The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

Miss Marple Movies and Television Series…

Ordinarily, you probably don’t think of Miss Marple as funny. That will change if you are able to see Margaret Rutherford’s portrayal of Miss Marple. You will most likely by tempted to think of her as “Jane” instead of “Miss Marple.”

At first, I was quite put off by Ms. Rutherford’s portrayal of Miss Marple. Once I got over my initial shock (for truly that is what it was!) I was delighted by these early 1960s movie productions.  The Agatha Christie Miss Marple Collection includes Rutherford in the classics Murder, She Said, Murder at the Gallop, Murder Most Foul, and Murder Ahoy. Margaret Rutherford was truly busy playing this feisty rendition of Jane. And, as an added bonus, we are able to see Joan Hickson appear as the housekeeper in Murder, She Said!

Some of you may ask…. Who is Joan Hickson, and why would seeing her be a treat? For some, those who were teenagers or older in the 1980s, Joan Hickson will always be Miss Marple. She has a quiet resolve about her… She is very proper, never excited, always observant. Fortunately for those of us who remember Ms. Hickson playing Miss Marple, there are now DVDs available for us to capture the true essence of Miss Marple. (I miss the days when A & E played these classic BBC shows, don’t you?)

Joan Hickson portrays Miss Marple in such a manner that makes it totally believable when she is able to casually stay in the background while gleaning even more information than the police detectives. I read somewhere that Agatha Christie had actually said that Joan Hickson was the actress who best could play Miss Marple as she had written her.

There are several sets out on the market (as well as being available through rental places) that brought back memories of a time when you had to be seated in front of your television at the precise time the show was scheduled to begin if you wanted to watch a Miss Marple movie/episode. Shows like The Body in the Library,  A Murder is Announced, and A Pocket Full of Rye (Gift Set)…The Mirror Crack’d, 4:50 from Paddington, Sleeping Murder, and A Caribbean Mystery (Collection 1)… Nemesis, They Do It with Mirrors, The Murder at the Vicarage, The Moving Finger, and At Bertram’s Hotel (Collection 2) And, such luminary actors as Donald Pleasence, Claire Bloom, Jean Simmons. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the BBC produced these shows… You know that you can rely on the costumes and sets to be right on the mark!

I think that Joan Hickson’s portrayal of Miss Marple is probably the one which most captures Agatha Christie’s character, including the hair pins in her bun and the knitting needles in her over-sized (almost a carpet!) bag. If you love cozy mystery movies, then I strongly recommend checking out these Joan Hickson renditions of our beloved Miss Marple.

Here is the actual way that the Joan Hickson/Miss Marple shows aired:
  1   The Body in the Library
  2   The Moving Finger  
  3   A Murder is Announced
  4   A Pocketful of Rye 
  5   The Murder at the Vicarage 
  6   Sleeping Murder
  7   At Bertram’s Hotel 
  8   Nemesis 
  9   4:50 from Paddington  
10   A Caribbean Mystery   
11   They Do It With Mirrors  
12   The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side

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To Serve Them All My Days… BBC Miniseries

The To Serve Them All My Days miniseries is based on the novel (of the same name) by R. F. Delderfield. I admit to not having read the novel, but I have seen the miniseries… and I love it! It is not a mystery, but it does stand up to its BBC counterparts in that it is an extremely good production. The thirteen segment series was produced in 1980 and is set during the time between World War I and WW II.

The miniseries follows “David,” a soldier who survived WW I physically (albeit with a limp) but who was left with a somewhat shaky mental outlook… commonly known as shell-shock. Although not a teacher by trade, he is given a job as a teacher at an exclusive, upper-crust boys boarding school. (A “public” school… which to us in the USA translates to “private.”) David, the teacher, is beautifully played by John Duttine— who— if you are a lover of BBC/ITV productions, you will surely recognize.

David does not come from the privileged background that his students come from, and is not entirely sure he wants to teach at this posh school. But, with time, you see how David is able to identify with these boys who are expected to be “brave, little men:” while being taken from their families and placed into boarding schools at very young ages… 

The cast is superb, the wardrobe is authentic-looking, and the setting is wonderful. I think that the only negative thing I have to say is that the series is simply too short. I would have loved watching more segments>>> actually, many more segments!

I missed seeing this series when it was broadcast on Masterpiece Theatre in the early 1980s so I was delighted to find it recently. I strongly recommend this wonderful production… even though it isn’t a mystery!

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Bramwell… the Series

Several years ago, I was lucky to have been one of the people who started viewing a new (very British!) Masterpiece Theatre presentation called Bramwell. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to tape any of the episodes, so my husband and children missed it… until it finally became available to either rent or purchase. (Produced by Whitby Davison Productions Ltd.)

It is not a mystery, but in my opinion, it has cozy “written” all over it. But, be forewarned… since it is a Victorian medical series, there is a fair amount of blood in it.

Bramwell is based on the fictional life of Doctor Eleanor Bramwell, portrayed by Jemma Redgrave (of the famous British Redgrave family) and she is absolutely wonderful in this role. She is able to convey the innate feisty-ness that it would have taken in the late 1800s for a woman to become a doctor. But at the same time, she is able to capture the very feminine reserve it also must have taken for an intelligent, capable woman to have been able to to “make it” in a man’s world back then.

