A Maldição do Espelho

The Mirror Crack'd is one of the many Agatha Christie stories made into an all-star film. This one is more campy and less opulent than "Murder on the Orient Express," for instance, but for what it is, it's pretty good.

Set in the '50s in Miss Marple's village of St. Mary Mead, the film stars lots of big names from that era: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Kim Novak - a veritable who's who of '50s megastars.

Angela Lansbury plays Miss Marple, and she's perfect in the role. The film also has an appearance by Pierce Brosnan in a small, uncredited part.

The script has the Taylor and Novak characters camping it up with bitchy insults which I don't quite remember from the book. The story concerns a movie star, her husband, her co-star nemesis, etc., coming to St. Mary Mead to make a movie.

During a party, a local resident is murdered, but the intended victim is assumed to be Taylor. It's up to Miss Marple to unravel the mystery as more murders occur.

The scene between Taylor and Edward Fox is especially good, and I've never been sure if Taylor falling on top of Hudson on the bed was supposed to be funny or not - in the movie theater, it got a laugh.

It's great to see all these old stars in the same film. By the way, perhaps this was mentioned by one of the posters - this story is based on a real-life incident that happened to Gene Tierney.

Surprisingly faithful adaption of the excellent Christie book adds some campy insults to the story by having Taylor and Novak square off as jealous rivals, but the outcome still carries a mild punch. Lansbury is excellent as Jane and it's nice to see Liz reunited with Hudson after their stint in the 50's on Giant. One of the better all star casts for an Agatha picture, with a nice recreation of St Mary Mead. Makes you feel like you're really in a small English village.

Highly underrated, this low-key little whodunit manages to bring together two unlikely genres, the English village murder mystery and the catty Hollywood self-satire. While who did do it is not that surprising, the reason why is clever and touching. (Interestingly, the central plot is loosely based on the real-life tragedy that befell Gene Tierney, star of the legendary film noir "Laura.")

The cast of 50's Hollywood icons give very good performances, though, sadly, for most it represents the last really good parts they have had. Hudson is especially good in a bittersweet role. Lansbury is crisp and efficient as Miss Marple and could have made a series of these films had she not found meatier material as another mistress of murder on "Murder, She Wrote."

Indeed, though I adore Margaret Rutherford, I think Lansbury does better by the role of Miss Marple. This is not a great mystery movie, but works very well as light entertainment and as a last hurrah for several fine actors.

They gathered an amazing celebrity cast for this, many of whom were top Hollywood draws in their younger years.

Unfortunately the performances are really inconsistent which takes the shine off things.

Liz Taylor is probably the biggest name and also the most variable. In some scenes she is fantastic, in others she is barely there, with a predilection for delivering her lines under a "beauty light" which I doubt was the director's choice.

Rock Hudson stands out and is the heart of the story. Kim Novak has the funniest lines as Taylor's siren rival. Tony Curtis is good too.

But Angela Lansbury's Jane Marple simply isn't on screen enough, with Edward Fox's wooden police officer doing far too much of the in-person investigation before Miss Marple weaves her magic.

And the reveal, although authentic to the book, is a bit too unexpected to be really satisfying.

Being a fan of both Agatha Christie, Angela Lansbury, and Rock Hudson I watched this film with pleasure. The cast here has done a great job, everybody is convincing, even Liz Taylor, although her acting is at times overdone, as usual. The movie has a good pace, dialogues are witty and humorous, and the mystery itself engaging. I think the proportions of each character's involvement in the story are true to the original (I was afraid they'd make Miss Marple into an action figure or something, but was glad to see she stayed in the background to make her grand entrance in the finale). All in all, it's a very good and convincing adaptation of Christie's book.