margaret rutherford

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Margaret Rutherford played Miss Marple, the Agatha Christie crime solver, in four films (well, technically she has an uncredited cameo in The Alphabet Murders, but it’s just a gag). I’ve seen three of them and they are all delightful.

Murder Most Foul is the third film in that series. It finds Miss Marple on the jury in a murder case. One in which everyone thinks the man on trial is guilty. Even the judge pushes for a guilty verdict. But Marple has her doubts. So much so that she hangs the jury.

Naturally, she investigates. Clues lead her to a theatrical troupe (who have just performed a mystery based on an Agatha Christie story, Murder She Said – which was the first film in this series). She suspects the dead girl was blackmailing an actor in the troupe. Naturally, she finds a way to join them.

As always with this type of thing the cast is an eclectic group, each with their own secrets and possible motives for murder. Marple does her best to snoop them out.

Margaret Rutherford plays Marple as an eccentric, dotty old lady, who loves murder mysteries and uses her knowledge of them to solve real-life ones.

I think I liked Murder She Said slightly more than this one, though I’d put it on par with Murder at the Gallop. Though they do tend to get jumbled up in my mind. They are all very slight, but thoroughly enjoyable.

murder she said

I love me a good detective story. Though I write a lot about horror movies the genre I find myself watching more than others is crime stories. There is something pleasurable about watching someone solve a murder.

Officially, I am on the side of Raymond Chandler and the school of the hard-boiled detectives. I like my crime dark and dirty, violent and real. Bloodless murders happening in the parlor rooms of rich and genteel classes are a little bit too silly for my liking. Especially when they conclude with a rounding up of all our suspects into one room while the detective susses out the culprit.

But sometimes, that’s exactly the sort of thing I need.

I’ve only read a few Agatha Christie novels, all of them Poirot, but I’ve seen quite a few cinematic and television adaptations of her stories (most of them Poirot) and I consider myself a fan.

Murder, She Said was the first screen adaptation of a Miss Marple story, and it is delightful.

It begins with Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) on a train. Another train crosses on a parallel track. Miss Marple watches the other passengers on the other train – an elderly man embarrassed that she sees him, a young girl who sticks out her tongue, and a woman getting strangled to death.

Miss Marple immediately informs the conductor who, when he spies the mystery novel she’s reading, believes she’s made it up. She makes him notify the police anyway, but they find nothing. They stop the train at the next station and can find no corpse. No body equals no murder and so they drop the matter.

Miss Marple, naturally, investigates.

She grabs a friend, Jim Stringer – a local bookseller and mystery enjoyed – and they walk the tracks around the area where she witnessed the murder. When they see some tracks made by what could be a dead body being dragged across the ground and trace them to Ackenthorpe Hall, Miss Marple finds a job there as a maid.

What follows is your standard Agatha Christie-type investigation. The Ackenthorpes are an odd bunch. She must do her duties as a maid, while still asking discreet questions and wandering around the grounds. There is a cute, clever boy who helps her, and lots of clues to be found.

It is handled very lightly, and often very humorously. Margaret Wutherford is just wonderful. She reminded me a lot of Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote. And considering how close that series title is to this film, I expect that is no coincidence. Wutherford is bold and clever, strong but vulnerable.

It works as both a good mystery and a comedy of manners. I loved it.