Hollywood Can Get It Right: The Mirror Crack'd

Generally speaking, I consider the Joan Hickson's the definitive Miss Marples (the movies were recently remastered and re-released).

However, The Mirror Crack'd is one place where I think the Hollywood Miss Marple is far superior, despite the miscasting of Angela Lansbury (see below). 

In The Mirror Crack'd, Hollywood comes to St. Mary Mead. An aging and fragile female star who is about to rebuild her career buys Gossington Hall and then proceeds to get herself involved in a murder. 

Claire Bloom

The BBC The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side stars Joan Hickson as the detective with Claire Bloom as the aging and fragile female star, Marina Gregg. Barry Newman plays Jason Rudd, the devoted husband and director who knows her better than anyone. Constantine Gregory plays Ardwyck Fenn, the brusque and rude producer, while Glynis Barber plays the rival female star, Lola Brewster. 

Elizabeth Taylor

 In the Hollywood version, Angela Lansbury plays the detective and should have played it as her Murder, She Wrote persona rather than as an aged spinster. Angela Lansbury has never looked like an aged spinster in her life, not even now at age 96. 

Elizabeth Taylor plays Marina Gregg. Rock Hudson plays Jason Rudd. Tony Curtis plays the producer while Kim Novak plays the rival female star. 

And the fact is, the Hollywood cast plays nearly all the parts better. The BBC version is serious and tragic and Claire Bloom is arguably the superior actor for the lead role. But Christie is quite deliberately playing off the Hollywood mystique, including the status symbols and culture that come with it. The characters are actors who are, in a sense, playing themselves. 

Detective writer Ngaio Marsh, who worked in the theater, attempts to explain this behavior in a number of her books. It isn't that actors and actresses don't feel as passionately as they claim in their personal lives. They do. But they are trained to portray their emotions to the nth degree; consequently, their emotions come across as false, even when they aren't.

Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson and others manage to convey this double falsehood or double sincerity. They are depicting the end years of classic Hollywood, not the serious craft of hard-working actors.  

The one part that I prefer in the BBC version is Gwen Watford as Mrs. Bantry. Gwen Watford is extraordinarily delightful to watch in the Joan Hickson Miss Marples, and I love the scene in The Mirror Crack'd where she asks Mr. Rudd if she and the ladies of the parish can tour his marble bathrooms. 

Otherwise, the Hollywood version does a much better job capturing the milieu and the problem and the tragedy and the over-the-top resolution. Elizabeth Taylor is, after all, a great scene chewer. 

In fact, the resolution of the Hollywood version is altogether preferable--Miss Marple is allowed her summary. If only Hollywood had simply used Jessica Fletcher!