Teresa Reviews Tape-Measure Murder (2005)

Teresa reviews Tape-Measure Murder (2005) and says the anime adaptation is coherent and complete for a 25 minute episode.

(Makijaku satsujin jiken)

(c)2025 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 5 garrotes

Maybelle and the duck exist to ask leading questions but otherwise, you’ll recognize every moment.

Quality of movie: 4 garrotes

Coherent and complete, considering how much story got crammed into 25 minutes.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movie on her podcast.

This flower-soaked episode was very appropriate for a former florist and the husband who adored her and wanted to learn how to grow flowers himself. The watercolor backgrounds are noticeably pretty. It also, as you’d expect from a kid’s version of Agatha, handles a murder by garrote very tastefully. You never see Mrs. Spenlow’s strangled body sprawled on the floor in her bathrobe, merely her arm draped artfully on the outside of her armchair. But that’s enough to send Miss Hartnell and Miss Politt, the downtrodden seamstress, into a tizzy.

The police are called. Constable Hearst picks up a pin for good luck near the dead woman’s body.

It’s evidence but he doesn’t recognize it as such. It’s a stray pin and thus meaningless. Nor does he, Inspector Slack, or Colonel Melchett recognize the importance of how Mrs. Spenlow was dressed when her body was discovered.

Miss Marple recognizes the truth. When you’re being fitted for a dress, what do you do? You strip to the foundation garments you’ll wear under your new dress so it can be properly fitted. Thus, until the dressmaker arrives for your fitting, you’re wearing a modest bathrobe.

Meanwhile, the police focus on Mrs. Spenlow’s husband, who was lured from their home by a spurious call from Miss Marple. He seems unaffected by his wife’s sudden, shocking murder but that’s because he chooses to remain unemotional rather than falling to pieces. He loves her, though, and plans to plant more flowers in her memory. He and Miss Marple discuss flowers under the laburnums and, possibly in a Japanese belief, they talk about how his flowers will send a message of love to Mrs. Spenlow.

Miss Marple conducts a test. Could the post office phone be used when the postmistress is outside selling snacks to the arriving busload of people? It could, and Miss Politt has her rooms over the post office. She proves to the police who really did it and how a crime from long ago inspired the murder.