Customer Reviews

Murder Is Announced [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is by far the best adaption of Agatha Christie's work. The actor's portrayal of Ms. Christie's characters were perfect. I really felt like I knew the people and cared about what happened to them. I do agree that the reviewer who revealed the killer was out of line. Shame on people who give away the plot-especially when a murder is being solved.

One of a series of Agatha Christie's mystery novels brought to the screen, this one is my personal favorite of the lot. Although all of these productions are first-rate entertainment, "A Murder is Announced," is perhaps the most successful and inspired. First, the dialogue in the screenplay is far more interesting than in Christie's novel, really bringing a wide variety of eccentric British characters to life. Secondly, the performances of this ensemble cast are alive with the spirit of the whole enterprise. There is a tremendous range of types in this motley group, each one memorable and enchanting in his or her own way. There is a wonderful view of the UK itself which greatly enhances the context in which the story takes place, and a wonderful sense of the period following World War II. These charcters seem to do more than just move the mysterious plot to its' somewhat predictable conclusion. I would say that watching this video more than once or twice rewards the viewer with a true sense of the times in which all of the action takes place. At some point it stops being about the murder and much more about the British temperment and how it was affected by the War. One sees in this film the passing of British country life, a certain loss of innocence and a hardening of the British spirit. It is the end of one time and the beginning of another. The effect is bittersweet and most touching as it always is when one sees the end of an era. I have probably seen this one at least 20 times over the past decade. It's a great document, more a tribute to the makers of the film than to Agatha Christie. It's a pity she did not have quite the vision of her interpreters, but as was observed by Gertrude Stein, the first to come up with a thing usually makes it ugly, leaving it to those who follow to flesh it out and make it beautiful. This video is a true beauty.

There is something really special about this movie. While it is a worthy mystery, the characters and the sense of humor expressed in the movie were a wonderfully entertaining combination. The funniest characters were Miss Hinchcliffe and Murgatroyd, the oddest and most endearing couple I've seen on film in a long time. I was really impressed with this adaptation, and of couse Miss Marple was perfection. I would definitely recommend this movie to any Christie fans.

This is a great adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's books, but very rude of the one reviewer to actually tell the killer in the review. These are mysteries for a reason.

+++++

I watched this movie without reading the 1950 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.

The movie begins with a mysterious announcement in the local newspaper:

"A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 5 at Little Paddocks at 7 P.M. Friends, please accept this the only intimation."

"Little Paddocks" is a small estate in the village of "Chipping Cleghorn." The people of the estate think this announcement is a joke. But sure enough a murder (or was it a suicide or even an accident?) does take place here at the specified day and time.

Miss Marple (the late Joan Hickson) happens to be in this village on this day. Inspector Craddock (John Castle) investigates the murder with Miss Marple aiding him. Eventually, two more murders occur.

Who are the people associated with this estate? They are as follows:

(1) Miss Lettie Blacklock, owner of the estate (Ursula Howells)
(2) Miss Dora "Bunny" Bunner, Lettie's high school friend and companion (Renee Asherton)
(3) Julia Simmons, Lettie's distant cousin (Samantha Bond)
(4) Patrick Simmons , another of Lettie's distant cousins (Simon Shepherd)
(5) Phillipa Haymes, a border at the estate (Nicola King)
(6) Hannah, Lettie's maid (Elaine Ives-Cameron)
(7) Colonel Easterbrook, Lettie's friend (Ralph Michael)
(8) Mrs. Easterbrook, the colonel's wife (Sylvia Syms)
(9) Mrs. Swettenham, Lettie's friend (Mary Kerridge)
(10) Edmund Swettenham, Mrs. Swettenham's son (Matt Solon)
(11) Miss Murgatroyd, Lettie's friend (Joan Sims)
(12) Miss Hinchcliffe, Murgatroyd's companion (Paola Dionisotti)
(13) Mrs. Harron, the vicar's wife and Lettie's friend (Viv Moore)
(14) Rudi Scherz, a petty thief (Tim Carrington)

Joan Hickson (whom Agatha Christie herself wanted to play Miss Marple) captures the essence of the heroine super sleuth in her performance. (Hickson was 79 years old in this movie!) All performances in this movie are good but special mention should go to John Castle as the inspector who carries the bulk of this movie.

