Julia McKenzie is an excellent Marple, and all the cast are good. The script stays pretty close to the book - but not close enough. The dialogue sounds too expository, and too ironed-out. We miss Christie's wit and social observation. The clothes are perfect - conservative, like the era. The golf hotel is wood-panelled and convincing. But, but, but... the producers made one huge, thumping mistake. Agatha Christie did not write Downton Abbey. The jumped-up Fortescues (old F came from Romania) did not live in a stately home, they lived in a tasteless Tudoresque mansion somewhere like Sunningdale. The architecture is lovely to look at, but laughably wrong. And you couldn't run a house that size on a cook, a butler, a maid and a housekeeper. And you couldn't walk to the hotel through the miles and miles of grounds! The script has been tinkered with: the original story had a reason for Miss Marple to be around, and to help the police. There was a batty aunt who invited her to stay in the house. And the cops in charge usually get told by someone high up to give Miss M every assistance. Here, the cops using her as an unpaid sergeant was never really explained. And the daughter who is supposed to be plain and awkward is as pretty as the rest of the cast. And nobody said "hack it" or "not my bag" in the 50s.
Review of A Pocket Full of Rye
