called a "paradigm shift"). I worked on (need to write the thesis still) a MA in philosophy, and have spent too much time reading Foucault and the like to be able to immerse myself in Cadfael's mysteries with the same comfort as that with which I watch Marple, Poirot, or Wolf. But I enjoy anything that Jacobi does.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 11:02 AM

Spot on analysis of Cadfael, SRS.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Strick
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 04:24 PM

You know, at my house, this all started because we used to watch Murder She Wrote. One Sunday the middle boy caught part of one of Suchet's Poirot's and at 7, he was hooked. Then he discovered something in the cabinet where I keep the videos only I watch -- the complete Thin Man series and some Charlie Chans. It's cost us no end of arguments about bedtimes when something runs late and a fortune VHS and DVDs ever since.

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 08:07 PM

I don't remember now if I left in a remark about the Thin Man Series. Nope, the search doesn't show it. They were clever yet screw ball mysteries, and have always appeared to me to be an antidote to the Depression. Faux-noir, perhaps. (William Powell is a favorite of mine in My Man Godfrey and Mr. Roberts.)

I've been doing what amounts to "directed screenings" of movies with my kids for several years. (They're now 12 and 15). This is an interesting way to spend an evening, and they always know that it means we'll watch at least a couple, because in the same way it is when you're singing favorite songs, one always reminds you of another.   

Subject: RE: BS: Miss Marple
From: GUEST,dinnerlady
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 08:37 PM

I have to say that for me Miss Marple will always be the excellent Margeret Rutherford. Check out 'Murder most Foul' made in 1964 in glorious black and white. Oh and as for Sherlock Holmes...thought Jeremy Brett was IT for sexiness.....but then I discovered Basil Rathbone....phwoar factor 10!!