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16 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Classic Christie, 5 January 2003 Author: Glyn Treharne from Irlam, England
It is difficult to understand ITV's decision to remake the Miss Marple series, because in Joan Hickson we have the definitive interpretation of Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth. This particular story, Miss Marple's first fictional outing,dates from 1930, but the writer, T.R. Bowen has skilfully updated it to the 1950s. The script is witty and the cast is endowed with such acting stalwarts as Paul Eddington and Rosalie Crutchley. If the plot does not seem so original now it is because Christie's work was so often copied, and what must have seemed innovative in 1930 now appears to be hackneyed. All that said it is a story well told and worth a couple of hours of anyone's time.
11 out of 12 people found the following review useful: an excellent Miss Marple, 4 May 2004 Author: hbs from United States
Hickson is by far the best Miss Marple onscreen. Her performances make these cozy mysteries really entertaining. The screen adaptations in the series are a bit uneven, but I enjoyed all of them. I especially liked this one, "A Murder is Announced", and "Sleeping Murder". The production values for the series were quite good, the supporting actors always at least passable and sometimes far better than that, and they didn't take too many liberties with the stories. But Hickson's performances are uniformly excellent.
8 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Engaging story with gentle laughs and a nice development around the "village grapevine" theme, 18 January 2006 Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK
Life in the vicarage is not as gentile and peaceful as it would seem as even mild-mannered Reverend Clement is driven to swearing by the stiff-necked attitude of Colonel Protheroe over the church accounts. In fact Protheroe is so unpopular that, when he is found murdered in the vicarage, several people confess to the crime to protect others who they assume must have done it. When the police manage to prove that the confessors couldn't possibly have done it, it leaves them with the question of who actually has killed him. As they conduct their investigation, Miss Marple continues her gardening and listens to the village grapevine to build a picture in her mind of what could have happened.Although I have seen several BBC Miss Marple films where boredom could have been the cause of the murder, I still tried again several times and I was happy when this film turned out to be one of the more enjoyable and free-flowing in the series. Stepping away from the uptight and repressed standards of the period this film instead builds on the gossipy, small-world nature of life in a small English village. In doing this it show Miss Marple's quiet use of the grapevine in nice contrast to the police resources of Slack. The story itself is well structured and has plenty going on – it avoids the trap of being dull by way of trying to "English" and is quite fun. The mystery is well spun out and well solved with a nice air of humour along the way. It will still appear "boring" to those raised on the quick-fire mysteries of CSI etc but I found it to be quite sparky by the usual BBC Miss Marple standards.Hickson is the one I always think of when I think of Miss Marple and here she is good value. She plays the "village" aspect of her character well and her personality comes through well in even simple lines. She is well supported by Horovitch's Slack who provides several laughs with his character. The support are generally up to the task – Eddington had a smaller role than I expected but was good; Lang was enjoyable before his final shot while people like Adams, Hazeldine, Good, West and others are all solid enough to stop the audience ignoring them or seeing them as dominate (and thus a possible murderer).Overall this is an enjoyable and interesting entry in the solid BBC Miss Marple film series. The story is engaging and developed well and, far from being stiff, it actually flows quite well. The addition of humour and lively performances only helps to make it all the more enjoyable and makes this a good introduction to the BBC Marple series.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Wonderful Joan Hickson, 31 December 2006 Author: dbdumonteil
I have never thought that Margaret Rutherford was the perfect actress to portray Christie's famous lady detective.Angela Landsbury,who portrayed her in "the mirror cracked" was not an ideal choice either.Joan Hickson was Miss Marple as I see her ,discreet ,insightful,mischievous,terribly observant.She and the detective inspector make a funny pair,like Poirot and Japp. Unlike Poirot,Marple does not really investigate.She never questions the suspects (some of whom even use her as their alibi)but has a rare talent for observation."Murder at the vicarage" is a classic Christie novel:it happens in Jane Marple's village where a wicked colonel nobody likes -and thus has a reason to kill him of course- is murdered.It even involves the priests who are suspects too.Good job by all the cast.French title (of the novel and the movie):"L'affaire Prothero" .
