Year Released: 1987
Directed by: David Tucker
Starring: Joan Hickson, Frank Gatliff, Helen Cherry, Bruce Payne, Valerie Lush, Margaret Tyzach, Anna Cropper, Peter Tilbury, Jane Booker, Alison Skilbeck
(102 min.)
Genre: Mystery and Suspense

“It's up to her now. Thousands of years ago she had a measuring rod, a sword, and a whip. Yes, it was called a scourge. She rode about in a chariot drawn by griffins. Nemesis. Last time I saw her, she was wearing a pink, woolly shawl.” – Jason Rafiel

It doesn’t get much better than this. Different Drummer’s Triple Crown: Favorite mystery writer (Agatha Christie), favorite character (Miss Marple) and favorite Miss Marple actress (Joan Hickson).

Sure, who doesn’t love Christie’s Hercule Poirot, especially played by the excellent David Suchet, or the definitive Holmes (Jeremy Brett), but we expect them to solve crimes, and so do they – arrogant or at least vain in Poirot’s case.

The unpretentious and seemingly dithering Miss Marple is neither. As I said of her in Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook :

Don’t ever underestimate them. The spinsters. Those white-haired little old ladies with the knitting needles and sweet smiles. They know what evil lurks in the heart of man.

Agatha Christie, the Grand Dame of mysteries, created a new prototype for sleuths in her Miss Marple. Unlike the focused, reclusive, and almost arrogant Holmes, Miss Marple is a meandering stream. She is sociable, unassuming, and so like our own doddering grandmother that her acute observations often go unnoticed.

No matter that she never married, that she hardly strays from her simple village of St. Mary Mead. People are people, whether in the sophisticated shops of London or in her homely village, and Miss Marple is an acute observer of human behavior. She knows that many a cold-blooded killer can be absolutely charming, that evil absolutely exists and must be stamped out. She might be knitting something pink and soft and fleecy, but behind those clicking needles is someone every bit as resolute as Madame Lafarge.

***

What “doddering” Miss Marple lacks in arrogance, she makes up for in resolution and an unflinching sense of justice. That is exactly why the dying self-made millionaire Jason Rafiel (Frank Gatliff) chooses her.

“Thousands of years ago, she had a measuring rod, a sword, and a whip – it’s called a scourge,” explains self-made millionaire Jason Rafiel (Frank Gatliff) to his nurse … and “she rode about in a chariot driven by griffins.” He is talking about Nemesis, the ancient Greek goddess of justice and vengeance, merciless punisher of human transgressions against the natural order, whose epithet was Adrasteia – she whom none can escape. “Last time I saw her,” Rafiel then adds, laughing with some difficulty, “she was wearing a pink wool shawl …” –Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream.”

Miss Marple, our Nemesis in a pink shawl, is to find the murderer of a young girl, one once engaged to Rafiel’s now estranged son, Michael (Bruce Payne) who was once suspected of murdering his fiancée Verity Hunt.

The summons to some solicitors explains more, but their brief is quite vague. Miss Marple, however, is not at all put off by this enigmatic commission:

“I imagine you knitting headscarves and that sort of thing,” reads the commission she receives through his London solicitors (Roger Hammond and Patrick Godfrey) shortly after his death. “If that’s what you prefer to go on doing, that’s your decision. But if you prefer to serve the cause of justice, I hope you find it interesting.” And he quotes the Bible: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream.” (Amos 5:24).

Her commission involves a prearranged bus tour of English Houses and Gardens, and a healthy legacy when she is satisfied with whatever she finds, or that same legacy (An eye-popping 20 thousand pounds) at the end of a year even if she declines the tour.

Of course Miss Marple doesn’t decline, and she immediately perceives the meat of the matter – Rafiel’s son Michael. And his still-perceived guilt.

The prearranged bus tour has an assortment of riders, including at least one well known retired school head mistress Miss Temple (Helen Cherry), who “coincidentally” was Verity’s teacher at the time of her death eight years ago. A shining girl, according to her past teacher. Not outstanding in looks or intelligence, but “shining.”

Perhaps it was her goodness, Miss Marple suggests.

Miss Temple: Do you believe in such things?”
Miss Marple: Oh, yes…yes. I believe in evil, in everlasting life, and oh, yes, goodness…yes.

And then Miss Temple adds another clue, love, “one of the most frightening words there is in the world.”

And not just because she is talking to a fellow spinster either.

It will take Miss Marple almost all the way through the tour to find out the hidden depth of that remark. And Miss temple will pay a heavy price for it, too.

Time to watch the definitive Miss Marple. Perhaps her beliefs seem out of date to us moderns. Or perhaps it is about time we reconsider them.

Watch this classic and decide for yourself.

–Kathy Borich
🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁

Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

Endless miles of the House and Gardens bus Tour, and of course, endless cups of tea, too. Here is Different Drummer’s best recipe for a “cupa” by the way: The De Vinci Code: The Perfect Cup of Tea

Now what to go with it. What about something with a great name and a kind of royal lineage. And it comes from Different Drummer’s own Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook, too.

Petticoat Tails were a traditional form of shortbread said to be enjoyed by the queen. The round shortbread was flavored with caraway seeds, baked and cut into triangular wedges. The triangles resemble the shape of fabric pieces used to make petticoats during the rein of Queen Elizabeth I.

Petticoat Tails

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated or brown sugar
3 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream butter with sugar. Resift flour with baking powder and add to butter. Add vanilla.

Press into 4 7-inch round pans and prick well all over with a fork.

Press a small juice glass into the center of each pan to form a circular mark; then mark off eight wedges from circle to edge of each pan.

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 20 minutes or until golden. Cool in pan.

Gently cut markings and lift off. Almond extract or grated orange or lemon rind may be substituted for vanilla.

Shortbreads may be decorated with multicolored sugar before baking or iced with thin sugar icing.

Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook