The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

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!

If you would like to see more TV and Movies suggestions, click here.

If You Missed Miss Marple Last Night…Go Check Your Local PBS Listings

I should ‘a, would ‘a… told you to not miss the first installment of the PBS showings of the new Miss Marple shows. I sure hope that no one missed them last night. I have not actually watched the first installment yet, but anything with Geraldine McEwan is OK by me! (That is if you don’t count the Mulberry series!)

You may wonder why I am writing my blog about a show that I haven’t seen yet… The answer is easy. If your local PBS station is anything like mine, they will rerun the show some time this week, so if you missed it, you can catch it when they re-air the very same Mystery! show.

I have, however, seen all eight of the previous Geraldine McEwan outings as Miss Marple. And, since each episode is like a stand-alone movie, we are actually going to be getting four new Miss Marple "movies" this season.  What a treat!

I’m going to keep this blog very short, since I want to write a TV & Movies blog/article about the series. I’ll try to post it either tonight or early tomorrow… but in the mean time… go check your local PBS schedules for the first Miss Marple (Towards Zero)! 

What was I Thinking?!?

Well, yesterday was a day of revamping several of my pages on the site. If you happened to look at any of the holiday pages before… I extend my apologies! I felt a classic case of V-8: "What was I thinking?" 

One of the comments I recently received referenced an author who can be found on my Easter page. After a rather extended time looking to see where I had put her (Joanne Harris), when I clicked on the main holiday page… and then clicked on the Easter page… I literally found myself mumbling out loud… almost as if I had never seen the pages before… "What the heck are these?"

By "these," I meant… these graphics… As much as I liked them over a year ago, they certainly didn’t belong here now. The graphics were easy enough to get rid of… just one delete key click, and they disappeared. But then I was left with the spacing between the books in the right column.

This, of course, meant that I was either going to have to go "behind the scenes" and fix the problem myself, or I was going to have to wait until my husband got up from his Saturday afternoon nap. "Behind the scenes" is about as technical as my jargon is going to get… suffice it to say that I have to go to a "display-split-coded-page" (or something like that) and then try to find the "<br> " type of symbol that all of the book covers had between them, right behind the scenes, somewhere "inside of" the computer, which to me means the screen, not the actual computer!

It only took me a little over an hour, but when my husband came out of the room from his refreshing nap, I was able to smile proudly… as if I were a five year old child bringing dandelion flowers to my mother… and show him the fruits of my efforts.

Now, I am proud to invite you to visit "my dandelions," which can be found on any one of the Holiday pages. (And please note how nicely spaced the books to the right are…)

Some Cozies are Simply Cozier than Others!

It takes place at night… OR… on a bright, sunny morning.
It occurs in New York City, bustling with activity… OR… a quaint English village.
The main character is a hip, young man with a beautiful young wife and one child… OR… a nice "older" teacher, getting ready to retire.
It involves a sleek Corvette… OR… an umbrella/cane.

Hmmm… If you’re a reader of cozy mysteries, I don’t need to tell you the correct answers!

I am embarrassed to admit this, but I just started my FIRST Miss Emily D. Seeton novel! Yes, I know that they are almost as classic as the Miss Marple books. Yes, I have almost all of the Miss Seeton novels waiting in my bookshelf… along with many other wonderful cozy novels…. all of them seemingly there just to gather dust now that I am spending all of the time at my computer… rather than reading my favorite cozy mysteries!   ("More Reading/Less Typing" ought to be my new mantra!)

Getting back to the purpose of today’s blog:

The Miss Seeton’s series of books has been written by three different authors. Heron Carvic began the series in 1968, with Hampton Charles taking over during 1990, followed by Sarah J. Mason (aka Hamilton Crane) in 1991, with her last book (or should that be "his" for Hamilton?!?) published in 1999.

Miss Emily D. Seeton is a retired British teacher, although in the novel I am reading, she hasn’t quite decided to retire… at least she hasn’t by page 49! So far, "Picture Miss Seeton" has all of the things you would expect from a Cozy Mystery… all of the above correct answers come into play, but, alas, I haven’t met up with a cat yet… just egg-laying chickens…

I am really excited about starting this new cozy series, although I know it’s not new at all. Sometimes, when I start to read a book that has this much promise, I actually feel like "I’m home again"… It’s a difficult feeling to describe, but I am guessing that other cozy mystery readers have a sensation similar to my "I’m home again" feeling when they start reading a new author’s book that looks like it is really going to deliver the COZY that we all want so much!

MENU