Support Peschel Press at no cost to you! Buy the Joan Hickson box set. Fidelity to text: 4 garottes. The producers didn’t change much, other than shifting the film’s time period to the early 1950s and compressing and removing minor characters. Everything important is present and accounted for. Quality of movie on its own: 4 […]
Fidelity to text: 1 poison bottle. Where to start, where to start. There are so many choices. This novel (a personal favorite) never starred Miss Marple. Agatha had been writing Miss Marple novels and short stories for over a decade by the time she wrote Murder is Easy (1939) so if she’d wanted this to […]
The Career Indie Author Quote Book has been in the works since the 1980s, even though I didn’t realize it. I’m a pack rat when it comes to news, stories, quotes, and images. Before the home computer, I squirreled them away in file folders, and now I use the electronic version as well. My first […]
Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster by Helen Andrews Four Stars. Nonfiction, social history, pop culture, biographies This is a fascinating little book. It’s very readable, which is both nice and unusual in this sort of polemic. It’s short too, so you’ll race through it in no time. The author, […]
Fidelity to text: 4 and 1/2 poison bottles. ITV Productions is unreliable when it comes to fidelity to text but in this case, they were virtually letter-perfect. Miss Ramsbottom was eliminated, as were a few minor housemaids, secretaries, and such. Miss Marple gets one of Inspector Neele’s scenes. Quality of movie on its own: 4 […]
Fidelity to text: 1 and 1/2 poison bottles. If you’re familiar with the novel, you’ll be aghast at what ITV Productions did to the story line. About all that remains is Verity herself, her tragic life, and Jason Rafiel’s enjoyment of manipulating people. Oh, and the coach tour of the great houses of England. That’s […]
Fidelity to text: 3 guns. The usual changes of condensing or removing characters, some of whom were important (Dr. Stone and his hapless assistant). The plan to trap the murderer is radically different and, worst of all, one of the murderers commits suicide out of remorse. No, they did not. They killed him and they […]
Fidelity to text: three poison bottles. The scriptwriters changed things, starting with the title! The novel’s title is A Pocket Full of Rye. It’s a tiny difference but there and I have no idea why they did it. It’s like changing names of characters, in this case, Miss Ramsbottom becoming Miss Henderson. There’s no reason […]
Fidelity to text: 3 blunt instruments. This film is yet another non-Miss Marple property that ITV Productions reconfigured. Miss Marple replaces Inspector Battle. The other major change was removing Angus MacWhirter. Most of his role was rewritten to suit Miss Marple. What didn’t was handed over to Neville Strange (weird, wrong, and creepy) and Thomas […]
Fidelity to text: 3 blunt instruments. Miss Marple did not appear in the novel. There were changes to the murder victims, added characters, deleted characters, even to the setting of the house (relocated to an island in a lake). Despite the changes, this adaptation was faithful to the spirit of the novel. Innocent people suffered […]