The Mirror Crack'd (1980)

Fun, star filled mystery, this cut off from the Hercules Poirot films went back to an already familiar Agatha Christie character, Miss Jane Marple. Less "tweedy" than Margaret Rutherford who played the part in several well remembered 1960's films, Angela Lansbury is every bit as clever as her predecessor if less snoopy, only sticking her nose in if she happens to smell a clue.This entry has Miss Marple's town a agog over the arrival of a film crew and its major stars, filming "Mary Queen of Scots". Playing the leading role is the still gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor whose director husband Rock Hudson is trying to protect her allegedly fragile state. Taylor's old rival (Kim Novak) shows up to play Queen Elizabeth and this begins a series of amusing bitch fights between the two divas, interrupted on occasion by murder. Who would want to murder la Liz, and accidentally kill an over zealous fan and her assistant? While the local police zoom in, it's up to Miss Marple to really dig deep to figure it all out.Among the suspects are Tony Curtis as a crass producer, Geraldine Chaplin as a blackmailing secretary, the nasty Novak (who wants to change history to increase her part at Taylor's expense) and Taylor or Hudson for mysterious reasons of their own. The witty and calculating script will keep you guessing, and long after you have seen it, you'll want to revisit what lead its star to T.V. immortality as a New England variation of the same character. The ending is tragically heart wrenching.

When at last I saw this old flop last weekend on itv3 in my London hotel room, I had difficulty identifying it as a vehicle for some of the biggest stars in the business until they popped up, one by one, in roles that were either cameos or tongue-in-cheek throwaways. It soon became apparent the acting as well as the direction was awful, but curiosity gained the better of me and I stayed on to the bitter end. I kept thinking at least one of the stars would do a memorable turn. Perhaps it was the wretched script or the bad lighting that prevented such a manifestation. The usual finesse of a Miss Marple film was nowhere in evidence. Unintentional comedy reigned, as in one poorly directed scene where a diminutive Edward Fox stood awkwardly side by side with looming Rock Hudson suggestive of a wedding between Batman and Robin. Elizabeth Taylor playing Elizabeth Taylor called out silently for the line, "Time for my close-up, Mr. DeMille!" A weak musical score was equally dismal.One wonders how these usually fine actors carried on regardless when it must have occurred to them they were clinging to a thin straw. They must have been very well paid.

Enjoyable as a period piece, but more like the period it was set in - a title card says 1953 - than 1980, when it was made. With some really uneven or just plain consistently bad or mediocre performances, plus some baffling directorial choices and a clichéd script. Kim Novak doesn't just show up in a car from 6 years later, but the most recognizably 1959 car possible, a white Cadillac convertible with the top down making the famous garish fins look even bigger. The only thing campier than the Cadillac is Kim Novak's performance. Her portrayal of a preening bitchy Hollywood star isn't remotely believable. Liz Taylor's version is less bad, being not very believable (but not was wildly ridiculous as Novak) when the character is in public and at least sometimes not bad when the character is in private. Angela Lansbury is sort of passable, but plays the character in as broad and clichéd a way as the nearly identical lady detective (except of course a Maine rather than British accent) she later did on TV. British actor Edward Fox is fine of course. The real surprise is Tony Curtis. He's the only American actor in the film who is natural and relaxed and motivated. He plays the producer as a somewhat comic character, as obviously they were all directed to do, but he's the only one who really seems otherwise like a real guy, Bronx accent included. And as others have mentioned....whose idea was it for Miss Marple to light up? Not even a line justifying it, like maybe "Nothing like sucking on a fag after a hard day sleuthing and deducing, I always say." Followed by blowing a couple of nice smoke rings.But its an interesting film. Probably the script writer(s) is way better than the truly terrible director. First, it's Agatha Christie and even better, a Miss Marple mystery. Second, there's this whole meta thing going on on several levels. It opens with (spoiler alert, sort of) a black and white 50's style British mystery film which we find out is being shown to the village by the vicar when the film breaks. Then the color "real" stuff starts. But it's about a film being shot in the same illage - an American film featuring American actors but about British historical monarchy subjects. The American stars of the film portrayed by Liz Taylor and Kim Novak are supposed to be sort of has-been American film stars, who of course are more known for star quality than acting chops, kind of like the actual actors cast in the roles. The very British inspector is such a fan of the films starring the character portrayed by Liz Taylor he has seen them multiple times and thinks she is a great actress. The local girl, grown up, is star struck and had an encounter back in the 40's with the character portrayed by Liz Taylor which was the greatest thing that ever happened to her in her whole life and her story of the encounter is pivotal to the plot. It's the director who screwed all this very promising stuff up. The fake black and white film at the opening seems really fake. A real period British film would feature non-method but in its own way very intelligent acting, which this does not. Liz Taylor and Kim Novak, as I mentioned above, are not very believable (Liz) or absurdly unbelievable (Kim) as stars out in public. Kim Novak is also quite unbelievably bad when shown being shot in scenes for the film they are shooting. Oh,also any film using a built set for some scenes would have been shot on a British or American sound stage anyway, not at a nonexistent sound stage in the village. Like in some earlier American films, reality is sacrificed for some idea of reality. A good director would have not violated reality for hackneyed ideas of what the script is about. Here's how to direct famous American actors portraying famous American actors: get them to act as well as they can in any scenario, not portray the meaning of the scene or how they think the character should act. Being there and listening and allowing and being vulnerable and are the only things that ever work, in something semi-satirical or whatever.

Sorry to say it, but IMHO this is a really bad production, particularly considered as a mystery film and particularly in comparison with the BBC productions (1992 and 2010) which show how this material should really be handled. Curtis and Novak play a film producer and a camera-hugging starlet as heavy-handed stereotypes straight out of a "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoon. Of course both can do better - clearly it's the director's fault for allowing/encouraging it. Taylor and Hudson try to provide some balance but can't overcome Hales's screenplay and Hamilton's direction. Both of the latter appear to believe that the viewers have never heard of Christie, Marple, or mysteries, and have to be forcibly guided through the game with cheats and walkthroughs. Plot points and clues which are subtly introduced, or discovered through deduction, in the novel (and in the BBC versions) are here spelled out loudly, notoriously, early, and with audiovisual effects.