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They Do It with Mirrors (1991) (TV) More at IMDbPro »

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7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Miss Marple comes to the aid of an old friend while solving yet another untimely demise, 8 September 2005
10/10
Author: davidhyatt (charlesdhyatt@yahoo.com) from Raleigh-Durham NC

Miss Marple is the best of friends with two aging sisters. One sister, who thinks the other is in danger, has Miss Marple to pay a timely visit. Upon arriving she encounters a host of garden variety misfits and reform school types, along with their keepers, sharing the estate grounds with her friend. All of this makes for a genuinely great plot that includes the murder of the family Patriarch by which Miss Marple further sharpens her already keenly honed crime solving acumen.

This is one of the better TV-Movie adaptations that preserves the plot from novel to the screen. The screenplay flows well, has no obvious holes or gaps, the acting is grade A, and the Directing is Superb. I highly recommend this particular film as one of the BEST Miss Marple TV-Movies ever!!!

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Not a particularly good adaptation, 11 May 2008
6/10
Author: ash880

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The novel on which this adaptation is based was not one of Christie's best works to begin with. However the way the (first) murder was carried out in the book was brilliant. In this adaptation the exact details of the crime are left out; the plan of the house shown briefly in the earlier part is not brought up again to explain how the murderer got to the victim's room, nor is the sound of running footsteps heard by Alex Restarick elaborated upon. Without these explanations I fear the casual viewer may have some unanswered questions at the end of the film.

The film does, however, have its saving grace - in the casting department. Faith Brook and Jean Simmons in particular shine in their respective roles of Ruth van Rydock and Carrie-Louise Serrocold. The two sisters' friendship with Jane Marple is best seen in the rather touching final sequence.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Not one of the better entries in this series, 5 April 2008
6/10
Author: Iain-215 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Sadly, this is not one of my favourites in the BBC Hickson series. I think they tailed off a little towards the end and this was one of the later ones to be made. It's not actually one of the best of the Marple books in my opinion and this adaptation sticks quite closely to the source material. The story had a previous outing with Helen Hayes as the very American Miss Marple and an aged Bette Davies as her friend Carrie Louise. Both characters are improved upon in this version - indeed Jean Simmons' portrayal of Carrie Louise was the high point of the film for me. Joss Ackland does a decent enough job as the frustrated do-gooder Lewis Serrocold but I'm not really a fan of this actor generally and the rest of the cast are so-so. The character of Ruth van Rydock is given more to do than in the book which works quite well but I missed the character of Miss Bellever (the excellent Frances de la Tour in the Hayes film).

It passes a pleasant couple of hours but there are better entries than this in the series.

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0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Good in terms of acting and quality, but disappointing as an adaptation, 11 October 2009
7/10
Author: TheLittleSongbird from United Kingdom

Although I really liked this, it is a disappointment after the delightful Murder Is Announced. Then again the book isn't Agatha Christie's best, although it's well written and perplexing, it is for me one of the weaker Marple books. There were several things I liked about the adaptation, one was the acting. Joan Hickson is a sheer delight as Miss Marple, and Faith Brook and Jean Simmons were very effective as Carrie-Louise and Ruth. Their end scene in particular was very poignant. Joss Ackland has a little less to do, but he turned in a solid performance. The adaptation is beautifully photographed, and the music is stunning. However, I had a real problem with the pace, the adaptation does start off very slowly, and never quite recovers. Out of the Joan Hickson adaptations, it is one of the least faithful ones. The elements that made the book perplexing were either left out or a tad underdeveloped. Consequently the plot is hard to follow and I will admit the final solution left me baffled. Overall, disappointing but well acted and beautifully filmed, so worth a look. 7/10 Bethany Cox

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0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Would ya just kill someone already!, 5 October 2009
2/10
Author: T Y from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Impossibly slow-moving murder mystery. Amateur theatrics, manor houses, ineffective detectives in trench coats... it's very British. There are at least twelve major characters in it. After 15 minutes things are moving so slowly, that a viewer begins wondering "Shouldn't someone be dead by now?" But you still have half an hour to wait. Finally, with twenty minutes left in the movie, things haven't even gotten interesting, and no one stands out as a culprit or as a character. You don't care about the victim, so you sure won't care who did it. The editing is inept. Scenes don't even develop before some intrusive, distant snippet is inserted. The actress playing Marple doesn't look shrewd, instead looking addled most of the time. She might be the least effective actress to play Miss Marple.

It's a mess.

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2 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Bowen Shoots Christie, 18 October 2003
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Spoilers herein.

Dame Agatha must be turning and turning. She spends her energy finding that thin edge between disclose and confusion to tantalize us into a game. It is among the most engaging trick in all literature.

But along comes the heavy boot of TeeVee which (apparently) demands that people don't want to think, so jettison all the clues and games. Bowen's other adaptations usually plod on and surprise us all at the end. We are not detectives, but among the puzzled people in the parlor to whom explanations are made late.

But this is the worst. Christie often gives indirect clues by setting a theme: here it is illusion, the illusion of magic, of theater, of film, of ballet. He saves all this but makes it blunter. He saves some of the red herring events, but doesn't ripen any of them: what was the `student' doing by sneaking out?

Why do the brothers seriously chase a married woman? Of all the Hickson Marples, this one has the greatest distance between the coherence of the book and the incoherence of the adaptation.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

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0 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
The Helen Hayes version is better, 24 September 2008
6/10
Author: gridoon2009

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This Agatha Christie novel has been adapted for the screen once before, in 1985, with Helen Hayes as Miss Marple: that film is called "Murder With Mirrors", and is, in my opinion, better than this later version: the mystery is better-constructed, with the huge red herring of the "poisoning" getting built up right from the start, and apart from a weaker Carrie Louise (Bette Davis was obviously in poor health at the time), the older version had more engaging performances in most roles. For example, while both Ginas were pretty delightful, in MWM her husband was also a likable fellow and you wanted them to "kiss and make up"; in TDWM Todd Boyce is so dismal in the same role, you hope the poor girl will divorce him! Despite being about 15 minutes shorter, MWM does a better job of explaining the plot, while TDWM's resolution feels rushed. It's really a 5/10 movie, but I gave it an extra point for the profoundly sad final shots - easily the best moments in the film.

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3 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Atmospheric, 20 May 2002
Author: lucy-66 from London

Christie gets in some well aimed digs at fashions in philanthropy and lets reformatory boss Lewis Serocold spout on about the need to trust young offenders and betray a creepy symbiosis with one of the delinquents who should clearly be in a cosy asylum somewhere.

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2 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Very like Dame Agatha, but hard to follow the plot, 15 March 2001
7/10
Author: FISHER L. FORREST (fisherforrest@sprintmail.com) from Jacksonville, Oregon, USA

This version tries to bring Christie's story accurately, but the editing is so choppy the details of plot are often hard to follow. Not to worry, though, intuitively if not deductively, you'll spot the murderer without much trouble. Good cast, especially Jean Simmons, and great scenery make it a pleasant watch. Joan Hickman, though, as Miss Marple just didn't quite cut it for me.

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