Miss Marple: Le manoir de l'illusion

Miss Marple is the best of friends with two aging sisters. One sister, who thinks the other is in danger, has Miss Marple to pay a timely visit. Upon arriving she encounters a host of garden variety misfits and reform school types, along with their keepers, sharing the estate grounds with her friend. All of this makes for a genuinely great plot that includes the murder of the family Patriarch by which Miss Marple further sharpens her already keenly honed crime solving acumen.

This is one of the better TV-Movie adaptations that preserves the plot from novel to the screen. The screenplay flows well, has no obvious holes or gaps, the acting is grade A, and the Directing is Superb. I highly recommend this particular film as one of the BEST Miss Marple TV-Movies ever!!!

Although I really liked this, it is a disappointment after the delightful Murder Is Announced. Then again the book isn't Agatha Christie's best, although it's well written and perplexing, it is for me one of the weaker Marple books. There were several things I liked about the adaptation, one was the acting. Joan Hickson is a sheer delight as Miss Marple, and Faith Brook and Jean Simmons were very effective as Carrie-Louise and Ruth. Their end scene in particular was very poignant. Joss Ackland has a little less to do, but he turned in a solid performance. The adaptation is beautifully photographed, and the music is stunning. However, I had a real problem with the pace, the adaptation does start off very slowly, and never quite recovers. Out of the Joan Hickson adaptations, it is one of the least faithful ones. The elements that made the book perplexing were either left out or a tad underdeveloped. Consequently the plot is hard to follow and I will admit the final solution left me baffled. Overall, disappointing but well acted and beautifully filmed, so worth a look. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I truly love Joan Hickson's adaptations of Miss Marple, she is in my opinion the quintessential Jane Marple. It's one of my lesser favourites in the series. I'll try and explain why.

The novel itself isn't one of my favourites, I find the trickery of the murder works better in the book (in my mind) then it does on screen. In terms of production I find it safe, but still very good, when compared to other adaptations it's quite not there.

On the plus side the acting is superb, Hickson is as always excellent, Holly Aird is wonderfully youthful and vibrant as Gina. The legendary Jean Simmons is incredibly sweet, she gave a sensitive and believable performance of the fragile Carrie Louise. I am a bit biased when it comes to Joss Ackland, he is hugely charismatic, at times almost overpoweringly so, but here we see a restrained, dare I say touching performance, his voice makes him incredibly watchable.

The scene I enjoyed most of all I think was the stage play, Ruth looks on awkwardly, Miss Marple watches intently. It's there to show that events are sometimes smoke and mirrors, it's cleverly put together. I also like their later fireside chat where she talks about the robberies committed by starting the bonfires early.

I would still give it a score of 8/10, it is still an excellent production, it's just that I have such high regards for others in the series. I must say I find the later Marple a particularly good production from a frequently bemoaned series.

Miss Marple visits an old friend, Ruth van Rydock, on a large country estate. Ruth lives there with some relatives and an assortment of characters. When someone is murdered, Miss Marple starts investigating, as does her old sparring partner, Detective Chief Inspector Slack.

The weakest episode of the Miss Marple series. Quite unengaging: the characters aren't particularly likeable or well-developed and, despite the cast, the performances largely seem over-acted. The plot is drawn out in the extreme: the murder doesn't happen until about the half-way mark and even after that things just crawl along.

After all this when the murderer is revealed it all seems random and far-fetched, complete with trite ending.

There is still a fair degree of intrigue and this keeps it going and makes it watchable, but only just.

This version tries to bring Christie's story accurately, but the editing is so choppy the details of plot are often hard to follow. Not to worry, though, intuitively if not deductively, you'll spot the murderer without much trouble. Good cast, especially Jean Simmons, and great scenery make it a pleasant watch. Joan Hickman, though, as Miss Marple just didn't quite cut it for me.