Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage (1986)

I don't believe there are any spoilers. I enjoyed this one. It was easy to have compassion for the varying characters and their situations. Miss Marple was as observant and as keyed in to the actual situation as ever.I've seen this one often and will again.

Quote 'hbs': "Hickson is by far the best Miss Marple on screen"Ooooh! there's a debatable point. Though I accept heartily ones opinions, I can't help thinking that's got the members of the Margaret Rutherford fan club ruffling their pillows in a disgruntled manner. Joan Hickson just doesn't do it. I don't know what it is, but she comes over leaving me thinking 'no wonder your a spinster. SMILE for gods sake'. MR I could have happily passed off as my eccentric grandmother and liked. JH does it her way, but I can't help wonder if she had her beady-eyes on this role while filming with MR in 'Murder, She Said'. Unconvincing seems to be a word that, although harsh, crops up every time JH plays this role. Watchable, for sure, but not eager for more. I also consider that I am a victim of choice here. The plots and plans are all immovable if adapting Agatha Christie. This film is no exception, so the only real ways in adapting to difference are the choice of the actor/actress, or time shift it, as with the recent 'Romeo Must Die'. JH is a superb actress I have seen many times and her talents are so easily on show here as a 'tight' Miss Marple, by which I mean non-expressive. MR was more full-on and in yer' face. 'Filo doth compare too much'. As I said, it's choice.

Life in the vicarage is not as gentile and peaceful as it would seem as even mild-mannered Reverend Clement is driven to swearing by the stiff-necked attitude of Colonel Protheroe over the church accounts. In fact Protheroe is so unpopular that, when he is found murdered in the vicarage, several people confess to the crime to protect others who they assume must have done it. When the police manage to prove that the confessors couldn't possibly have done it, it leaves them with the question of who actually has killed him. As they conduct their investigation, Miss Marple continues her gardening and listens to the village grapevine to build a picture in her mind of what could have happened.Although I have seen several BBC Miss Marple films where boredom could have been the cause of the murder, I still tried again several times and I was happy when this film turned out to be one of the more enjoyable and free-flowing in the series. Stepping away from the uptight and repressed standards of the period this film instead builds on the gossipy, small-world nature of life in a small English village. In doing this it show Miss Marple's quiet use of the grapevine in nice contrast to the police resources of Slack. The story itself is well structured and has plenty going on – it avoids the trap of being dull by way of trying to "English" and is quite fun. The mystery is well spun out and well solved with a nice air of humour along the way. It will still appear "boring" to those raised on the quick-fire mysteries of CSI etc but I found it to be quite sparky by the usual BBC Miss Marple standards.Hickson is the one I always think of when I think of Miss Marple and here she is good value. She plays the "village" aspect of her character well and her personality comes through well in even simple lines. She is well supported by Horovitch's Slack who provides several laughs with his character. The support are generally up to the task – Eddington had a smaller role than I expected but was good; Lang was enjoyable before his final shot while people like Adams, Hazeldine, Good, West and others are all solid enough to stop the audience ignoring them or seeing them as dominate (and thus a possible murderer).Overall this is an enjoyable and interesting entry in the solid BBC Miss Marple film series. The story is engaging and developed well and, far from being stiff, it actually flows quite well. The addition of humour and lively performances only helps to make it all the more enjoyable and makes this a good introduction to the BBC Marple series.

Spoilers herein.Watching all these BBC Marples is a real treat visually because you get a different director each time, and usually a different writer. That way, there is as much discovery in how the translation is made as there is in the mystery itself.But T R Bowen adapted seven of these and they are the worst of the bunch. That's because he truly believes in the TeeVee model: the viewer doesn't want to think about what is going on. There is no game between writer and reader. The TeeVee viewer just wants to pleasantly take up time and be surprised by the clever solution.Christie never intended such a thing, and railed against it in her lifetime. Her own plays show that intelligent engagement with the audience is possible,This Bowenization is a case in point. The novel idea here is that the detective herself provides the mistaken alibi. A pretty clever idea in 1930, already copied many times by the time this production is set. The book has it as a matter of self-confrontation; that's why we have the mad curator, and the introspection of the dying woman, and the painter.All that is washed away in this TeeVee script. Shame on Bowen and curses to viewers who don't complain.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.