Somewhat like the Robert Newton of female stars. There’s the tilt of her head, the roll of her tongue inside her mouth (most expertly behind her lower lip and traversing her left cheek), the pucker of her lips, the flex of her chin, the squint of an eye. Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple has an inexplicable, illogical command of the screen, with her jerky body motions, decidedly unShakespearean delivery and fleshy facial contortions. the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. About which, you might remember, Sherlock Holmes himself made a rather unsettling remark: “. Miss Marple-Jane her first name-is the opposite: simple, down to earth she moves, most often, in the domestic atmosphere of the supposed “quiet” English countryside. Poirot, eccentric to the point of annoyance, inhabits the play worlds of the rich and the sophisticated. Miss Marple (Rutherford) is the Christie-created amateur sleuth, whose male counterpart in the author’s mystery pantheon is Hercule Poirot, who, if I remember correctly, met the old lady at least once among those fictional pages. Stringer? (These characters, and the actors who play them, are regulars in all four movies.) Good question. Strangers to these films might ask, Who are Miss Marple, Inspector Craddock and Mr. The music is about as subtle, sometimes, as that for a Tom and Jerry cartoon.īut wait! More about the music later. The music changes in mood, in flashes, as the screen action requires-not announcing terror, for that, like “horror,” is too strong a word here, but exaggerating an already sensed impression that all is in good fun, even tongue in cheek. Stringer jaunting down an English village street, whether to collect for the Reformed Criminals Assistance League or to find a murderer. In more than one of these films, the music accompanies Miss Marple and Mr. The “mousing” was, after all, part of the fun-mimicking a shiver of Rutherford’s ample jowls, a stinger chord to accompany “This man is dead!,” Inspector Craddock’s latest Marple frustration, a gloved hand turning on the gas.
It’s captivating, tuneful and always mirroring the screen, now for stalking, now for dark villainy, now for humor.Īnd, true, Ron was ever ready to “Mickey Mouse”-not a negative here. And, appropriately enough, a year of that service was spent in England.Īs music is instinctively paramount, not only in my life in general but, certainly, in appraising a movie, a responsibility which so many reviewers ignore, my first positive impression of these films was just that, Ron Goodwin’s score. Each time a new film was released, I could look around and be assured I was at a new base. I first saw the films at the base theaters-each on separate occasions, of course!-as their releases coincided with my four years in the United States Air Force. The movies which easily fit within these presumed restrictions, under the guise of relaxed escapism, are the four Agatha Christie mysteries British/M-G-M made in the mid-’60s, starring the elderly, rotund Margaret Rutherford, then in her early seventies. I’ll put aside, for the moment, the masterful Twelve O’Clock High, the surrealistic score for Mysterious Island, the milestone Captain Blood and the frighteningly realistic Seven Days in May-types of films I’ve recently discussed-and take that walk. No deep analyses to follow, no revelations about profound movie-making, no study of great directors.
So many of our fondest memories are tied to the movies, sometimes in life-changing ways. Works marked with a † are available on the Project Gutenberg US site.A little walk down Memory Lane. Works marked with a * are currently under development at Distributed Proofreaders CanadaĪnd will be made available over the next few months. Unmarked works which are hyperlinked are available on Faded Page.
House of mystery 1961 full#
FantasticFiction full list of her works (from which the list below was derived).
Humanities 360 biography of Patricia Wentworth.
House of mystery 1961 professional#
the woefully neglected Miss Silver is the real deal -Ī professional investigator and a stand-up woman,Ī true forerunner of all future female private eyes." "while Miss Marple may receive ten times the attention as Miss Silver, In Marion Shaw & Sabine Vanacker's book Reflecting on Miss Marple, Though Patricia Wentworth's first Miss Silver novel pre-datedĪgatha Christie's first Miss Marple novel by two years, and may Miss Silver is frequently compared to Agatha Christie's Jane Marple, She was a BritishĬrime writer, best known for her Miss Silver Mysteries, though Wrote under the pen name of Patricia Wentworth.
Special Collection: The Works of Patricia Wentworth (1878-1961)
0 kommentar(er)
