Aging Major Palgrave, an idiosyncratic but charming mystery writer, reveals to Miss Jane Marple that one of the guests at a luxurious Caribbean resort they're staying at is a Bluebeard-type wife murderer. Unfortunately, the Major succumbs to an apparently accidental overdose of alcohol and blood pressure medication before revealing the killer's identity. When it's discovered that the medicine belonged to another guest and the revealing photograph the Major was carrying is missing, Miss Marple realizes that the serial killer has struck again and more murders will follow.
22 Apr A Caribbean Mystery (1983)
Glass Eye
To my mind, Christie’s novels are inherently cinematic. Most of them have key events: a murder or clue, that are spatially constrained, which is an attractive hook for a filmmaker.
Here there are three such setups. A man tells a story about a known murderer, has a photo that quite literally identifies him. Pulls it out in telling a story, and recognises the man while talking to our detective. He is then murdered. A key fact is that he had a glass eye, so Ms Marple was mistaken about the direction he was looking.
A maid who has served our victim for many years has never before seen the medicine that was the supposed cause of death. She is murdered.
A woman is pushed to her death from behind, because the murderer thought she looked like someone else.
That is pretty much the mystery, with in this case fewer red herrings than usual. It is a great framework for a film. Other of her books are not so amenable to stagecraft and blocking — I am thinking of ‘The Body in the Library.’
Alas, none of these are exploited cinematically, and the rollout of the story is true to the text, but profoundly lacks imagination of engagement. Fans like the next adaptation that had a colourful Marple and spiced up the characters. Myself, I find that thin beer because I live in space and cinematic time.
Posted in 2024
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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