The cinematography is visually stunning. All costumes are authentic looking. Also, the background music adds to each scene.

Finally, be aware that Miss Marple only appears for about one minute in the first hour of this movie. After this, we see her more often.

In conclusion, this is a fun movie even if you have read the novel it's based on!!

(1985; 2 hr, 30 min; made for T.V.; British drama; full screen; color)

+++++

"Just a silly joke" it was supposed to be, waitress Myrna (Liz Crowther) tells Inspector Craddock (John Castle) about her Swiss beau's, hotel receptionist Rudi Scherz's hold-up at elderly Miss Blacklock's (Ursula Howells's) home Little Paddocks. And it had begun just as planned: After Rudi's startling anonymous advertisement in Chipping Cleghorn's village gazette - "A murder is announced and will take place Friday, October the 5th, at Little Paddocks, at 7PM" - half the village converged on the cottage, bursting with curiosity, and on pretexts from "just passing by" to "wondering whether Miss Blacklock mightn't be interested in a kitten." At 7PM sharp, the lights went out and Rudi entered, adorned with mask and cape, dazzled the assembled group with a torch and commanded: "Stick 'em up!"

But then shots rang out, and when the lights were finally turned on again, the person lying dead was Rudi himself. "Some joke," Myrna comments bitterly.

Inspector Craddock's and Sergeant Fletcher's (Kevin Whately's) task is complicated by the witnesses' disagreement whether Scherz had aimed his torch (and revolver?) at one person in particular, and over his reasons for the hold-up. But even though Miss Blacklock herself dismisses the idea as ludicrous, her sweet, somewhat scatterbrained companion Dora Bunner (Renee Asherson) insists that Scherz's true intention must have been to kill her. Yet, that seems out of character for the young man, whose record merely reveals him as a petty con artist and, in Miss Blacklock's words, "picker-up of unconsidered trifles." Unless ... well, unless someone put Rudi up to his scheme. And pressed by Inspector Craddock after a consultation with Miss Marple, who happens to be staying at the hotel that is Myrna's and Rudi's workplace, Myrna admits that indeed, someone had paid Rudi to do what he did. What is more, Miss Blacklock is to inherit a considerable fortune from her former employer, millionaire Randall Goerdler, after the imminent death of his invalid wife. And while the main beneficiaries in the case of her own death are her young relatives Patrick and Julia Simmons (Simon Shepherd and Samantha Bond), currently members of her household alongside her theatrical and not always truthful maid Hannah (Elaine Ives-Cameron) and a lodger, a somewhat distant Mrs. Haymes (Nicola King), in the event Miss Blacklock predeceases Mrs. Goerdler, the financier's fortune goes to the children of his sister Sonia ... whom Miss Blacklock only knows as "Pip" and Emma and who, like their mother, haven't been heard from since before WWII.

Written 1950 and adapted for TV 1985 (the second of the BBC's "Miss Marple" adaptations starring Joan Hickson), "A Murder Is Announced" reflects on the changes brought about by the war in English village life; with rationing, foreign refugees and other strangers moving to the countryside, and associated xenophobia. For before the war, people knew each other well, and new arrivals carried tokens of introduction from someone familiar to the local population, vouching for the newcomers' trustworthiness. That, however, is gone forever, as Miss Marple explains to Inspector Craddock; you just have to take people at face value, along with their ration books and identity cards ... "and can you really trust a ration book and an identity card?"

The BBC series quickly established Joan Hickson 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 "Appointment With Death," as early as 1946 Christie reportedly sent her a note expressing the hope she would "play my dear Miss Marple.") Prior versions, partly involving rather high-octane casts, featured, inter alia, Angela Lansbury and Margaret Rutherford, but were decidedly less faithful to Christie's books. While Lansbury holds her own fairly well 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 partially based on Christie's books, and Dame Margaret's Miss Marple, although likewise a splendid performance, has about as much to do with Christie's demure, seemingly scatterbrained village sleuth as Big Ben does with the English countryside.

