I came here just to comment this! She was a total scene-stealer, her portrayal was so convincing for just her couple of minutes screen time! I think that's what makes the Joan HIckson Marple series so great; not only was Joan a wonderful actor, the supporting actors were also first rate.
I know some of the later adaptions were complete clown shoes but please keep up your excellent work. I enjoy your breakdown of Christies works and adaptations, even if some of the adaptors were high on meth.
I’m so glad you are doing these. So many of the adaptations were awful that I refused to read the books. The “Chimneys” film was as full of holes as Swiss cheese and unpleasant.
Such lovely videos! I honestly enjoy all the adaptions, and don't have the crazy ire at the 2000 ones that a lot of purists do..I found them beautifully styled, excellent actors and pulpy fun. I started reading Agatha Christie as a kid and my own imagination is a wildly different adaption from any of these. The fact that all these adaptions exist keep the books read on the planet and that is what I never get from people who get so angry at adaptions! They are interpretations by one group of writers, actors, directors, designers, etc. and the fact that books stay alive is the real gift.
Once again a very entertaining review. Whichever direction you take this series in, whichever adaptation you cover next, I'm sure it'll be great. Looking forward to it!
Good take but slightly disagree with the ending not being powerful. It is has a punch especially when it is revealed that the soldier was actually Ralth Collins. Also this version has a lot of interesting psychology for example the Ralth Collins Martin Waddy thing and the fact Rowena was so desperate for it to be her husband she accepted the fact he got taller and was a different person. Also I don't know if I was misinterpreting but I never got the feeling that Sister Cletild was in love with the Verity I got the Possessive maternal vibe aswell. Anyway love your videos :) merry Christmas and a Happy new year
I'm so glad you agree with me on this one. I had read the book shortly before seeing this "adaptation," and found myself thinking, "Why don't I have any idea what the #%@& is going on here?"
IMO, the homosexual subtext is in the novel. Doesn't make me dislike the McEwen episode less, but I do think it's there or at the very least that it's inclusion is no stretch.
Love these videos!, Nemesis was either the first or second Agatha Christie book I ever read, I think I picked Miss Marple because I thought I'd relate to it more?! I couldn't remember too much about it but after seeing this video, I've bought an e-book of it and am now making my way through it.
Hi from Australia, I've been really enjoying your Christie breakdowns. Pleeaasse consider breaking down the bonkers episodes purely for my entertainment. Also I just watched an Alfred Molina Poirot version of Murder on the Orient Express, you know - the one with Poirot's sexy bellydancer/jewel thief fiance. Highly recommend, truly astonishing. You're welcome.
...wait...when I read Sleeping Murder I fully got incest vibes. Maybe that's just me XD Also I laughed my ass off at the Cards on the Table reveal. PS. I see you didn't me tion the Marple Pale Horse adaptation? You didn't mind that one I take it?
Oh, I agree with you on the Sleeping Murder book. Got similar sexual vibe on the Nemesis book too. And you're right, Cards on the Table at the end of this video is hillarious😂😂😂.
3 месяца назад
Yeah, me too. The first thing I thought was that the brother spoke about her sister in a way that sounded too boyfriend-like.
This isn't the first time an Agatha Christie adaptation has taken gay, specifically sapphic interpretations of characters' motivations and run with them. The coding was pretty obvious to me, but then of course I *would* see it that way
Nemisis has to be my favorite Christie novel so far. And the TV episode with Joan Hickson is my favorite too. Beautiflly done. This later version was just too messy.
While I agree with the assessment of the Insert-Miss-Marple episodes, it's the one that perhaps works best that bothers me most - Towards Zero, as in the novel Superintendent Battle solved the case by channeling both Poirot (who came to mind when he saw a room that was not cleaned symmetrically) and the unknown-to-him Miss Marple (when his main suspect reminded him of his schoolgirl daughter who had earlier confessed to thefts she hadn't committed).
