Product Details

• Actors: Joan Hickson, Caroline Blakiston, Helena Michell, James Cossins, Joan Greenwood
• Directors: Christopher Petit, David Tucker, John Davies, Julian Amyes, Martyn Friend
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Unknown)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 5
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• DVD Release Date: February 28, 2006
• Run Time: 936 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000CRR36K
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,410 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  #3 in	Movies & TV > Mystery & Suspense > British Mystery Theater > Agatha Christie
  #7 in	Movies & TV > Mystery & Suspense > Mystery & Suspense Masters
  #12 in	Movies & TV > Television > A&E Home Video

• For more information about "Marple Classic Mysteries (Caribbean Mystery/4:50 from Paddington/Moving Finger/Nemesis/At Bertram's Hotel/Murder at Vicarage/Sleeping Murder/They Do It with Mirrors/Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

• This item is part of The Agatha Christie's Miss Marple (Joan Hickson) Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Joan Hickson is the epitome of Agatha Christie's spinster sleuth in this DVD boxed set of nine Miss Marple movies from British television. "Little grey-haired cobra," mutters Detective Inspector Slack (David Horovitch), the hard-slogging policeman who finds himself humbled, again and again, by the frail woman's shrewd insight and dogged determination. Whether on a tropical island, in a grand hotel, or on a bus tour of historic sites, Miss Marple never fails to uncover the buried secrets, illicit affairs, tangled finances, and boorish Americans that abound in Agatha Christie's mysteries. Hickson is said to be Christie's own choice for the role (though when Christie told her this, Hickson was taken aback, as she was still fairly young at the time), and it's easy to see why: Hickson is physically unassuming, a perfect village busybody, yet her eyes contain a constant flicker of curiosity and keen intelligence.

This set includes all but three of Hickson's outings as Miss Marple: A Caribbean Mystery, in which an old bore's death on an island resort sets the plot in motion; The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side, which features an aging movie star and sumptuous marble bathrooms; in 4:50 from Paddington, the launch of Sputnik is accompanied by a strangling on a train; The Moving Finger begins with poison pen letters, but poison and bludgeonings soon follow; At Bertram's Hotel is one of the most unusual stories, as murder doesn't happen until more than 3/4 of the movie has unfolded, and the ending features a dynamic rooftop chase; Murder at the Vicarage, a definitive village mystery which finds Miss Marple solving a killing on her home turf; Nemesis, in which a wealthy old friend of Miss Marple's orchestrates, after his own death, the investigation of a murder long gone cold; Sleeping Murder, one of the best, starts out as more of a ghost story than a mystery and culminates in genuine suspense; and They Do It With Mirrors, in which misdirection--the cunning art upon which any murder mystery depends--is part of the plot itself.

There are a few famous names sprinkled among the casts (among them Donald Pleasance, Halloween, Jean Simmons, Spartacus, and Joan Greenwood, The Importance of Being Earnest, who has one of the most wonderful voices in the history of British cinema), but these BBC dramas depend mostly on solid, enjoyable character actors--actors much like Hickson herself, who labored for decades in bit parts before finding her plum role. The compression necessary to turn a book into a movie sometimes makes sussing out the murderer simpler, but fans of the genre will still be delighted by Miss Marple's perceptive investigations. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description
Return to post-war England for mystery and a cup of tea with Agatha Christie’s most popular creation. The consummate prim and proper crime-fighting spinster, Miss Jane Marple sets down her knitting needles to unwind the most ingenious crimes. As she travels from city to countryside and even the Bahamas, murders, missing bodies and haunted dreams have a habit of falling across Miss Marple’s path--which is precisely when, "tail up and head down," the beloved aunt and godmother goes into action. Digitally re-mastered and faithfully adapted from Agatha Christie’s best-selling novels, THE CLASSIC MYSTERIES COLLECTION features Joan Hickson (Christie’s personal choice to play the spinster sleuth) in over fifteen hours of suspense, misdirection, rich period detail, and the cleverest solutions imaginable. DVD Features: Complete Index of all Miss Marple Stories; Agatha Christie Bio; Joan Hickson Biography/Filmography; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

137 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It is dangerous to believe people. I haven't for years ...", January 25, 2006

By	Themis-Athena (from somewhere between California and Germany) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

There she sits: A white-haired lady dressed in tweeds, a pair of knitting needles in her lap, more interested in village gossip than in the goings-on of the world at large - and out of nothing, she utters sentences like that.

