Tres crímenes y un asesino

Enjoyed this Agatha Christie murder mystery and especially with the great acting by Margaret Rutherford, (Miss Jane Marple). Miss Marple sticks her nose into another murder mystery of a woman and manages to enter the murder victims apartment under the pretense of looking for old clothes and things for a church benefit. Miss Marple even joins a theatrical group and volunteers her so-called talents as an elderly British lady. There is a strange bunch of actors in this theater, one girl walks in her sleep and acts like she is in a trance and even tries to kill Miss Marple with a knife. There is a great deal of comedy through out the film and Miss Marple always seems to give the Police Inspector valuable information which he takes complete credit for himself. Nice old scenes from England and a very enjoyable classic film from 1964.

Jane's on jury duty and is the only one to find NOT GUILTY to a murder charge so she is off to find the real killer. She auditions to join the cast of a traveling players group in a get-up with a huge hydrangea blossom plunked in her bosom and recites "The killing of Dan McGrew". It's wonderful. The rest of the film is entertaining and the finale typically ironic and comical. These films are great, easy to watch and very light hearted.

Like an intrepid war ship that patrols the high seas, wonderful Margaret Rutherford patrols a theatrical troupe of actors and actresses known as the Cosgood Players, searching for a killer-most-foul amongst them. And a killer she finds, lurking in the backstage shadows, in this screen adaptation of Agatha Christie's book "Mrs. McGinty's Dead".

It's a nifty whodunit. I was fairly sure who the murderer was. But I was dead wrong. With good film direction, and effective plot misdirection, the film cleverly leads viewers down the garden path, with red herrings scattered here and there. As you make your way through the story, you'll be hard pressed to find the relevant clues, plainly visible, but camouflaged amid a complexity of detail. And that's the mark of a good murder mystery.

If I had to pick the script apart, looking for something to complain about, I could point out that the various suspects have back-stories that are all too thin. But that's normal, more or less, for films in this genre.

En route to the solution of the puzzle, Miss Marple (Rutherford) auditions to be part of the theater troupe, in a solo recital of the Robert Service poem "The Shooting Of Dan McGrew". This sequence alone, with Rutherford's terrifically hammy stage performance, is enough to make the film worth watching.

In searching for the killer, the befuddled police don't have a clue, of course. But with her keen wit and perceptive insight into human nature, Miss Marple sifts and sorts through the jumble of facts with cunning effectiveness. The film's final few minutes take place behind the stage of a play in progress, where she conks the murderer over the head with a stage prop. Marvelous.

As a whodunit, "Murder Most Foul" is a good one. But what really makes the film enjoyable is Rutherford in the role of Miss Marple. With her animated facial expressions, her commanding tone of voice, and her formidable and intimidating stage presence, 72 year old Margaret Rutherford is an absolute joy to watch. I'm surprised that the British didn't name a battleship after her.

Margaret Rutherford makes an amusing Miss Marple in this all-English version of Agatha Christie's "Mrs. McGinty's Dead". With an outstanding supporting cast she manages to solve the murder mystery after joining the cast of a local theater group. A quiet but very english film; filmed in black and white it looks as if it is an older film than it is, but also has a modern feel to it since it was filmed in 1964. Ron Moody is wonderful as the theatrical Clifford Cosgood, who tries to convince Miss Marple to invest in his next play. Charles Tingwell plays the police inspector who gets all his clues from Miss Marple and seems always to be three steps behind her.

Some lovely bits here, based again on an Agatha Christie novel, not featuring Jane Marple however, but a Hercule Poirot mystery adapted and extremely loosely plotted to enhance the idiosyncratic manner of actress Miss Margaret Rutherford.

Margaret, trying out for a local theatre group in order to expose the real murderer, reciting a Robert Service poem to the disinterest of cast members, director and stagehands has to be seen to be believed. Her clicking knitting needles in the jury box, her one dissenting vote invalidating the whole judicial process, her self righteous oblivion to the glares of the judge, are comedic timing at its best. Her scenes with the company are wonderful and her slow, methodical denouement of the murderer exquisite.

Just curl up with this one. Great old actors from the sixties. A brilliant series. 8 out of 10.