I think this story (with Geraldine McEwan) is so weird and aggravated that it's hard to follow. Unfortunately, many of the Miss Marple adaptations in this series are like that. There are only 2-3 better ones. In fact, Miss Marple called herself Nemesis in Caribbean Mystery and Raphael took it as a big joke. And in this story, she took the case not least because of the money she was promised - something that all the adaptations ignore. I know she's not a professional and that Raymond is giving her money, but it still wouldn't hurt to get paid for the investigation for once.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I prefer the In Name Only Version with Geraldine McEwan, mainly because of its better pacing and the omission of the scene in Nemesis where Miss Marple turns into/reveals herself as a rape apologist. I would also like to point out that the love for Verity that Clotilde had in the books can very easily be read as a romantic attraction gone wrong in a way that's not that dissimilar to the one portrayed in the McEwan version. Agree to disagree. Still, I found your video very entertaining and interesting nonetheless. 🙂👍
yes the POIROT series had no reason to change the plot to make the the lead male a closet homosexual in CARDS ON THE TABLE. But there are fewer POIROT that I dislike compared to the Marples. Thanks for the vid. You could see from McEwan BODY IN THE LIBRARY the road that the MARPLES were taking.
Tbf, In the book the love is also very possibly sexual (for better or worse,as it implies that lesbians are crazy and dangerous). It's just not as explicitly stated. I didn't enjoy the adaptation much, but the book wasn't great either,so...
I saw this when I was in high school and already disliked the McEwan adaptations (I had grown up with the Hickson ones on TV and from the library), but this was the last straw for me. The ONE thing I thought was clever was making the three biological sisters RELIGIOUS sisters, possibly to throw novel-readers off the scent, but that was it. I think the thing that bothered me most was cutting out the whole bit with the greenhouse. The reveal that Verity was buried there was so poetic to me when I read it, and they CUT IT OUT FOR SOME NAZI SHIT INSTEAD ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
Hickson was the finest Marple. McEwan is a little too perky. "Nemesis" shows Marple's darkness and Hickson plays it perfectly, especially in her confrontation with Clotilde. "She's a rotting corpse..."
Verity was still buried somewhere significant, though, in the backyard of where the killer had been living at the time (in the soldier's grave), so I think the adaptation did a good job of preserving the spirit of that reveal.
Thanks for this. (To be fair CARDS ON THE TABLE is not one of her best...but...yeah)
3 месяца назад
My main grievances with the second adaptation are: 1) Spear is too hard & strong for something that is decoy/artwork 2) Why does she think this woman is a ghost? 3) Why is there someone so similar to the dead person as to be able to pass as her? 3) The whole scene in the church is unnecessary, implausible and over the top 4) The whole thing could have gone wrong in so many ways... 5) I could have done with less characters TBH I did like the soldier being a Nazi parachuted on Britain because that was a thing, and I liked the whole "this is your long lost husband subplot" because again, that happened, more in the WW1 than in WW2.
Give me the Joan Hickson Miss Marples any day. Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie both had their charms in their portrayals of Miss Marple, but Joan Hickson *is* Miss Marple in the same way that David Suchet *is* Hercule Poirot. Plus the writing's better in the Hickson stories. Nothing bonkers about them. Nothing that made my head spin like the McEwan mess of Nemesis. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy some of the McEwan / McKenzie adaptations. I did. I think they did a good job of inserting Miss Marple into Toward Zero considering how much rewriting that took. But, overall, the writing of the adaptations of the Hickson stories is better.
Right. Agatha Christie saw a Joan Hickson in a play when Joan was very young. She told her “I want you to play Miss Marple someday. What an eye she must have done.
I don't why the 2000s ITV Christie adaptations decided they needed to shoehorn in gayness to every episode, especially as it was almost always the murderers they queer-coded
The problem with an adaptation is balancing where to keep to the source and where to tweak it to make it more relevant to a modern audience. Or at the very least, where to add something new that hasn't been covered in previous adaptations. I don't mind them taking a queer reading to some of the characters in Christie's books; for example, it works in "A Murder is Announced" (Amy and Hinch) as it makes narrative sense why they'd seek the seclusion of the village. Additionally, I've always believed "The Body in the Library" is a superb mystery, but the murderer was the most obvious suspect. The more modern adaptation inverted the expectations of an audience who'd already be familiar with such a well-known story via an unexpected twist while still keeping the method of the mystery in tact. But I agree with you that it's unfortunate that so much of the queer characters are associated with violence (either as victims or obsessive perpetrators). I believe they were trying to be progressive by acknowledging the presence of these characters in these historic settings, but they unfortunately played into some rather regressive tropes in the process.