The first season of Bramwell is comprised of three discs. It sets up the series by showing us Dr. (Eleanor) Bramwell’s succession from working under a leading surgeon to finding a sponsor for a clinic she opens in the slums of London. Dr. Bramwell is stubborn, as well as smart, and has the youthful quality of sometimes jumping before evaluating the jump…

The wonderful actor David Calder portrays the senior Doctor Bramwell. Calder’s performance shows us how Eleanor’s doting father could have raised her to believe (or should I say “know”) that she could indeed become a good doctor… despite London’s (or should I say “the world’s”) disapproving attitude. Remember- the late 1800s was a time when society women stitched floral patterns on their needlepoint canvases. It was not a time when these same “dainty” women stitched up gaping, open wounds! 

Season two of the Bramwell series follows Dr. Eleanor Bramwell’s experiences at “The Thrift.” The Thrift is the name of the clinic she opens in London’s “bad side” of town.

The sets/scenery seem flawless to me… as do the costumes. The entire cast is excellent. One of the characters I absolutely love in this series is Nurse Ethel Carr, played by Ruth Sheen. Sheen is great in everything I have seen her in, but her portrayal of Nurse Carr is so good that I found myself (almost gleefully) awaiting her next scene.

Season three has just been released (January 8, 2008.) When I wrote the review of this series it had yet to be released.

Bramwell’s fourth season is it’s final season, and has been available to either rent or purchase for the longest amount of time. I don’t know why they started with the last and worked their way to the front but, that is apparently what they did. (That is a mystery to me!)

If you are planning on watching the series, be sure to start at the beginning and follow the correct chronological order.  Since I am waiting until I am able to watch season three, I have not watched season four yet. I watched it when it was on Masterpiece Theatre years ago… which, at this point, is almost like saying I haven’t ever seen it!

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Agatha Christie's Marple… (with Geraldine McEwan)

Just recently, one of my very favorite actresses took a stab at portraying one of the most famous cozy mystery characters of all time… Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Geraldine McEwan (the particular actress) brings a fresh portrayal of Miss Marple with almost the same mischievous glint in her expressive eyes as she displayed while portraying E. F. Benson’s Lucia. (That last sentence will probably only make sense to those of you who have been lucky enough to see the first season of Mapp and Lucia… another cozy, although not a mystery, production.)

In 2005, Great Britain (a Granada production) gave us yet another wonderful “television event.” For the purposes of this review, I will refer to these shows as the “Miss Marple”series… Yes, I know that before McEwan we had Margaret Rutherford, Helen Hayes, and Joan Hickson, amongst several other actress who portrayed Miss Jane Marple, but for the purposes of this blog, McEwan is Miss Marple.

Hmmm… “McEwan is Miss Marple.”

I have read reviews that state… essentially… that McEwan is NOT Miss Marple. I have to say that I strongly disagree. I think that McEwan puts into the Miss Marple character the same patient grace that she seems most capable of conveying. She is able to smile demurely while delivering a quick-witted come-back which her targeted person thinks is simply an observation. She is absolutely delightful as Miss Marple. So delightful, that I can imagine Agatha Christie saying “Yes, by gosh, she’s got it!”

As usual, we get the beautiful backdrop of quaint villages, whether they are Miss Marple’s very own St. Mary Mead, or another locale where Miss Marple is visiting. We have all of the obligatory eccentric characters and the gorgeous wardrobe is of course, authentic to the period. The series delivers just what we expect from the PBS imported British “Mystery! programmes.”

Series 1 includes: The Murder at the Vicarage (1930), with another one of my very favorite “British exports”… Sir Derek Jacobi. And, for all of you Ballykissangel fans out there… You will be delighted to see your favorite priest (Stephen Tomkinson) as the police inspector, who as usual, sees beyond Miss Marple’s elderly lady façade. Also presented in series one are: The Body in the Library (1942) with the phenomenal Joanna Lumley, A Murder is Announced (1950), and 4:50 from Paddington (1957), which all of you Christie fans might know as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!

Series 2 includes: Sleeping Murder (1976), By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968), The Moving Finger (1943), and  The Sittaford Mystery (1931) I have to admit that I did not care for By the Pricking of my Thumbs at all. Miss Marple seems totally superfluous in this Tommy and Tuppence “movie.” And, since I never cared for that particular Christie series, it stands to reason that I didn’t like this show. I felt like McEwan’s talents were being wasted by having her play second fiddle to an alcoholic Tuppence.

Series 3 includes: Towards Zero (1944), Nemesis (1971, At Bertram’s Hotel (1965), and Ordeal by Innocence (1958). While I haven’t seen the third season of these shows, I am a little concerned that Ordeal by Innocence and Towards Zero are not Miss Marple books. I sure hope that Miss Marple isn’t again used as a secondary character as she was in the second season’s By the Pricking of My Thumbs!

All in all, if you are looking for a really fun time, these “movies” might be exactly what you want!

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