For more likely than not, another murder has been committed; and Miss Jane Marple, elderly spinster from the village of St. Mary Mead, just happens to find herself near the scene of the crime. And also more likely than not, while the police are still toddling around searching for clues she'll find the solution - relying on her ever-unfailing "village parallels;" those seemingly innocuous incidents of village life that make up the sum of her knowledge of human nature, and to which she routinely turns in unmasking even the cleverest killer. "Miss Marple is a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner - Miss Wetherby is a mixture of vinegar and gush. Of the two Miss Marple is the more dangerous," already observes Vicar Clement, the narrator of Miss Marple's literary debut, 1930's "Murder at the Vicarage" (although in the BBC series, only her fifth adventure).

Originally airing in the 1980s, the BBC's adaptations of Agatha Christie's twelve Miss Marple novels featured Joan Hickson in the title role; quickly establishing her as the quintessential Miss Marple even in the view of the grandmother (or rather, grand-aunt) of all village sleuths and "noticing kinds of persons"'s creator, Dame Agatha herself. (After seeing Hickson in an adaptation of her "Appointment With Death," as early as 1946 Christie reportedly sent her a note expressing the hope she would one day "play my dear Miss Marple.") Prior versions, partly involving rather high-octane casts, had seen as Miss Marple, inter alia, Angela Lansbury and Margaret Rutherford, but had been decidedly less faithful to Christie's books. While Lansbury holds her own fairly well when compared to the character's literary original in 1980's "Hollywood does Christie" version of "The Mirror Crack'd" (and that movie's ageing actresses' showdown featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak is a delight to watch), the four movies starring Rutherford are only loosely based on Christie's books: Dame Margaret's Miss Marple, although itself likewise a splendid performance, has about as much to do with Agatha Christie's demure and seemingly scatterbrained village sleuth as Big Ben does with the English countryside, and of the scripts, only "Murder, She Said" is an adaptation of a Miss Marple mystery ("4:50 From Paddington"), whereas two of the others - "Murder at the Gallop" and "Murder Most Foul" - are actually Hercule Poirot stories ("After the Funeral" and "Mrs. McGinty's Dead," respectively), and "Murder Ahoy" is based on a completely independent screenplay.

Following the rule that ever since Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Lestrade every great private detective needs a policeman he can outwit, the creators of the BBC series inserted the character of Inspector Slack into almost all storylines - hardly in keeping with the literary originals, which are set over a period of more than 30 years and thus, exceed the career span of a policeman already advanced on his professional path at the time of his first encounter with Miss Marple; even if the BBC's Slack is promoted from D.I. in the series's first instalment, 1984's "The Body in the Library" (where he really does appear) to Superintendent in 1992's "The Mirror Crack'd" (which is originally only an Inspector Craddock story). Yet, Hickson's and Horovitch's face-offs are a fun addition; and one is almost ready to pity Slack, who hardly ever gets a foot down vis-a-vis Miss Marple's quick rejoinders and, in the words of her friend, retired Scotland Yard chief Sir Henry Clithering, "wonderful gift to state the obvious." (During a conversation with Craddock [John Castle] in "The Mirror Crack'd," Slack - whom Miss Marple herself, in the TV adaptation of "Murder at the Vicarage," has already likened to a railway diesel engine, or in that story's literary original to a shoe vendor intent on selling you patent leather boots while completely ignoring your request for brown calf leather instead - unaware that he is talking to one of Aunt Jane's nephews, rather unsubtly credits her with having "a mind like a meat cleaver.")

Although Agatha Christie herself reportedly preferred Miss Marple over Hercule Poirot, her audience's demands compelled her to bring back the moustachioed Belgian with the many little grey cells much more frequently than the village sleuth from St. Mary Mead. All the greater the tribute paid to "Dear Aunt Jane" in these lovingly-executed adaptations - now, if only this set also contained the series' first three entries ...