@@Unownshipper I think the newer "Body in the Library" is a perfect example of adding a queer twist really working, because it makes the story more interesting. The book and Hickson solution is really flat and obvious. I think the Suchet "Five Little Pigs" is also another example of it working, too, though that one is much more minor and not actually much to do with the solution. But other times, it just really doesn't work. "A Murder Is Announced" ISN'T an example of this, however, because it's one of Christie's few examples of actually including queer characters. Like, it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaarely subtext. It's not something adapters made up.
@@vulpes82 I have to admit, I wasn't 100% sure about the "A Murder Is Announced" one as I haven't read that book. Does Christie explicitly state their relationship, or is it just heavily implied? I ask because I was lead to believe she couldn't outright state a homosexual relationship because of the publishing censors of the time. I agree about "Five Little Pigs." It might not impact the solution, but the queer twist works (both of them do, although I think Gemma Jones carried it off better as she's a better actress) to give the story another layer.
Always preferred the Joan Hickson version of Nemesis. Haven't seen any of those adaptations in a long while. In another message i had asked who would be a good choice if they ever did another Marple reboot of any of her books. Just sitting here now I thought of Judi Dench...... or maybe Helen Mirren? I hope if Kenneth Branagh is behind it he doesn't ruin it like whatever he's turned "Halloween Party" into.
I think I must have blocked the McEwan "Nemesis" out of my mind completely, though I must have seen it at some point. (Nazis?! WHY?!) The Hickson adaptation is, as is almost always the case, the superior. I do have one quibble, though: even in the Hickson adaptation, there are intimations that Clothilde's love for Vanity IS at least partly sexual. One of the other sisters makes a rather nasty comment at dinner that implies Clothilde is a lesbian. I can't remember if that was from the book, as I haven't read the book in decades, but if both adaptations, particularly the Hickson version which is very faithful, have it, then it must have been implied by Christie, too. I'm intrigued by your dissection of "Cards on the Table," as it's one of the later Poirot movies I like the most, though I haven't read the book version in decades, either, so I honestly don't know how faithful it is as an adaptation. There are two changes, particularly of a queer nature, that I can think of, one that is unfortunate in that it plays into tired tropes but at least adds interest to a subplot, and one at the end that I HAAAAAAAAAAAAATE and makes Poirot look like a nasty bigot. Can't wait!
I've read Nemesis. I think the sexual undertone is in the book, although very vague. It's the same with Sleeping Murder. Personally, I love how some writers put sexual tone very vaguely in their books and make readers argue for ages😂😂😂. It's similar with the disclosure that 'Dumbeldore is gay'. Some readers think JK Rowling made it up after finishing the 7th book to keep up with the 'woke' movement. However, other readers, including myself, think that it was stated in the Deathly Hallows book, albeit very subtly.
The funny thing is Nemesis was the first Joan Hickson's Miss Marple I saw from the library. And I adore that adaptation, it's one of my favorite Miss Marple films in general and as Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Haven't read the book yet, but I have heard it's the worst of Miss Marple's books from many sources. The 2007 TV adaptations is a giant mess of "what were they thinking" in my opinion. One it's all over the place, too many characters that don't make sense. It just felt way too much dramatic and trying too hard.
Oh sweet buttery Christ, Mid 2000s Marple again. Look, I hate to say this, because both McEwan and McKenzie are really wonderful in the role, but I'm sorry, the 2004-2013 series is bad. It is just bad. More often than not your colliding headfirst int bizarre adaptations like that. And I understand that it's TRADITIONAL at this point to jam Miss Marple into mysteries where she wasn't present (Both Murder at the Gallop, AND Murder Most Foul are based on Poirot stories) but the first season of this show did a BONKERS adaptation of Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and it's just as much of a mess there. At least this is based on a freakin Marple story! Kinda! Yeeeeeeesh. There are a few decent adaptations here and there, but both Hickson and Rutherford's tenures are more entertaining
Look on the bright side. Perhaps you can say that series serves as an introduction for (young) people who may then want to learn more about Marple and Christie and read the source material.
