The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
- Episode aired May 23, 2010
- TV-PG
- 1h 28m
A troubled Hollywood star and her husband move to St. Mary Mead, but their arrival becomes clouded in tragedy when a fan is fatally poisoned during a garden fête.A troubled Hollywood star and her husband move to St. Mary Mead, but their arrival becomes clouded in tragedy when a fan is fatally poisoned during a garden fête.A troubled Hollywood star and her husband move to St. Mary Mead, but their arrival becomes clouded in tragedy when a fan is fatally poisoned during a garden fête.
- French Officer
- (as Jonathan Coyne)
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis novel by Agatha Christie was dedicated to Dame Margaret Rutherford, the actress who played Miss Marple in a series of four British MGM second features in the 1960s. Although Christie thought that Rutherford was the wrong choice for the role, she highly respected her professionalism.
- Quotes
Margot Bence: Well, we lived in the East End of London, my mother and eight of us kids, and she simply couldn't cope. So she did what a lot of women did in her position and she wrote to the rich and famous, begged them to adopt, and one day she got lucky.
Miss Marple: Didn't Miss Gregg also adopt a boy?
Margot Bence: Yes. And for a time we lived the most wonderful life. Marina played her part to the hilt.
Dolly Bantry: But she did want children, didn't she?
Margot Bence: Oh, yes. She just didn't want us. As soon as she discovered she was pregnant, that was it. All she wanted was a child of her own.
Dolly Bantry: Well, you can't blame her for that.
Margot Bence: No. But I can blame her for taking me. And my mother for letting her.
- ConnectionsReferences An Inspector Calls (1954)
I was looking forward to this installment, although with caution. Unlike most entries in the "Agatha Christie's Marple" series, the source novel once already received a glorious and big-budgeted movie-treatment, and it will be difficult to top a version that starred Angela Lansbury, Elisabeth Taylor, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin, Charles Gray and Edward Fox. "The Mirror Crack'd", released in 1980 and directed by Guy Hamilton, is - as you can probably guess - a huge favorite of mine.
The story, set in the year of its publishing - 1962, takes place near the quiet village of St. Mary Mead, that has changed quite a bit since the initial Marple stories like "The Body in the Library" and "Murder at the Vicarage". Exciting times for the little village, though, since the immensely popular American starlet Marina Rudd purchased herself a fancy country estate in St. Mary Mead, and moved her with her new (and fifth!) husband after a long period of depressions. During a welcoming party event at the house, where almost the entire village is invited, a seemingly random woman instantly dies from poisoning. When eyewitness confirm that the lady, Heather Babcock, actually drank Mrs. Rudd's glass because hers got spilled, leads this to the deduction that Marina Rudd was the intended victim, and there are plenty of suspects with a motive to kill her.
Less exciting than the 1980 film version, less compelling than the original novel, but nevertheless the unfolding of the mystery is still tense, with a few efficient red herrings and secretive characters. Some of the roles remain underdeveloped here versus in the novel, like that of rival Lola Brewster or the good old butler role. The cast is decent, more than decent even, but the 1980-cast is impossible to erase from your memory.
- Coventry
- Jul 13, 2021
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Panna Marple: Zwierciadlo peka w odlamków stos
- Filming locations
- North Mymms Park, Hertfordshire, England, UK(Grounds, lodge, exterior and interior of Gossington Hall)
- Production companies
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