Marple: The Moving Finger (2006) (TV)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Tom Shankland

Writers:

Agatha Christie (novel)
Kevin Elyot (screenplay)

Release Date:

12 February 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

Troubled war veteran Jerry Burton and his sister Emily rent a cottage in a seemingly tranquil English village which is plagued by a spate of poison pen letters... and murder.

Plot Keywords:

Poison Pen Letter | Vicar | War Veteran | Miss Marple | English Village

Cast

Geraldine McEwan	...	Miss Marple
James D'Arcy	...	Jerry Burton
Ken Russell	...	Reverend Caleb Dane Calthrop
Frances de la Tour	...	Mrs. Maud Dane Calthrop
Thelma Barlow	...	Emily Barton
Jessica Hynes	...	Aimee Griffith (as Jessica Stevenson)
Sean Pertwee	...	Dr. Owen Griffith
Imogen Stubbs	...	Mona Symmington
Harry Enfield	...	Richard Symmington
Kelly Brook	...	Elsie Holland
John Sessions	...	Cardew Pye
Rosalind Knight	...	Partridge
Emilia Fox	...	Joanna Burton
Ellen Capron	...	Agnes
Talulah Riley	...	Megan Hunter

Also Known As:

Agatha Christie - Marple: The Moving Finger (Australia) (DVD title)

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Chilham Castle, Chilham, Kent, England, UK

Company:

Agatha Christie

Goofs:

Continuity: Mrs. Symmington can be seen quite clearly standing next to her husband attending the funeral for the murdered maid Agnes Brown. Mrs. Symmington was murdered and buried before Agnes Brown. In fact, Agnes attended Mrs. Symmington's funeral.

Quotes:

Jerry Burton: What's that?
Jerry Burton: [He looks at a photograph] Unh!
Emily Barton: It's a photograph of a diseased spleen. Owen gave it to me.
Jerry Burton: Was he out of chocolate?
Emily Barton: He thought I might be interested. I'm not entirely frivolous, you know.
Jerry Burton: Pretty ropey, I thought.
Emily Barton: Hmmmm. There's something on his mind.
Jerry Burton: Yes, a rotting spleen perhaps... or you?

Movie Connections:

Remake of The Moving Finger (1985) (TV)

A Marvelous Gallery of Grotesques

I thought BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS in this new Miss Marple series was good, but THE MOVING FINGER has presented a lineup of many pleasing and not-so-pleasing eccentrics and British grotesqueries. The famed director Ken Russell portrays a shambling vicar, the Rev. Calthrop, like a fugitive from one of his deliriously enjoyable films; his wife, Maud is portrayed by Frances de la Tour, the horsey and lugubrious actress who portrayed the gigantess Madame Olympe Maxime in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE; Sean Pertwee, son of the late and great Jon Pertwee plays a nervous, mousy Dr. Griffith who is seduced by the hoydenish and blazing red-headed lorelei, Joanna Burton, played by Emilia Fox; the waspish and flagrantly gay Cardew Pye has an unexpected soft centre, courtesy of John Sessions; James D'Arcy plays Jerry Burton as a seemingly unsympathetic character who gradually begins to come out of his self-imposed protective shell as the story progresses. Geraldine McEwan seems to have put her stamp on the Jane Marple character by presenting her as somewhere between the indomitable Dame Margaret Rutherford's swashbuckling and sputtering Miss Marple and the icily restrained and too-perfectly-emotionless Joan Hickson's Miss Marple, which is generally seen as the portrayal closest to Dame Agatha Christie's original intent for the character. Mugging, smiling, very physically active, McEwan gives her Miss Marple a distinctive flair that may be an acquired taste, like rutabagas, to some of you viewers out there. The rest of the cast is more than adequate, and director Tom Shankland does an OK job pulling all the story threads together.