My favorite film version of "The Mirror Crack'd" is this one, from 1980, but only because of my great admiration for Angela Lansbury, who plays Jane Marple. The same story was also adapted twice for British TV, with Joan Hickson in 1992 and Julia McKenzie in 2010, and a third time in India as "Shubho Mahurat." I recommend both English versions, particularly the McKenzie, which has terrific performances by Lindsay Duncan and Joanna Lumley, and wisely includes an important character who is left out of the Lansbury version, a photographer named Margot (Charlotte Riley).
Other reviewers have commented on the all-star (and aging-star) cast of this version: Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak (all near the end of their careers), and Tony Curtis, who is blessed with a strong, wise-cracking character. None of the four were great film actors, in my view, but they were pros and they handle this material well, especially in the scenes they are lucky enough to share with the divine Edward Fox, who plays Dermot Craddock, a Scotland Yard inspector and Marple's nephew.
This review is less about the movie, which is an intricately constructed murder mystery, baffling and thus satisfying. Instead, I wonder about one particular aspect of it: how the audience is meant to feel about the murderer, her motivation and her justification. (The spoiler alert is serious because I just revealed the murderer's gender, and will soon specify her name.) If the story had continued, putting her on trial, I'd have convicted her without a second thought, in spite of all the admiration and sympathy heaped on her by the other characters and, I think, the creators, perhaps including Christie herself (I haven't read the book).
The murderer is Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor), an actress trying to make a comeback with the help of her director/husband (Rock Hudson). She is emotionally fragile, barely holding herself together as the location shoot begins in St Mary Mead, Marple's village. The murder happens at a party the Rudds host to meet their new neighbors, including a flibbertigibbet named Heather-- an ardent fan. Within minutes of politely listening to Heather prattle about having met her before, during the war, Marina realizes that Heather was the vector who exposed her to German measles while she was pregnant, a pregnancy that had not been easy to achieve, and indeed had followed the adoption of three children (one of whom was Margo, a girl Marina so neglected that she doesn't even recognize her as the party's photographer). Because of rubella, Marina's son was born with a neurological disorder, which overwhelms Marina: she commits him to an institution and has a nervous breakdown, which tanks her career. Now, meeting Heather, the innocent vector, Marina's immediate response is murder: she poisons her cocktail within minutes of meeting her.
It seems, as I said, from the dialog and the treatment of Marina Rudd, that we are meant be sympathetic. Well, count me out. Even the fact that she may have been based on Gene Tierney's life didn't sway me. I was appalled at how monumentally self-centered she was-- not just neglecting her adopted children and abandoning her disabled son, but murdering the woman who had, in all innocence, exposed her to rubella, then murdering her assistant Ella (Geraldine Chaplin) because she *might* have witnessed the poisoning. (A précis of the original novel informs me that Marina also kills the butler because he also *might* know too much.)
There is no arrest, no trial, because Marina croaks. It's either suicide by overdose, or she is assisted by her husband, or possibly, her husband kills her to spare her the charge of multiple homicide. It is ambiguous. But I do wonder, if she had survived and there were a trial, would you want the jury to convict her? I know I would.
Other reviewers have commented on the all-star (and aging-star) cast of this version: Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak (all near the end of their careers), and Tony Curtis, who is blessed with a strong, wise-cracking character. None of the four were great film actors, in my view, but they were pros and they handle this material well, especially in the scenes they are lucky enough to share with the divine Edward Fox, who plays Dermot Craddock, a Scotland Yard inspector and Marple's nephew.
This review is less about the movie, which is an intricately constructed murder mystery, baffling and thus satisfying. Instead, I wonder about one particular aspect of it: how the audience is meant to feel about the murderer, her motivation and her justification. (The spoiler alert is serious because I just revealed the murderer's gender, and will soon specify her name.) If the story had continued, putting her on trial, I'd have convicted her without a second thought, in spite of all the admiration and sympathy heaped on her by the other characters and, I think, the creators, perhaps including Christie herself (I haven't read the book).
The murderer is Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor), an actress trying to make a comeback with the help of her director/husband (Rock Hudson). She is emotionally fragile, barely holding herself together as the location shoot begins in St Mary Mead, Marple's village. The murder happens at a party the Rudds host to meet their new neighbors, including a flibbertigibbet named Heather-- an ardent fan. Within minutes of politely listening to Heather prattle about having met her before, during the war, Marina realizes that Heather was the vector who exposed her to German measles while she was pregnant, a pregnancy that had not been easy to achieve, and indeed had followed the adoption of three children (one of whom was Margo, a girl Marina so neglected that she doesn't even recognize her as the party's photographer). Because of rubella, Marina's son was born with a neurological disorder, which overwhelms Marina: she commits him to an institution and has a nervous breakdown, which tanks her career. Now, meeting Heather, the innocent vector, Marina's immediate response is murder: she poisons her cocktail within minutes of meeting her.
It seems, as I said, from the dialog and the treatment of Marina Rudd, that we are meant be sympathetic. Well, count me out. Even the fact that she may have been based on Gene Tierney's life didn't sway me. I was appalled at how monumentally self-centered she was-- not just neglecting her adopted children and abandoning her disabled son, but murdering the woman who had, in all innocence, exposed her to rubella, then murdering her assistant Ella (Geraldine Chaplin) because she *might* have witnessed the poisoning. (A précis of the original novel informs me that Marina also kills the butler because he also *might* know too much.)
There is no arrest, no trial, because Marina croaks. It's either suicide by overdose, or she is assisted by her husband, or possibly, her husband kills her to spare her the charge of multiple homicide. It is ambiguous. But I do wonder, if she had survived and there were a trial, would you want the jury to convict her? I know I would.