The Mirror Crack'd (1980)

Director:

Guy Hamilton

Writers:

Jonathan Hales (screenplay) and
Barry Sandler (screenplay)

Release Date:

19 December 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the murderer among them all?

Plot:

Jane Marple solves the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.

Plot Keywords:

Agatha Christie | Nipples Visible Through Clothing | See Through Brassiere | See Through Clothes | Murder

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Angela Lansbury	...	Miss Jane Marple
Geraldine Chaplin	...	Ella Zielinsky
Tony Curtis	...	Martin N. Fenn
Edward Fox	...	Inspector Dermot Craddock
Rock Hudson	...	Jason Rudd
Kim Novak	...	Lola Brewster
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Marina Rudd
Wendy Morgan	...	Cherry Baker
Margaret Courtenay	...	Dolly Bantry
Charles Gray	...	Bates, the Butler
Marella Oppenheim	...	Margot Bence
Maureen Bennett	...	Heather Babcock
Carolyn Pickles	...	Miss Giles
Eric Dodson	...	The Major
Charles Lloyd Pack	...	Vicar (as Charles Lloyd-Pack)

Also Known As:

Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd (UK) (complete title)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Iceland:L | Ireland:PG | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Norway:12 (1981) | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Kent, England, UK

Company:

EMI Films

Trivia:

Although Angela Lansbury's character is presented as elderly and the leading men as only middle-aged she, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson were all born the same year - 1925.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Set 1953, Marty Fenn drives a 1959 model car.

Quotes:

Vicar: Oh, Mr. Rudd. I understand that you are a fillum producer.
Jason Rudd: Oh, no, sir. A director.
Vicar: Is there any difference?
Jason Rudd: Yes, sir. The, uh, producer supplies all the money; the director spends it. Then the producer yells that the director is spending too much money; the director doesn't pay any attention, and goes right on spending. The director gets all the credit; the producer gets an ulcer. You see, it's all very simple; excuse me.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Biography: Angela Lansbury: A Balancing Act" (1998)

At least it has an Agatha Christie plot

This is the film that launched Angela Lansbury's career as a television sleuth. The character she began playing four years later was much the same as the one she plays here - and it's not Miss Marple. Not that purists have any right to complain. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple isn't really Miss Marple, either. Miss Marple first appeared in "Murder at the Vicarage" (published 1930), and I can't help thinking of the character in that book as the REAL Miss Marple: a transparent, almost pathologically nosy woman who thoroughly enjoyed prying for its own sake, who as capable of solving mysteries because she was unable to rest so long as there was potential gossip she didn't know about. She wasn't a saint, she wasn't an inspired guesser, and she wasn't wise.

Almost immediately, though (in "The Tuesday Club Mysteries", published 1932), Miss Marple transformed into someone who WAS saintly, inspired and, worst of all, wise, and it's this latter, less agreeable Miss Marple that dominates the subsequent novels. What obligation does anyone else have to be authentic, if Agatha Christie herself wasn't? So far as I'm concerned the character is now fair game for any revisionist interpretation whatever; and if so, give me Angela Lansbury's energy over Joan Hickson's "authenticity" any day. ...Strange, then, that the film doesn't really work. The puzzle itself is a real humdinger - one of Christie's very best, in my opinion - and the denouement is handled very well. But there's something bookish and stifled about everything leading up to it. Most Christie adaptations have a similar plodding quality (notable exceptions: Billy Wilder's "Witness for the Prosecution", Sidney Gilliat's "Endless Night", and people who have seen René Clair's "And Then There Were None" think highly of that, too) - there's an AIR of excessive fidelity to the book, even when quite a few details have been changed.

One problem unique to this one is the set of laboured jokes at the expense of 1950s Hollywood - at least, the jokes WANT to be at the expense of 1950s Hollywood, but I think they come from "My Big Book of 1000 One-Liners", or some such.