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| Joan Hickson |
‘…and I showed him a snapshot I had with me of one of my nephews.[…] But without thinking, Major Palgrave must have put back my snapshot into his wallet and returned it to his pocket.’
Everyone has their own ideas about how the Miss Marple books should be filmed, what Miss Marple should look like and how she should behave. But I ask myself the question with every film adaptation; is it credible? If the answer to that is "yes" then as far as I am concerned the film does not have to follow the book to the letter. Take the quote here above by Miss Marple from the book "A Caribbean Mystery". Miss Marple undoubtedly learned in her youth that she should not lie, but here it serves a higher purpose so Agatha Christie makes sure that Miss Marple can lie very convincingly and at the same time remains credible. So you see that even Agatha Christie makes her creation say things that actually go against their nature.
"A Caribbean Mystery" is not my favorite Miss Marple story. I can't really explain why, but I always feel like Miss Marple is a bit like a fish out of water. It is not really that strange because she is simply taken out of her natural environment; England.
As far as I know, three adaptations have been made of "A Caribbean Mystery"; one is from 1983 with Helen Hayes in the lead, in 1989 there was the version with Joan Hickson and the last film adaptation is from 2013 and Julia McKenzie plays miss Marple in that one.
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| Helen Hayes |
Although I think Helen Hayes is a very acceptable Miss Marple, I have to admit that I think her version of "A Caribbean Mystery" is the least of the three. Hayes' miss Marple reminds me a bit of the more recent Miss Marple; Geraldine McEwan. Both ladies assume that Miss Marple enjoys tracking down the killer. McEwan even gives Miss Marple a twinkle in her eye. You see Hayes enjoying herself when she comes up with a ruse. But where McEwan occasionally gets sad from all the misery that a murder entails, I miss that with Hayes. As far as I'm concerned, that makes McEwan a more credible Miss Marple than Hayes.
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| Cassie Yates, Zakes Mokae, Swoosie Kurtz, Stephen Macht |
The other older actors in the 1983 version are still good, but the younger ones are typical B television actors. Their acting is not very convincing. They exaggerate their acting too much to be taken seriously, but they exaggerate too little to make it comical. What has worked well with the Margaret Rutherford films. Unfortunately, I find the structure of the 1983 version a bit predictable. Unfortunately, quite a bit of the plot is given away in the beginning. What makes the case for this version is that a black actor has been taken for the role of doctor. Which is very credible because where the book is set in the 50s, this TV movie has moved the story to the present. Which is an understandable decision by the makers because the budgets of TV productions were not as high as those of cinema films.
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| Sheila Ruskin, Joan Hickson |
Then I come to my most favorite version; the one with Joan Hickson from 1989. I particularly like the structure of the story. As with all Miss Marple films with Hickson, she walks around like a cool Victorian lady. What I find clever is that, although she shows little emotion, Miss Marple doesn't come across as haughty. Hickson knows how to make Miss Marple human in one way or another.
Julia McKenzie's miss Marple is a little less Victorian. Although, like McEwan, she also occasionally gets emotional, McKenzie nowhere looks as fragile as Hickson's or Hayes' miss Marple. Too bad because the fragile appearance is an important part of Miss Marple's. With this she knows how to throw sand in the eyes of many a murderer. But still I ask myself the question; is it credible? I would say; Yes. I can imagine that, given the fact that she never married, she could hold her own in her younger years. In the old Victorian days, it was important for girls to marry the best possible party. Older single ladies were frowned upon. Miss Marple must have had a strong character when she was young and when, as an older lady, she still shows this in her posture I think that is credible.
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| Hermione Norris, Julia McKenzie, MyAnna Buring, Montserrat Lombard |
Broadly speaking, the story of the 2013 version of "A Caribbean Mystery" follows the book, but quite a few liberties have been taken and it's not just about who said what. Characters have been added that, in my opinion, wouldn’t have been necessary. Furthermore, the element of voodoo has been put into it. It does explain a thing or two, but I suspect it has been added more for effect. It gives the story more suspense and momentum, but you have to admit that Agatha Christie wrote detectives and not horror or thriller stories. On the other hand, Agatha Christie did not write comedies either, but all the same I really enjoyed the comic relief in "Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie", the French interpretation of Christie's detective stories.
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