This series has some good episodes, such as The blue geranium, the murder at the vicarage is alright, but many episodes are just hot mess, full of unnecessary changes
Развлечения
![Sean Rii, Karyon, Sharzkii - Taungule [My Love] (Official Music Video)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eJoMuypbSzQ/mqdefault.jpg)
"Do the writers not know how to separate love from sex," and there you have it, the problem with most modern writing.
Liz Fraser was sublime as Mrs Brent in the 1987 version. She didn’t have much screen time but my gosh was she good!!
I came here just to comment this! She was a total scene-stealer, her portrayal was so convincing for just her couple of minutes screen time! I think that's what makes the Joan HIckson Marple series so great; not only was Joan a wonderful actor, the supporting actors were also first rate.
Miles, you and PushingUpRoses have to do a collab! You both like talking about mystery shows and books, it’s a collab made in heaven!
I will take this under serious consideration. :)
@@MysteryMiles *YAAAAAAY!* I do *HOPE* it’ll come out! 😊
@@lukacunningham342 Keep in mind she has to be interested, too, for it to happen. I'm sure she gets many such requests.
I know some of the later adaptions were complete clown shoes but please keep up your excellent work. I enjoy your breakdown of Christies works and adaptations, even if some of the adaptors were high on meth.
I love McEwan as Marple. And this episode is one of my favorites. 🤷♀️
I’m so glad you are doing these. So many of the adaptations were awful that I refused to read the books. The “Chimneys” film was as full of holes as Swiss cheese and unpleasant.
Such lovely videos! I honestly enjoy all the adaptions, and don't have the crazy ire at the 2000 ones that a lot of purists do..I found them beautifully styled, excellent actors and pulpy fun. I started reading Agatha Christie as a kid and my own imagination is a wildly different adaption from any of these. The fact that all these adaptions exist keep the books read on the planet and that is what I never get from people who get so angry at adaptions! They are interpretations by one group of writers, actors, directors, designers, etc. and the fact that books stay alive is the real gift.
Once again a very entertaining review. Whichever direction you take this series in, whichever adaptation you cover next, I'm sure it'll be great. Looking forward to it!
Good take but slightly disagree with the ending not being powerful. It is has a punch especially when it is revealed that the soldier was actually Ralth Collins. Also this version has a lot of interesting psychology for example the Ralth Collins Martin Waddy thing and the fact Rowena was so desperate for it to be her husband she accepted the fact he got taller and was a different person.
Also I don't know if I was misinterpreting but I never got the feeling that Sister Cletild was in love with the Verity I got the Possessive maternal vibe aswell.
Anyway love your videos :) merry Christmas and a Happy new year
I'm so glad you agree with me on this one. I had read the book shortly before seeing this "adaptation," and found myself thinking, "Why don't I have any idea what the #%@& is going on here?"
IMO, the homosexual subtext is in the novel. Doesn't make me dislike the McEwen episode less, but I do think it's there or at the very least that it's inclusion is no stretch.
It absolutely was in the novel. It wasn't addressed in modern language so some readers might miss it since now people want everything spelled out.
I'm usually pretty easy going about loose adaptation but even I was going WTF?!? the whole time I was watching this. Like....LESBIAN NUN!😊
Love these videos!, Nemesis was either the first or second Agatha Christie book I ever read, I think I picked Miss Marple because I thought I'd relate to it more?! I couldn't remember too much about it but after seeing this video, I've bought an e-book of it and am now making my way through it.
Hi from Australia, I've been really enjoying your Christie breakdowns. Pleeaasse consider breaking down the bonkers episodes purely for my entertainment. Also I just watched an Alfred Molina Poirot version of Murder on the Orient Express, you know - the one with Poirot's sexy bellydancer/jewel thief fiance. Highly recommend, truly astonishing. You're welcome.