"A Murder Is Announced" is one of the stand-out features in the BBC series; not only because, like all installments, it takes great care in maintaining the tone and atmosphere set by Christie herself but also because of its stellar supporting cast, which includes Ralph Michael and Sylvia Syms (opinionated Colonel Easterbrook and his airheaded wife), Matthew Solon and Mary Kerridge (young leftist writer Edmund Swettenham and his silly mother), Paola Dionisotti (stout pig farmer Miss Hinchcliffe), Joan Sims (Miss Hinchcliffe's simple-minded companion Miss Murgatroyd), and David Collings and Vivienne Moore (Reverend and Mrs. Harmon, Miss Marple's niece and nephew-in-law, with whom the old lady spontaneously invites herself to stay close to the investigation: after all, "a policeman asking questions is open to the gravest suspicion, but an old lady asking questions is just an old lady asking questions," as she points out to Inspector Craddock.) The episode also features some truly delightful editing; as such, Craddock's soothing comment to Mrs. Haymes ("It's not a bad thing being sensible") is directly followed by Mrs. Swettenham's overly dramatic reenactment of the murder, and Mrs. Easterbrook's admiration for her husband's self-assured but dead-wrong excursion into criminal psychology is succeeded by the snorting of a pig on the Hinchcliffe/Murgatroyd farm.

"Especially in an English village - turn over a stone, you have no idea what will crawl out," Miss Marple tells Inspector Craddock during their first meeting over tea and crumpets. But not before some feline mischief by the Harmons' cat Delilah does she realize who is responsible for Rudi Scherz's murder - and those of Miss Bunner and Miss Murgatroyd, who've been killed in order to silence them. And therefore, "I won't have a word said against that remarkable cat," Miss Marple insists. Which makes her *my* feline trio's favorite detective ...

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
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)
Miss Marple - 3 Feature Length Mysteries (The Body in the Library / A Murder Is Announced / A Pocketful of Rye)
The Mirror Crack'd

When a personal item in the Chipping Cleghorne Gazette invites people to a murder at the home of Miss Blacklock (played by Ursula Howells), they show up to be part of the excitement. However, when a young man suddenly springs in on them with a revolver, and then quickly ends up dead, the party turns out to be anything but entertaining. The police are baffled as to what happened and why, and that leaves only one person who can unravel this mystery - Miss Jane Marple (Joan Hickson)! [Color, released in 1985, with a running time of 2:33.]

Every once in a while, an actor comes along who not only plays the role of Sherlock Holmes, but actually redefines the role. Well, this has now happened with Agatha Christie's detective, Miss Marple! In 1984, veteran actress Joan Hickson (1906-98) was tapped to play Miss Marple, and the rest, as they say, is history.

This is a great tape, and a great small-screen adaptation of Agatha Christie's excellent book. If you are a fan of great mysteries, then this is for you. Heck, even if you just like high-quality British drama, then you will love this movie. I love this movie, and give it my highest recommendations!

I've seen most of the Joan Hickson Marple movies and this is definitely one of, if not THE, best. All the elements of a good murder mystery. You will suspect nearly everyone of being the murderer at some point. Highly intriguing and entertaining!

A man dies in Chipping Kleghorn and suddenly Aunt Jane is coming to stay. As with most Agatha Christie's movies, everybody and nobody could have done it. Miss Jane Marple is the catalyst that helps Inspector Craddock (John Castle) and others to view the situation differently and extrapolate the "who" that done it.

It is interesting that the inspector in some movies, is related to Jane and in other movies not. Inspector Craddock here is interesting as he is polite and tolerant of the people he is interrogating.

It is fun to try and match the real names of the actors with the part that they are playing. Would you suspect that Hannah is (Elaine Ives-Cameron)? Or that Miss Hinchcliffe is (Paola Dionisotti)?

Basic premise is that a "Murder is Announced" in the local news paper. Everyone assumes it is a joke or a game. All the local towns characters meat at the time and place.
Will there really be a murder?
Why and whom?
Suddenly the lights go out?
Bang!

Anyway keep your eyes open, as there is not a wasted movement or word in this movie.

This adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's most complicated plots is well done, although the video is fuzzy. The whole plot is thrillingly fuzzy, as Joan Hickson, as Miss Marple, finally discovers who is trying to kill Miss Blacklock. Particularly good performances by the whole cast and the suprise ending, typical of a Christie mystery, make this a very rewardable watch. The English dialogue is sometimes hard to understand, but the emotions are universal. Greed, Love, Compassion, Fear....a nice mix in Chipping Kleghorn, and Miss Marple figures it all out. There are parts of this mystery that will have you weeping, on the second viewing, or perhaps the third, when it all makes sense.