Tonight on Masterpiece Mystery Julia McKenzie returns as Miss Marple. The Pale Horse was not a Miss Marple book. This is another case of the BBC folks taking Christie’s non-Poirot and non-Marple mysteries and adapting them to feature Christie’s famous characters. There’s a murdered priest and the death of a young, rich heiress. The book played up the witchcraft and occult angles to the murders. It will be interesting to see how much this Miss Marple version of The Pale Horse deviates from the book. It’s not one of the stronger Christies. GRADE: B
I guess the audience is too big not to do this but I never like the Morse episodes based on short stories or an idea from Colin Dexter. So I doubt this will work.
THE PALE HORSE is narrated by a historian, Patti. The BBC folks just plug Miss Marple in and follow the plot. They’ve done this kind of thing before.
I just don’t understand this; there are plenty of Miss Marple books and short stories, why adapt a non-Marple book? Anyway, the late, great Joan Hickson WAS Miss Marple to me and I can’t see Julia McKenzie (or the other actress who played her for a while–Geraldine McEwan) in the role.
I’m with you on Joan Hickson, Deb. But I’m guessing the BBC ran out of Miss Marple books and stories so they’re “adapting” some of Christie’s other mysteries to satisfy demand.
I agree that Joan Hickson was the perfect Marple. We just watched another Marple we’d missed, TOWARDS ZERO (from the library), because Jackie is a fan of Alan (Jonathan Creek) Davies, who played the annoying cop in it. Geraldine McEwan was not as annoying as I’d expected as Miss Marple but…the book was originally a Supt. Battle book and they stuffed Marple in by making her the old school friend of the murder victim, played as a horrible old harridan by the wonderful Eileen Atkins.
The thing that jumped out at me the most was the constant, incessant smoking by most of the characters.
The BBC producers seem bound and determined to film every Christie they can get the rights to, Jeff. And for those mystery novels that were narrated by some random character, they’re going to “adapt” them to either Poirot or Miss Marple. Marketing trumps everything. I was okay with Geraldin McEwan, but as you and Deb point out, Joan Hickson was the perfect Miss Marple.
I watched one of these McKenzie episodes – okay, half of it before turning it off – and she is just wrong for the part. Plus the non-Marple stories aren’t being adapted in a way that makes sense for them to be Marple puzzles. I say Bah.
You’re right, Rick. The mysteries that are being “adapted” as Poirots and Miss Marples don’t quite fit the template of the real Poirots and Miss Marples. But, the BBC producers don’t seem to care.