Murder, She Said **** (1961, Margaret Rutherford, Arthur Kennedy, Charles Tingwell, Muriel Pavlow) – Classic Movie Review 867

Director George Pollock’s 1961 comedy murder mystery thriller Murder, She Said is the first and best of Margaret Rutherford’s four star movie appearances as Agatha Christie’s spinster sleuth. Freely based on Christie’s famous 1957 novel 4.50 from Paddington, the film memorably has Miss Jane Marple seeing a woman strangled to death in a railway carriage on a passing train going in the other direction.

Miss Marple reports it to the police but they won’t believe her as no body can be found. She finds the murder was committed while the train passed Ackenthorpe Hall manor house and believes the body must have been thrown off the train near its grounds. So she gets a job as the new maid there, greeted at the door by Mrs Kidder (Joan Hickson) with a weary ‘well you look old enough to know better’, then mixing her cleaning and cooking with desperately searching the house for clues – and the body.

In the novel, Miss Marple’s friend Mrs McGillicuddy witnesses the murder, and Miss Marple sends a young acquaintance to pose as a housekeeper at the suspect location. These changes of course are just made to keep Miss Marple in the limelight throughout the film. Book reviewers back in 1957 wanted more direct involvement of Miss Marple in the story, and this film certainly provides it.

Perhaps what they didn’t need to change was the character of Miss Marple herself – Rutherford betrays Christie’s character, turning her into one her Rutherford’s deliciously dizzy old dames, but with a canny streak. It is quintessential Rutherford – so great! – but not quintessential Marple.

Perhaps they also didn’t need to change the dark-hued, suspenseful tone of Christie’s Miss Marple books. There is too much jolly comedy here. No wonder Christie disliked this adaptation. It makes for an enjoyable film, but we have to wait for Joan Hickson to provide the ‘real’ Miss Marple.

Murder, She Said is a properly old English, stiff-upper-lipped, far-fetched and enjoyable tall story, conveyed most entertainingly, thanks mainly to the splendid performance of the redoubtable Rutherford and Christie’s extremely neat, satisfying mystery.

Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell as Scotland Yard man Chief Inspector Craddock, James Robertson Justice as Luther Ackenthorpe, Arthur Kennedy as Dr Paul Quimper, Muriel Pavlow as Emma Ackenthorpe, Thorley Walters as Cedric Ackenthorpe, Joan Hickson (as the housekeeper Mrs Kidder), Ronald Howard as Brian Eastley, Conrad Phillips as Harold Ackenthorpe and Rutherford’s real husband Stringer Davis (as Mr Jim Stringer) prove admirable foils for the great Rutherford.

Also in the cast are Ronnie Raymond as Alexander Eastley, Gerald Cross as Albert Ackenthorpe, Michael Golden as Hillman, Barbara Leake as Mrs Hilda Stainton, Gordon Harris as Sergeant Bacon, Peter Butterworth as the ticket collector, Richard Briers as ‘Mrs Binster’ of Mrs Binster’s Employment Agency and Lucy Griffiths as Lucy.

It is based on Christie’s famous novel 4.50 from Paddington, which was later remade for TV by the BBC in 1987 as Miss Marple: 4.50 from Paddington with Joan Hickson, who plays Mrs Kidder in this version, as Miss Marple. Christie told Hickson she wanted her to play Miss Marple one day. In the 1940s she appeared on stage in an Agatha Christie play, Appointment with Death, which was seen by Mrs Christie, who wrote in a note to her: ‘I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple.’

ITV adapted the novel again with many changes for the series Marple in 2004 starring Geraldine McEwan as an unsuitable Miss Marple.

Though not overjoyed at Murder, She Said, Christie nevertheless dedicated her 1962 book The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side to Margaret Rutherford ‘in admiration’. Muriel Pavlow went on to play Miss Marple on the London stage for many years in Murder at the Vicarage.

During her opening journey on the 4.50, Miss Marple reads Death Has Windows by Michael Southcott, a fictitious novel mocked up by the production team. But later she has a Fontana paperback copy of Christie’s own book Murder is Easy, featuring Miss Marple!

Miss Marple gives her address as Old Pasture Lane, Milchester. The house was actually owned by John Mills in Denham, Buckinghamshire. The manor house was called Rutherford Hall in Christie’s novel but the film-makers changed it to Ackenthorpe to avoid confusion with the star’s name. This is a shortened version of the family name Crackenthorpe in the novel.

Richard Briers received £25 for his scene as ‘Mrs Binster’ of Mrs Binster’s Employment Agency, shot on the final day of filming.

Murder at the Gallop, Murder Most Foul and Murder Ahoy followed. Rutherford and Davis reprised their roles once more for brief cameo appearances in The Alphabet Murders (1965).

In real life, Rutherford wasn’t a huge fan of the material. ‘Murder, you see, is not the sort of thing I can get close to,’ she said. ‘I don’t like these things that are just for thrills. I would far rather go without work. I do not like murder. It has an atmosphere I have always found uncongenial.’

Oscar-winner Margaret Rutherford died on May 22 1972, aged 80. Despite appearing in 50 films, it is as Miss Jane Marple and Madame Arcati in David Lean’s Blithe Spirit (1945) that she is best remembered.

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