Review: Murder, She Said (1961)

Murder, She Said

Rating

Director

George Pollock

Screenplay

David Osborn, David Pursall, Jack Seddon (Novel: Agatha Christie)

Length

1h 27m

Starring

Margaret Rutherford, Arthur Kennedy, Muriel Pavlow, James Robertson Justice, Thorley Walters, Charles Tingwell, Conrad Phillips, Ronald Howard, Joan Hickson, Stringer Davis, Ronnie Raymond, Gerald Cross

MPAA Rating

Unrated

Review

Long before TV movies had emerged as a major art form, serials with popular literary figures found success at the box office. Murder, She Said is the first in a series of four films featuring Miss Marple, one of Agatha Christie’s two most enduring fictional detectives.

This effort is based on the novel 4:50 from Paddington and stars Margaret Rutherford as the indomitable Jane Marple. Released in 1961 in the United Kingdom, Murder, She Said didn’t see release in the United States until 1962, which enabled the film to extend its successful run and set British and American audiences up for a nearly annual series of pictures with the aged super sleuth.

In this film, Marple witnesses a murder on a passing train and goes in search of the body that the police are unable to find. As she insinuates herself into the Ackenthorpe household, she uncovers the identity of the missing woman traced through a compact found near where the body originally landed prior to being moved to the estate stable.

The mystery surrounding the murder is who will inherit the late Ackenthorpe’s estate, a crime that Marple throws herself into. The film co-stars Arthur Kennedy, Muriel Pablow, James Robertson Justice, Thorley Walters, Charles Tingwell, and others. Interestingly, one of the suspects, Mrs. Kidder, is played by Joan Hixson who would later go on to play the Miss Marple role in the vaunted BBC series.

Rutherford’s approach to the character, and what likely made it such an enduring figure to merit three more features, was her acerbic, wink-and-nod performance. She plays on the comedy-of-manners tropes in such an appealing and affable way that it’s easy to overlook the severe departure this charm was from the character on the written page. In text, she’s a busybody and an elderly spinster who always has an anecdote to share. While the depiction isn’t identical, it exemplifies a different aspect of her persona in later novels. Rutherford had spent years cultivating this exact persona, which is why it feels like such a well worn performance.

Director George Pollock takes the script by David Osborn, David Pursall, and Jack Seddon and presents it with forthright determination, shifting from scene to scene with uncomplicated grace. However, the story isn’t nearly as compelling as Rutherford makes it out to be, which is one of the reasons why the film largely succeeds.

Murder, She Said is a strong first entry in the Rutherford-Marple series. The subsequent efforts are of mixed quality, but at least the opening salvo is worth the time of any murder mystery fan who likes the way Christie weaves stories, even when they are altered in many ways for the visual medium.