I haven't watched the Molina version, but your statement that 'Poirot having a sexy belly-dancer fiance' has killed any interest I might have🤦🏼♀️😂.
...wait...when I read Sleeping Murder I fully got incest vibes. Maybe that's just me XD
Also I laughed my ass off at the Cards on the Table reveal.
PS. I see you didn't me tion the Marple Pale Horse adaptation? You didn't mind that one I take it?
Still have to re-watch it, but from what I remember, they didn't go too crazy. :)
@@MysteryMiles they didn't actually (helps that Marple fits the Ariadne Oliver shaped hole rather well). The TV miniseries went way weirder.
Oh, I agree with you on the Sleeping Murder book. Got similar sexual vibe on the Nemesis book too. And you're right, Cards on the Table at the end of this video is hillarious😂😂😂.
Yeah, me too. The first thing I thought was that the brother spoke about her sister in a way that sounded too boyfriend-like.
I am finally getting to read the book! Looking forward to the novel. I just enjoy all things Christie( except Postern )
This isn't the first time an Agatha Christie adaptation has taken gay, specifically sapphic interpretations of characters' motivations and run with them. The coding was pretty obvious to me, but then of course I *would* see it that way
In the book it really is that why
Nemisis has to be my favorite Christie novel so far. And the TV episode with Joan Hickson is my favorite too. Beautiflly done. This later version was just too messy.
While I agree with the assessment of the Insert-Miss-Marple episodes, it's the one that perhaps works best that bothers me most - Towards Zero, as in the novel Superintendent Battle solved the case by channeling both Poirot (who came to mind when he saw a room that was not cleaned symmetrically) and the unknown-to-him Miss Marple (when his main suspect reminded him of his schoolgirl daughter who had earlier confessed to thefts she hadn't committed).
I think this story (with Geraldine McEwan) is so weird and aggravated that it's hard to follow. Unfortunately, many of the Miss Marple adaptations in this series are like that. There are only 2-3 better ones.
In fact, Miss Marple called herself Nemesis in Caribbean Mystery and Raphael took it as a big joke.
And in this story, she took the case not least because of the money she was promised - something that all the adaptations ignore. I know she's not a professional and that Raymond is giving her money, but it still wouldn't hurt to get paid for the investigation for once.
Definitely jumped the shark. But you can see that in the opening scene.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I prefer the In Name Only Version with Geraldine McEwan, mainly because of its better pacing and the omission of the scene in Nemesis where Miss Marple turns into/reveals herself as a rape apologist. I would also like to point out that the love for Verity that Clotilde had in the books can very easily be read as a romantic attraction gone wrong in a way that's not that dissimilar to the one portrayed in the McEwan version. Agree to disagree. Still, I found your video very entertaining and interesting nonetheless. 🙂👍
Joan is a different person to Joyce. Joyce dose not end up marrying Raymond.
Raymond is a successful romance novelist, not mystery (or perhaps just straight novelist, but dramatic relationships are implied)
Sadly, the later adaptations were written by Miss Marple's nephew, Raymond West.
Have you seen see how they run?
yes the POIROT series had no reason to change the plot to make the the lead male a closet homosexual in CARDS ON THE TABLE. But there are fewer POIROT that I dislike compared to the Marples. Thanks for the vid. You could see from McEwan BODY IN THE LIBRARY the road that the MARPLES were taking.
I love these films with Margaret Rutherford. My favorite Miss Marple movies❤❤
😂😂😂 your kidding right
Margaret R. Was by far my favorite.
Tbf, In the book the love is also very possibly sexual (for better or worse,as it implies that lesbians are crazy and dangerous). It's just not as explicitly stated. I didn't enjoy the adaptation much, but the book wasn't great either,so...
‘Mon Cher Hastings, très amusant, tu ne trouves pas?’ Bravo that’s a pretty spiffing analysis….
Theses days it seems there has to be same sex love at some point in a lot of movies. It's the age we are living in...
It was there in the book, albeit very subtly. And the book is written decades ago.
Someday.
I sense a Poirot tale misdone coming up..... 🙂
The new production company only did well by Agatha’s grandson’s bank balance and Suchet.
