This was the scene at Hershey ArtsFest last Saturday. It was a cloudy, slightly chilly day, and the winds warned us to secure our canopy and prepare for inclement weather. At 3 p.m., the rains and high winds came and ended the event, but we sold a lot of books and met a lot of […]
Fidelity to text: 4 poison bottles. It’s very close. A few name changes, minor but reasonable changes to Arthur Badcock, and similar issues. The big change for me was shortchanging Margot Bence, particularly when she was such a strong presence at the opening and in the novel. Quality of movie on its own: 3 poison […]
Teresa reviews “Endless Night” (2013) and finds that stuffing Miss Marple where she doesn’t belong creates a new nightmare. Fidelity to text: 3 poison bottles. Despite the completely unnecessary addition of Miss Marple, the story hews very closely to the text. The other major change is the Architect. He gets an unneeded name change (to […]
Fidelity to text: 3 1/2 guns. Minor characters get removed, Inspector Slack replaces Inspector Curry, a name change here or there. The big change was the ending. It was far more dramatic than the novel — necessary for a film — but badly thought out. There’s also the weird addition of modern dance, Walter’s horse, […]
Support Peschel Press at no cost to you! Buy this movie from Amazon. Fidelity to text: 2 poison bottles. The overall arc is there with wills, housekeepers, and gardeners with pasts. Add in a poisonous infusion from “The Thumbmark of St. Peter,” major character rewrites, a damsel escaping her abusive husband during a dark and […]
Support Peschel Press at no cost to you! Buy the Joan Hickson box set. This week we reviewed TWO versions of “A Caribbean Mystery.” Click here to read about the Julia McKenzie version. Fidelity to text: 3 and 1/2 poison bottles. Minor characters are removed, new ones added (mainly island citizens), scenes added or deleted, […]
Support Peschel Press at no cost to you! Buy this movie from Amazon. This week we reviewed TWO versions of “A Caribbean Mystery.” Click here to read about the Joan Hickson version. Fidelity to text: 4 poison bottles. Unusual for an ITV production, this version actually follows Agatha’s storyline. You’ll get the usual removal or […]
Support Peschel Press at no cost to you! Buy the Joan Hickson box set. Fidelity to text: 3 stranglers Minor characters vanish and others are invented. The entire Martine girlfriend-or-wife-of-Edmund subplot is gone. One murder doesn’t occur although medical malpractice does, amounting to the same thing. Another murder is radically changed in its method. The […]
Support Peschel Press at no cost to you! Buy this movie from Amazon. Fidelity to text: 3 blunt objects. The original story is here: murder for hire, misdirection, witches, and cleverly disguised thallium. The major change is replacing Ariadne Oliver with Miss Marple and giving her most of the sleuthing (as opposed to Mark Easterbrook […]
Earlier this week I sat down with Burt Wolder of “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere” and we talked for an hour about parodies and pastiches. We had a fine chat, and I was really impressed with his questions. We talked not only about Sherlock, but about movies and books in general. Turns out he’s a […]