I've never been anyplace where someone was murdered, but Miss Marple can't escape it. On vacation in the Carbbean, she meets a nice old codger (Maurice Evans) who passes away in suspicious circumstances. Does she just see murder everywhere she looks, or . . .
The first sign Helen Hayes is playing rather than being Jane Marple is during the opening credits when she's beaming out of a plane window. My mother loved the sainted Helen but I can take her or leave her.
It's a largely 1980s cast, including Jameson Parker and Beth Howland. And Stephen Macht (I never understood how he maintained a career; he had the goods on somebody?)
The story is followed closely enough with proper tweaking for oversensitive American audiences (and we've only gotten worse; we're like children). Which is strange because the script is partially by Sue Grafton who had already started her popular "alphabet" series of crime novels (it's nice to find a gimmick).
Frankly, I've always preferred 1920s and '30s Christie. She produced some great stuff in later life, but not that much. I do like the idea Marple has that people are the same everywhere and so she can always draw her village parallels. It's a very American notion (or used to be).
It's nice to see Brock Peters. Nice to see Maurice Evans, too. In fact, I wish Evans had played in the wheelchair and grumpy Bernard Hughes had been murdered, but one can't have everything.
I agree with those who say Joan Hickson's version is better, but I'm reviewing this and not that. And while I have reservations about some of the cast, this version is good enough and not too heavy if, like me, you're an insomniac who needs to pass the night without getting (inside joke) one's blood pressure up.