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Bowenized, 12 October 2003 Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Spoilers herein.Watching all these BBC Marples is a real treat visually because you get a different director each time, and usually a different writer. That way, there is as much discovery in how the translation is made as there is in the mystery itself.But T R Bowen adapted seven of these and they are the worst of the bunch. That's because he truly believes in the TeeVee model: the viewer doesn't want to think about what is going on. There is no game between writer and reader. The TeeVee viewer just wants to pleasantly take up time and be surprised by the clever solution.Christie never intended such a thing, and railed against it in her lifetime. Her own plays show that intelligent engagement with the audience is possible,This Bowenization is a case in point. The novel idea here is that the detective herself provides the mistaken alibi. A pretty clever idea in 1930, already copied many times by the time this production is set. The book has it as a matter of self-confrontation; that's why we have the mad curator, and the introspection of the dying woman, and the painter.All that is washed away in this TeeVee script. Shame on Bowen and curses to viewers who don't complain.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
Worth a look - particularly for Griselda!, 4 April 2008 Author: Iain-215 from United Kingdom
'Murder at the Vicarage' was Christie's first Miss Marple book. The BBC filmed it about mid way through their series featuring Joan Hickson. As always, Hickson is very good as the elderly sleuth and St Mary Mead is realistically shown as a very average (ie not TOO picture postcard) English village. Again, the slightly grainy nature of the film is in keeping.There is good support from Paul Eddington as the vicar and Cheryl Campbell is just delightful as his wife Griselda - the high point for me! The other village gossips are well presented as is the nervy Mr Hawes and Norma West is very effective as the slightly creepy Mrs Lestrange. Fatally however, in my opinion, the central characters of Anne Protheroe and Lawrence Redding are quite poorly done as are the other members of the Protheroe family.The newer McEwen version is much more effective in my opinion but this is still well worth watching.
0 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Weak, 18 September 2008 Author: gridoon2009
The first 20-30 minutes of "The Murder At The Vicarage" are quite poorly done: a collection of random characters are seen walking and talking without having been properly introduced to the viewer, which, coupled with some heavy accents, makes the story difficult to follow for anyone who has not read the book. The lack of any familiar faces in the cast does not help, either; several of the women are so similar in appearance it's sometimes hard to even distinguish who is who. And there are important characters (like Lawrence Redding, for example) who get no more than 3 or 4 scenes in the entire film. The direction is uninspired, to put it kindly. Things improve a little in the last 20 minutes, when Miss Marple devises a trap for the killer, but on the whole this is definitely one of the weakest Agatha Christie films I have seen so far (though the recent French "By The Pricking Of My Thumbs" remains the worst). (*1/2)
1 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Half agree with 'hbs', except......, 21 July 2006 Author: filoshagrat from Scotland
Quote 'hbs': "Hickson is by far the best Miss Marple on screen"Ooooh! there's a debatable point. Though I accept heartily ones opinions, I can't help thinking that's got the members of the Margaret Rutherford fan club ruffling their pillows in a disgruntled manner. Joan Hickson just doesn't do it. I don't know what it is, but she comes over leaving me thinking 'no wonder your a spinster. SMILE for gods sake'. MR I could have happily passed off as my eccentric grandmother and liked. JH does it her way, but I can't help wonder if she had her beady-eyes on this role while filming with MR in 'Murder, She Said'. Unconvincing seems to be a word that, although harsh, crops up every time JH plays this role. Watchable, for sure, but not eager for more. I also consider that I am a victim of choice here. The plots and plans are all immovable if adapting Agatha Christie. This film is no exception, so the only real ways in adapting to difference are the choice of the actor/actress, or time shift it, as with the recent 'Romeo Must Die'. JH is a superb actress I have seen many times and her talents are so easily on show here as a 'tight' Miss Marple, by which I mean non-expressive. MR was more full-on and in yer' face. 'Filo doth compare too much'. As I said, it's choice.
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