Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage

It is difficult to understand ITV's decision to remake the Miss Marple series, because in Joan Hickson we have the definitive interpretation of Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth. This particular story, Miss Marple's first fictional outing,dates from 1930, but the writer, T.R. Bowen has skilfully updated it to the 1950s. The script is witty and the cast is endowed with such acting stalwarts as Paul Eddington and Rosalie Crutchley. If the plot does not seem so original now it is because Christie's work was so often copied, and what must have seemed innovative in 1930 now appears to be hackneyed. All that said it is a story well told and worth a couple of hours of anyone's time.

Joan Hickson IS Miss Marple and hasn't ever been beaten. Oddly, in this one she doesn't actually change her "outfit". I believe she wears the same clothing throughout. Given it 7 as today its clear that BBC in the 80s were already going down the road where "blasphemy" wasn't picked up by "The Vicar" or indeed anyone else, which in the 50s it most certainly would have been. Some of the language is therefore typically BBC trying to "update" when it wasn't needed. Inspector Slack and his sidekick are well suited to these things of allowing the "intruder" (miss marple) to steal their thunder. Never tire of watching Joan Hickson in one of these and compared to most offerings today with "same sex" and increased foul language its rather pleasant to have something that for the most part is watchable even if the plot line is pretty thin

Life in the vicarage is not as gentile and peaceful as it would seem as even mild-mannered Reverend Clement is driven to swearing by the stiff-necked attitude of Colonel Protheroe over the church accounts. In fact Protheroe is so unpopular that, when he is found murdered in the vicarage, several people confess to the crime to protect others who they assume must have done it. When the police manage to prove that the confessors couldn't possibly have done it, it leaves them with the question of who actually has killed him. As they conduct their investigation, Miss Marple continues her gardening and listens to the village grapevine to build a picture in her mind of what could have happened.

Although I have seen several BBC Miss Marple films where boredom could have been the cause of the murder, I still tried again several times and I was happy when this film turned out to be one of the more enjoyable and free-flowing in the series. Stepping away from the uptight and repressed standards of the period this film instead builds on the gossipy, small-world nature of life in a small English village. In doing this it show Miss Marple's quiet use of the grapevine in nice contrast to the police resources of Slack. The story itself is well structured and has plenty going on – it avoids the trap of being dull by way of trying to "English" and is quite fun. The mystery is well spun out and well solved with a nice air of humour along the way. It will still appear "boring" to those raised on the quick-fire mysteries of CSI etc but I found it to be quite sparky by the usual BBC Miss Marple standards.

Hickson is the one I always think of when I think of Miss Marple and here she is good value. She plays the "village" aspect of her character well and her personality comes through well in even simple lines. She is well supported by Horovitch's Slack who provides several laughs with his character. The support are generally up to the task – Eddington had a smaller role than I expected but was good; Lang was enjoyable before his final shot while people like Adams, Hazeldine, Good, West and others are all solid enough to stop the audience ignoring them or seeing them as dominate (and thus a possible murderer).

Overall this is an enjoyable and interesting entry in the solid BBC Miss Marple film series. The story is engaging and developed well and, far from being stiff, it actually flows quite well. The addition of humour and lively performances only helps to make it all the more enjoyable and makes this a good introduction to the BBC Marple series.

When Mrs. LaStrange first attends services, the vicar asks if she is just there "for the season", to which she said, "Well, to everything there is a season". The vicar replies, "Oh yes, "Proverbs'". No, that quote is from the Book of Ecclesiastes. One would think vicar would know that. BTW, this exchange does not appear in the novel.

Also, Mr. Dawes, the curate, is described to be a Jesuit. Why would what appears to be a Presbyterian church employ a Catholic priest? The curate is in the novel, but is never referred to as a Jesuit.

Hickson is by far the best Miss Marple onscreen. Her performances make these cozy mysteries really entertaining. The screen adaptations in the series are a bit uneven, but I enjoyed all of them. I especially liked this one, "A Murder is Announced", and "Sleeping Murder".

The production values for the series were quite good, the supporting actors always at least passable and sometimes far better than that, and they didn't take too many liberties with the stories. But Hickson's performances are uniformly excellent.