Yes, lightning can strike twice!
A couple of weeks ago, I visited a Salvation Army thrift store and to my amazement found AGATHA CHRISTIE’S POIROT: COMPLETE CASES COLLECTION [33 DVDs] for the incredible price of $3.99!
So I revisited that Salvation Army thrift store and to my surprise found AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MISS MARPLE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION [9-DVD Set]. And once again the price was $3.99! (AMAZON has it at $49.98.) With Western NY pretty much shut down in the Orange Zone, I now have plenty of DVDs to watch and enjoy! Are you a Miss Marple/Joan Hickson fan?
Hate Miss Marple. Both in books and on film. I don’t like mysteries solved by little old ladies. The only thing worse are ones solved with the help of a cat. Miss Marple helped lay out the way for such crap like Murder She Wrote. So I guess I’m not a fan.
Steve, I’m guessing you’d agree with Raymond Chandler’s remark that Dashiell Hammett took murder out of the drawing room and put it back in the gutter where it belonged.
Congratulations, George—another bargain! Joan Hickson is the embodiment of Miss Marple, imho (the less said about Margaret Rutherford in those execrable 1960s movies, the better) and I love these adaptations. Contrary to popular opinion, Miss Marple is not actually a cozy old spinster—although that is definitely part of who she is—she’s a very clear-eyed, completely unsentimental observer of human nature which allows her to make shrewd deductions about people and their behavior. Of the adaptations on this set, my favorites are: “A Murder Is Announced,” “The Body in the Library,” “The Moving Finger,” “Nemesis,” and “At Bertram’s Hotel,” but all of them are good. Enjoy!
Deb, thank you for your kind words. I plan to reread THE MOVING FINGER soon. When I was a kid first reading A BODY IN THE LIBRARY, I was thrilled by Miss Marple’s insights and intelligence.
I had read a few Christies before – AND THEN THERE WERE NONE comes to mind – but it wasn’t until we went to London on our belated honeymoon that we started reading Christie in bulk. We went to see THE MOUSETRAP, then decided to try the books by picking out one Poirot and one Marple, more or less at random. The ones we ended up with were a late, lousy Poirot – THE CLOCKS – and the excellent THE MOVING FINGER for the Marple.
By the end of 1971 we’d read dozens, as I picked the available paperbacks up whenever I came across one. We were reading them as we got them, hence not in order. Of course, for the most part that didn’t matter, but occasionally it did, as when we got the then new NEMESIS, only do discover it was a partial sequel to the earlier A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY.
Still, that wasn’t as bad as reading the Ed McBain 87th Precinct out of order, where I discovered (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT) that one of Bert Kling’s many girlfriends had been murdered, before I read the earlier books where she appeared (END WARNING).
Jeff, that’s why I try to read series in order. I hate to encounter spoilers.
I agree with Deb. After watching Joan Hickson, I just can’t watch the new Marple adaptations. Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie, both of who I’ve liked in other roles, just can’t compare. Nice pickup!
Jeff, I don’t understand why someone would give up these wonderful DVDs! Yes, I know my children are into streaming services like Netflix, HULU, AMAZON Prime, etc. But I enjoy the extra content on the DVDs and the “touch-and-feel” of actual physical media.
I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve seen, and I’ve liked the Margaret Rutherford ones also.
The murder of Roger Ackroyd, though, is the Christie novel that will always stay with me. It is impossible to forget the ending, and my jaw literally dropped when reading it.
I’m looking forward to the new Death on the Nile movie
I wish our salvation army stores were so well stocked
Maggie, I’m with you on THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD. I was completely fooled! That book triggered an Agatha Christie binge when I was a teenager–I read about 30 Christies in a row! About 80% of the time I visit our Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift stories I find nothing of interest. But, on those rare occasions I find something really good, it makes the effort worth while!
Oh, the trip to London was April of 1971.
Of course I’ve read most of the novels (a friend of the family collected them – in German) and I enjoyed the movies with Margaret Rutherford , but later I didn’t watch tv and movies so often. So I’ve missed most movies.
Nowadays it’s even more complicated: We watch some movies in Hungarian because my wife doesn’t really know English or German – she learned Russian at school …
And she’s a sf/fantasy fan, thrillers are not on her list …
Wolf, I don’t know if Netflix is available in your area, but it offers a lot of fantasy and science fiction. Your wife might enjoy it!
Great pickup! What a bargain. I’d have liked to find both the sets. Yes, unlike Steve I am a fan of Marple, for the reasons Deb laid out. I’ve been considering rereading some of the books.
Rick, I’ve had good luck at thrift stores in 2020. People seem to be “de-cluttering” during the pandemic and donating their books, CDs, and DVDs to the Salvation Army and Goodwill. But, as we all know, timing is Everything.
Hickson is the incomparable Marple. But it seems that every decade or so another veteran British film/telly star is handed the role for her many years of service. My favorite Marple is A Murder Is Announced (though marred by the hard-to-swallow melodramatic ending).
Art, you’re right about Hickson being incomparable as Miss Marple. She sets the standard. A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED might be the best Miss Marple of them all!
I think the likelihood is they are dying and the kids are tossing all the stuff their parents loved. I think I should label everything before I go.
I thought Hickson came off as borderline senile! Couldn’t watch her!
Patti, you’re probably right about the children of dead parents donating most of their mother’s and father’s “stuff” to charity thrift stores. Or it goes to a landfill.
I suspect Patti is right. I read an article not long ago with the headline, “Your Millennial Children Do Not Want Your Dark Brown Wood Furniture,” which was a very interesting discussion of generational shifts in tastes and culture. For example, the dining room, as a separate room in the house used for special occasion feasting, is simply not a feature of life for most people under forty. As a result, thrift stores are overwhelmed by the amount of dining room furniture that gets donated these days. DVD & CD collections are also part of that tsunami of donations.
Deb, “tsunami of donations” is right! The Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift stores I visit weekly are bursting with furniture, clothing, books, DVDs, CDs, vinyl record albums. The hardest part of the visit is organizing the “stuff” I’m looking at because many times they’re just piled up in no particular order. But, sometimes, it’s worth the effort to dig through all those donations. There’s gold amid the dreck!