Customer Reviews

Miss Marple: At Bertram's Hotel [VHS]

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+++++

I watched this movie without reading the 1965 Dame Agatha Christie novel that it was based on. (Christie wrote twelve Miss Marple murder mysteries altogether.) I'm glad I did this! Why? Because it forced me to really watch the movie in order to try and deduce who the murderer was.

A murder occurs at London's Bertram's Hotel where Miss Marple (the late Joan Hickson) is staying. An official police investigation ensues with Chief Inspector Fred Davy (George Baker) as one of the investigators. Unofficially, Miss Marple puts all the clues together.

Who are the people staying at or associated with this hotel? They are as follows:

(1) Bess Segwick who has been married several times (Caroline Blakiston)
(2) Elvina Blake, a person who is soon to be wealthy (Helena Mitchell)
(3) Selina Hazy, Miss Marple's friend (Joan Greenwood)
(4) Canon Pennygather, an absentminded retired clergyman (Preston Lockwood)
(5) Michael Gorman, the hotel's Irish doorman (Brian McGrath)
(6) Ladislaus Malinowski, an ex-racecar driver and womanizer (Rob Reynolds)

Joan Hickson (whom Agatha Christie herself wanted to play Miss Marple) captures the essence of the heroine super sleuth in her performance. (Hickson was 81 years old in this movie!)

The interior filming of the hotel is fantastic. All costumes and props are authentic looking. The background music adds to each scene.

Unfortunately, this movie has a few problems:

First, it takes way too long for the murder to occur. In fact, I had to check a few times to see if this movie was really a murder mystery! When the murder finally does occur, it then seems that the movie becomes rushed.

Next, the final deduction scene, I felt, was incomplete. I still had a few questions that Miss Marple never answered.

Finally, the Chief Inspector mentioned above actually sings when he is investigating and interrogating. I found this very distracting.

In conclusion, despite the problems mentioned, this is still a decent movie!

(1987; 100 min; made for TV; British drama; full screen; color)

+++++

I HAVE ALL THE MISS MARPLE'S AS PORTRAYED BY JOAN HICKSON. SHE JUST SEEMS TO BE THE REAL THING. I WATCH THEM OVER AND OVER, AND ON A DAY THAT IS BAD OUTSIDE, WE DO A MARATHON OF THESE MOVIES.

It is not easy comparing movies to books, especially Agatha Christie's novels. However this one has the feel and just the right actors. There is great attention to detail.

If you have the nagging feeling that you saw Chief Inspector Fred Davy (George Baker) before it may be that he has been in at least 100 movies and shows, recently as Detective Chief Inspector Wexford in Ruth Rendell Mysteries.

Bertram's Hotel is just how Jane remembered it as a child. She soon comes to the conclusion that it is to good to be true. The Chief Inspector is of the same mind. This film has several overlying plots. However just being in the hotel will distract you from them.

So get out your muffins, sit up in bed and watch "At Bertram's Hotel."

Miss Marple, the Terrible, is going to London, to Bertram's Hotel actually and you can be sure there is a lot of eavesdropping, watching, listening, observing and whatever helps find some truth out of an evanescent surface of things. But no surprise, once again it is a daughter-mother story, an abandoned daughter who comes across at the same time her mother and her long discarded father, though not forgotten. Miss Marple also has something against the aristocracy, at least aristocratic women who have nothing to do and feel more and more useless and bored in our modern world with brand new television (the old type I hardly remember). So from boredom to lovers and from lovers to killers and from killers to train-robbers, in any order possible, that's the way to add some piquant sauce to the drab life of an aristocratic lady. The second obsession of Miss Marple is canons, parsons, priests or whatever again, provided they can quote the Bible if possible without mixing the Song of Song and the Apocalypse. That's because young ladies need a watchful eye, I guess. And there the sky falls on the heads and shoulders of a few culprits with just a couple of sentences. Of course in a way we know what is going to happen and who is the criminal. The game of the director is to systematically mislead us with the music or an ellipse of some sort to make us expects what does not come, and frustrate our suspense with a little bit more suspense. Deliciously quaint.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Shipped quickly was packaged very well and arrived as described in review of VHS. Will use this seller again!