Episodes included:

"Murder at the Vicarage" (1930, BBC 1986; Christie's first Marple story)
"The Moving Finger" (1942, BBC 1985)
"They Do It with Mirrors" (1952, BBC 1991)
"4:50 From Paddington" (1957, BBC 1987; a/k/a "What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!")
"The Mirror Crack'd" (1962, BBC 1992; title taken from Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott")
"At Bertram's Hotel" (1965; BBC 1987)
"A Caribbean Mystery" (1965, BBC 1989)
"Nemesis" (1971, BBC 1987; sequel to the above)
"Sleeping Murder" (1976, BBC 1987; Christie's last Miss Marple mystery)

Episodes not included:

"The Body in the Library" (1942, BBC 1984, the first adaptation starring Hickson)
"A Murder Is Announced" (1950, BBC 1985)
"A Pocket Full of Rye" (1953, BBC also 1985)

Also recommended:
Murder at the Vicarage: A Miss Marple Mystery (Agatha Christie Collection)
Agatha Christie: Five Complete Miss Marple Novels (Avenel Suspense Classics)
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
Miss Marple - 3 Feature Length Mysteries (The Body in the Library / A Murder Is Announced / A Pocketful of Rye)
The Mirror Crack'd

104 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice deal (if you haven't already bought them), January 14, 2006

By	Eric Pregosin (New Carrollton, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a collection of 5 discs of 9 episodes 2 hrs each (1 hr 40 mins without commercials of course) of the Miss Marple series of mysteries that aired on PBS' Mystery and later A&E after being "inherited" from BBC. Joan Hickson is a delight in the title role. Ok, she's not the hilarious "twit" that Margaret Rutherford was on the big screen 4 times in the 1960s (that set is now available too), but she does a first class job just as David Suchet did for Poirot and Jeremy Brett did for Sherlock Holmes. 2 things you should be aware of. 1) These discs were previously released in 2 separate sets (which I bought ages ago), and admittedly the current asking price on Amazon for this set is less than the 2 combined (heck, it's less than set 2 by itself as I type this). Point is, nothing new here, if you like me bought the other 2 sets, all this will do is duplicate your existing stuff. 2) Although this is a lot of good mystery, it's not "THE COMPLETE SERIES". To complete your series, you will need to order the 3 disc set released by BBC Video through there deal with Warner also offered on this page. Albeit, these A&E copies are better than the Warner ones (these are shown as 1 complete story each while the Warner episodes are cut into 3 installments each with their own set of credits, 1 into 2 installments). But still if you want the complete series, you will need the other set plus this set (or the previously released 2). If you have a real yen for Miss Marple, buy this, the Warner 3 pack and the Margaret Rutherford set. Then after you pay your bill, think about the new Geraldine McEwan sets (I have yet to see those episodes, so you'll have to tell me how good or bad they are). Seriously, these (all the Hicksons) are first rate and if you have the complete Poirot sets and/or the Holmes sets, this would be just as welcome in your library.

53 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Agatha Chtistie Marple - The Classic Mysteries Collection, July 8, 2006

By	DG Bucknall (Atlanta, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Coming from Britain where the original episodes were broadcast and repeated a number of times I am one of the legion of fans of these versions of Miss Marple - Joan Hickson is the definitive old lady of crime envisioned by Agatha Christie. Therefore when I saw this collection of Miss Marple on DVD we had to have it despite already owning the VHS tapes from the UK.
Whilst the stories are there to be enjoyed, we have been extremely disappointed by the drastic cuts that have been inflicted on all the stories we have watched so far. We have noted in one review someone said that Miss Marple makes more sense of the clues than the viewer, perhaps not surprising given the cuts that have been made. For instance in 'The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side' 11 minutes of footage has been cut from the VHS version. Whilst 11 minutes may not sound a lot, in the uncut VHS version of the same story it does include critical moments which genuinely add to the story. Of all the episodes we have watched in this DVD collection, all have been cut by between 5 and 15 minutes. Why did the A&E people feel the need to tamper when it wasn't necessary?