I saw this when I was in high school and already disliked the McEwan adaptations (I had grown up with the Hickson ones on TV and from the library), but this was the last straw for me. The ONE thing I thought was clever was making the three biological sisters RELIGIOUS sisters, possibly to throw novel-readers off the scent, but that was it. I think the thing that bothered me most was cutting out the whole bit with the greenhouse. The reveal that Verity was buried there was so poetic to me when I read it, and they CUT IT OUT FOR SOME NAZI SHIT INSTEAD ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
Hickson was the finest Marple. McEwan is a little too perky. "Nemesis" shows Marple's darkness and Hickson plays it perfectly, especially in her confrontation with Clotilde. "She's a rotting corpse..."
Verity was still buried somewhere significant, though, in the backyard of where the killer had been living at the time (in the soldier's grave), so I think the adaptation did a good job of preserving the spirit of that reveal.
Hey how many Miss Marple episodes ITV didn't adapt? Is it a lot ?
The ITV Marple series adapted all twelve Marple novels, two Marple short stories, and nine other novels into which Miss Marple was inserted.
Thanks for this. (To be fair CARDS ON THE TABLE is not one of her best...but...yeah)
My main grievances with the second adaptation are: 1) Spear is too hard & strong for something that is decoy/artwork 2) Why does she think this woman is a ghost? 3) Why is there someone so similar to the dead person as to be able to pass as her? 3) The whole scene in the church is unnecessary, implausible and over the top 4) The whole thing could have gone wrong in so many ways... 5) I could have done with less characters TBH
I did like the soldier being a Nazi parachuted on Britain because that was a thing, and I liked the whole "this is your long lost husband subplot" because again, that happened, more in the WW1 than in WW2.
Give me the Joan Hickson Miss Marples any day. Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie both had their charms in their portrayals of Miss Marple, but Joan Hickson *is* Miss Marple in the same way that David Suchet *is* Hercule Poirot.
Plus the writing's better in the Hickson stories. Nothing bonkers about them. Nothing that made my head spin like the McEwan mess of Nemesis. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy some of the McEwan / McKenzie adaptations. I did. I think they did a good job of inserting Miss Marple into Toward Zero considering how much rewriting that took.
But, overall, the writing of the adaptations of the Hickson stories is better.
Right. Agatha Christie saw a Joan Hickson in a play when Joan was very young. She told her “I want you to play Miss Marple someday. What an eye she must have done.
I don't why the 2000s ITV Christie adaptations decided they needed to shoehorn in gayness to every episode,
especially as it was almost always the murderers they queer-coded
The problem with an adaptation is balancing where to keep to the source and where to tweak it to make it more relevant to a modern audience. Or at the very least, where to add something new that hasn't been covered in previous adaptations.
I don't mind them taking a queer reading to some of the characters in Christie's books; for example, it works in "A Murder is Announced" (Amy and Hinch) as it makes narrative sense why they'd seek the seclusion of the village. Additionally, I've always believed "The Body in the Library" is a superb mystery, but the murderer was the most obvious suspect. The more modern adaptation inverted the expectations of an audience who'd already be familiar with such a well-known story via an unexpected twist while still keeping the method of the mystery in tact.
But I agree with you that it's unfortunate that so much of the queer characters are associated with violence (either as victims or obsessive perpetrators). I believe they were trying to be progressive by acknowledging the presence of these characters in these historic settings, but they unfortunately played into some rather regressive tropes in the process.
@@Unownshipper I think the newer "Body in the Library" is a perfect example of adding a queer twist really working, because it makes the story more interesting. The book and Hickson solution is really flat and obvious. I think the Suchet "Five Little Pigs" is also another example of it working, too, though that one is much more minor and not actually much to do with the solution. But other times, it just really doesn't work.
"A Murder Is Announced" ISN'T an example of this, however, because it's one of Christie's few examples of actually including queer characters. Like, it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaarely subtext. It's not something adapters made up.
