MURDER MOST FOUL

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This is the third film starring Margaret Rutherford as Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple and for me it’s the most satisfying.

Thankfully there are some small changes to the formula of the first two films, signalled by the opening scenes.  Instead of Jane witnessing or stumbling upon a murder, here she’s a member of a jury.  The other jury members, and long suffering Inspector Craddock, are convinced the defendant is guilty of murdering Mrs McGinty but Jane of course begs to differ, forcing a retrial and an opportunity for her to investigate.

Compared with the two previous outings Jane actually does some serious detective work, and the mystery to be solved is more intriguing.   So hats off to the screenwriters who took the extremely complicated plot of an Hercule Poirot novel ‘Mrs McGinty’s Dead’ and totally rewrote it other than retaining the motive for the murder.  

As before, the rewrite includes a means for Jane to embed herself within a group of suspects, in this case an amateur theatre group, headed up by Ron Moody, having fun.

À theatre is always a promising background for a film and it’s a delight to see Jane tread the boards, especially when she recites part of a poem ("The Shooting of Dan McGrew" by Robert W. Service) as part of an audition.

The climax is also more exciting than in the two previous outings in that Jane seems to be in genuine jeopardy.  However I can't help thinking that in all three films the murderer might have got away with it, given the flimsiness of the evidence against them, if only they had resisted the temptation to do away with Jane.

Good fun.

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