Review: Murder at the Gallop (1963)

Murder at the Gallop

Rating

Director

George Pollock

Screenplay

James P. Cavanagh (Novel: Agatha Christie)

Length

1h 21m

Starring

Margaret Rutherford, Stringer Davis, Robert Morley, Flora Robson, Charles Tingwell, Gordon harris, Robert Urquhart, Katya Douglas, James Villiers, Noel Howlett, Finlay Currie, Duncan Lamont, Kevin Stoney

MPAA Rating

Approved

Review

Margaret Rutherford returns for her second outing as Miss Marple in Murder at the Gallop, an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death at a Funeral, a mystery thriller with a healthy dose of light comedy.

Stepping in for the novel’s detective, Hercule Poirot, Marple is once again entwined in a mystery involving a rich old man’s mysterious death and the heirs who have the most to gain from his death. Marple and her friend Mr. Stringer (real life husband Stringer Davis) are visiting the elderly gentleman who takes a tumble down the stairs, dying in the process. Marple suspects foul play, as she always does, when she discovers the presence of a cat in the house, a creature the victim was pathologically afraid of. As she surreptitiously listens in on the will reading, discovering the four heirs, she begins her investigation into each attempting to uncover the dastardly culprit.

While this is definitely one of the better of the four, I must castigate the filmmakers for replacing Poirot with Marple. They have distinctly different styles and the resolution here would be something Poirot was more likely conclude than Marple. Still, it helps that Rutherford is at the top of her Marple game and the supporting cast is all fun and engaging, including Robert Morley and Flora Robson.

Director George Pollock is back with his unobtrusive style, allowing the mystery to develop naturally from James P. Cavanagh’s adaptation. There’s a lot of good natured humored peppered throughout the film. All while the plot twists and turns throwing in surprise after surprise, never giving you a moment to settle in on the actual killer. It’s perhaps not as neat a package as the first film in terms of its investigative method, but the joy is in getting there rather than figuring it out.

Recently I wrote about how the wealthy tended to form a disproportionate majority of killers and victims in mysteries patterned after Christie’s works and having two such efforts in a row is a bit disconcerting. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the upper class are both a convenient target for criticism and are disproportionately capable of moral relativism in their perception of crime and punishment or the lack thereof. Yet, in Christie’s world, as in this film, the wealthy aren’t isolated for ridicule or condemnation. They simply provide a glitzier environment in which crime can take place. Not to mention affording the author the opportunity to travel extensively in her written world even when confined to the south of Britain.

While Murder at the Gallop is mostly as clever as the source material, that’s likely to both please and frustrate Christie’s fans. On the one hand, it’s a well executed effort. On the other, the comedy detracts from the mystery itself and the replacement of Poirot is anathema. That said, the tone isn’t too far removed from the pointed and serious nature of Christie’s novels, so consternation should be limited.