@@vulpes82 I have to admit, I wasn't 100% sure about the "A Murder Is Announced" one as I haven't read that book. Does Christie explicitly state their relationship, or is it just heavily implied? I ask because I was lead to believe she couldn't outright state a homosexual relationship because of the publishing censors of the time.
I agree about "Five Little Pigs." It might not impact the solution, but the queer twist works (both of them do, although I think Gemma Jones carried it off better as she's a better actress) to give the story another layer.
@@Unownshipper Implied, but like I said, it's the kind of implied that is all but a shout.
Always preferred the Joan Hickson version of Nemesis. Haven't seen any of those adaptations in a long while. In another message i had asked who would be a good choice if they ever did another Marple reboot of any of her books. Just sitting here now I thought of Judi Dench...... or maybe Helen Mirren? I hope if Kenneth Branagh is behind it he doesn't ruin it like whatever he's turned "Halloween Party" into.
I hadn't thought of Helen Mirren! I like that idea!
Probably it's best to keep Branagh away from Christie's works for a while😅
I think I must have blocked the McEwan "Nemesis" out of my mind completely, though I must have seen it at some point. (Nazis?! WHY?!) The Hickson adaptation is, as is almost always the case, the superior.
I do have one quibble, though: even in the Hickson adaptation, there are intimations that Clothilde's love for Vanity IS at least partly sexual. One of the other sisters makes a rather nasty comment at dinner that implies Clothilde is a lesbian. I can't remember if that was from the book, as I haven't read the book in decades, but if both adaptations, particularly the Hickson version which is very faithful, have it, then it must have been implied by Christie, too.
I'm intrigued by your dissection of "Cards on the Table," as it's one of the later Poirot movies I like the most, though I haven't read the book version in decades, either, so I honestly don't know how faithful it is as an adaptation. There are two changes, particularly of a queer nature, that I can think of, one that is unfortunate in that it plays into tired tropes but at least adds interest to a subplot, and one at the end that I HAAAAAAAAAAAAATE and makes Poirot look like a nasty bigot. Can't wait!
I've read Nemesis. I think the sexual undertone is in the book, although very vague. It's the same with Sleeping Murder. Personally, I love how some writers put sexual tone very vaguely in their books and make readers argue for ages😂😂😂. It's similar with the disclosure that 'Dumbeldore is gay'. Some readers think JK Rowling made it up after finishing the 7th book to keep up with the 'woke' movement. However, other readers, including myself, think that it was stated in the Deathly Hallows book, albeit very subtly.
There where many good parts of the 2007 adaptions but they really loved their evil lesbians.
The funny thing is Nemesis was the first Joan Hickson's Miss Marple I saw from the library. And I adore that adaptation, it's one of my favorite Miss Marple films in general and as Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Haven't read the book yet, but I have heard it's the worst of Miss Marple's books from many sources. The 2007 TV adaptations is a giant mess of "what were they thinking" in my opinion. One it's all over the place, too many characters that don't make sense. It just felt way too much dramatic and trying too hard.
I thought the book was pretty good actually. Movie adaptations are a totally different story
@@user-tc4jv1vr9m I will find out, once I get there. Making my way through the Marples now.
I hated the 2007 adaptation. It was ridiculous
Oh sweet buttery Christ, Mid 2000s Marple again.
Look, I hate to say this, because both McEwan and McKenzie are really wonderful in the role, but I'm sorry, the 2004-2013 series is bad. It is just bad. More often than not your colliding headfirst int bizarre adaptations like that. And I understand that it's TRADITIONAL at this point to jam Miss Marple into mysteries where she wasn't present (Both Murder at the Gallop, AND Murder Most Foul are based on Poirot stories) but the first season of this show did a BONKERS adaptation of Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and it's just as much of a mess there.
At least this is based on a freakin Marple story! Kinda!
Yeeeeeeesh. There are a few decent adaptations here and there, but both Hickson and Rutherford's tenures are more entertaining
Look on the bright side. Perhaps you can say that series serves as an introduction for (young) people who may then want to learn more about Marple and Christie and read the source material.
This series has some good episodes, such as The blue geranium, the murder at the vicarage is alright, but many episodes are just hot mess, full of unnecessary changes