Teresa Reviews “The Murder at the Vicarage” (2004)

Fidelity to text:

3 guns. The overall storyline is there. However, the scriptwriters chose to insert an unnecessary, even egregious backstory for Miss Marple. Um, no. Just no. There were other issues as well, some relating to changing the date from 1930 (when the novel was published) to 1951.

Quality of movie on its own:

3 and 1/2 guns. The film was well done but the scriptwriters shoved in things that weren’t needed, ensuring that solving the murder got short shrift. I still can’t figure out how Miss Marple deduced the solution to the murder. There are also no subtitles, criminal in this day and age. Not all the characters had perfect diction, mumbling ensured some critical lines were lost, and other characters had challenging accents. Hey ITV producers: not every viewer has perfect hearing. That’s the point of subtitles.

The novel The Murder at the Vicarage was published in 1930. This ITV production is set in 1951 (the camera pans across a calendar to make the point crystal clear although whoever produced the calendar got the days of the week wrong. August 1, 1951, is Wednesday, not Tuesday.)

I understand why ITV’s producers changed the story’s year. The entire series is set in the 1950s. It’s easier to film a TV series if you can keep using the same costumes, cars, accessories, etc. rather than needing a warehouse stocked with 40 years of material (1930-1971). You also don’t have to worry about your star never aging despite the passage of decades.

But novels set in 1930 reflect different cultural issues than novels set in 1951. Never forget, Agatha wrote contemporaries. Not historicals. Thus, something that was a major scandal in 1930 (divorce!) would be less scandalous in 1951. In 1930, every man around had served in the Great War. In 1951, it was World War II. Some men (and women) served in both wars. WWII was a different war, a bigger war, a war in which British civilians suffered directly and hugely. In 1951, they were still suffering because wartime rationing never ended.

As a modern viewer, I’m looking at this plot (set in 1951) and asking myself, why didn’t she get a divorce? I could understand this better if the film adaptation took place in 1930. Divorce was far more scandalous. You really could be socially ruined. However, the scriptwriters didn’t give us a good reason for murder.

There was a perfectly good reason that would explain the murderer’s rationale but I suppose there wasn’t enough time. That time, which could have been better spent on storytelling, was wasted on an egregious subplot about Miss Marple’s past (completely made-up from whole cloth, let me tell you).

No. Just no.

Miss Marple did not, as a hot young woman, have a torrid affair with a married man. The screenwriter’s own storytelling flagged here because why was young Jane seeing her married lover off to war while his wife was nowhere to be seen? Young Jane is kissing him in public in the train station in front of a crowd! If my husband was going off to risk get killed in battle, you can bet I would be at the train station noticing if some hussy was kissing my husband goodbye. I was in the Navy for about ten years and let me tell you, families don’t ignore their spouse’s deployments. If they can possibly be there to wave goodbye one last time, they are.

Proof again that far too many Hollywood-types have zero real-world experience with the military and all its permutations.

Another time-wasting change from out of the blue was swapping a silver-stealing burglar and his hapless assistant for a French professor and his granddaughter who claimed to be researching Colonel Protheroe’s historic mansion. Why did the script do this? The logical conclusion is it further demonstrated how evil Col. Protheroe was; apparently Agatha’s own words were inadequate. No, you have to drag in French resistance fighters, betrayal to the Nazis, and embezzling to justify his murder.

Another time-wasting change? Anne Protheroe is suddenly best buddies with Miss Marple. She was not. This change was apparently to make us feel sympathetic for Anne, because she and Miss Marple had something in common: adultery. Um, no. This change culminated in Miss Marple praying in church while the murderers are hanged, again to show (I guess) what a difficult choice Miss Marple had to make. She could further the case for true love or she could choose justice.

Except that Miss Marple, like Hercule Poirot, seriously disapproves of murder, no matter how much the deceased deserved it.

But I’m wasting time, aren’t I. What was the reason the screenwriters could have given us to explain why the murder took place?

Money, naturally. If divorce throws you into poverty, then a lead divorce, via the barrel of a gun, makes sense. We do not get this explanation. We don’t get any kind of explanation why our murderers choose murder and not, say, running off together to Argentina where no one would know they were living in sin. When I read mysteries, I expect a good reason for murder. It isn’t something that comes naturally to most of us.

And, in fact, Agatha provides this very justification for murder in the novel! The murderer didn’t want to live in poverty with his paramour. A lead divorce ensured inheriting a huge estate. A legal divorce led to poverty. This motivation was right there in the text, yet the scriptwriter ignored it in favor of making up an adulterous affair for Miss Marple.

Maybe they thought this would make Miss Marple more interesting, relevant, and human. After all, we should all fall prey to our animal instincts at every opportunity. Why deny yourself an adulterous affair if that’s what you want? Who cares what his wife thinks? She doesn’t matter. She’s just the boring wife who’s never even seen on stage. Honoring vows is for boring, bourgeois commoners following outmoded modes of behavior; not for special people like us.

There are things to like in this adaptation.

The scenery and sets are gorgeous as always. The clothes are to die for. The ladies (for the most part) wear the most wonderful, stylish clothes including gloves and hats. The gentlemen look great, too. We really lost a lot when our culture decided it was socially acceptable to walk around in pajama equivalents in public.

One thing I didn’t like about the scenery is a personal quirk: every single expanse of grass looked freshly mowed, and with a gasoline-powered rotary mower too. A manual reel mower clips the grass and scatters the clippings where they lay in clumps. They (dear son mows our lawn with one) do not provide sleek, carpet-like grass unless you like shag carpets. This touch is not period-correct as everyone in 1951 used a manual reel mower, assuming they weren’t using sheep or scythes. Nobody had an emerald-green lawn that looked like a velvet carpet, with not a clover blossom to be seen.

Gasoline powered rotary mowers had yet to come into widespread use. That wouldn’t happen until the 1960’s. Also, remember that wartime rationing, still ongoing in 1951? No one’s going to waste gasoline on an expensive gasoline-powered rotary mower when a reel mower cost nothing but muscle and there was already one in the shed. Gasoline went into cars.

In addition, every single garden we saw had been meticulously weeded prior to the camera coming near it. Real gardens have weeds. I promise you, you can mow, edge, weed, rake, and trim in preparation for the Queen’s visit and while you are waiting for her motorcade to arrive, weeds will appear out of thin air. Leaves will skitter down on your newly mowed grass. Someone will throw a soda can in the middle of your herbaceous border. Guaranteed. Yet that didn’t happen in St. Mary Mead.

Another amusement when you’re trying to work out how Miss Marple actually solved the mystery is playing spot the character actor. ITV Production must have, at one time or another, used every actor and actress in England. Make sure you spot Mark Gatiss (Mycroft Holmes) as the thieving curate and Miriam Margolyes (Miss Phryne Fisher’s Aunt Prudence) as a neighborhood busybody.

Should you watch this? Yes, at least once, as part of watching every film adaptation of Agatha Christie.

After the first viewing, you may want to watch a second time to dissect the flaws in the script. As I said, we could not figure out what gave Miss Marple the clue that allowed her to solve the mystery. Subtitles might have helped, but they might not have. The solution may not have been in the script so it couldn’t be filmed. Otherwise, save your time for a film adaptation you haven’t seen yet.

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