Teresa Reviews “The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side” (1992): Hickson’s Swan Song

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 bottles.
We’ve watched all three film versions of The Mirror Crack’d. If you aren’t going to watch ITV Productions’ version with Julia McKenzie (the best one overall), stick with Angela Lansbury’s 1980 opus. It’s also a three-poison bottle movie, but when Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak go at each other, it takes flight. This version not only never soars, it never leaves the ground. It’s competent. Competently made, acted, and shot and that’s all.
Joan Hickson was 86 when she filmed this movie. I wish I could say she left the stage in a blaze of glory, but she didn’t. This film was not a suitable swansong for her talented portrayals of Miss Marple. It never came to life; a sad verdict when a film is about a fading movie star pitted against her own past and the younger, hotter future star getting ready to displace her.

Miss Marple knows all about getting old, change, and the indignity of being treated like a child (like Miss Knight does to her) when her mind is as sharp as ever even as her body grows frail.

As I watched, I kept thinking about karma and old sins having long shadows. The Mirror Crack’d is loaded with examples. Heather Badcock dies because of the choice she made as a starstruck fan. She didn’t understand what risk she was taking; not to herself but to her idol. Did she even know that Marina Gregg was pregnant? Or that her quarantine was designed not to keep her safe but to ensure the safety of the community at large?

Probably not. Whatever else you can say about Heather Badcock, you can say that she would have been horrified if she’d learned the truth. This is a woman who lived to help other people, even when they didn’t want or need her help. She died, not knowing why, and I suppose you can say she might have deserved it.

Except that being thoughtless and self-centered isn’t a crime.

Ella Zeilinsky, secretary to Jason Rudd, died too. In her case she was blackmailing people, which is a crime. She was also besotted with her boss and the boss’ wife didn’t like it. Since no adultery was committed, only one-sided wishful thinking, was that a crime? No, it was not. We don’t police thought crimes.

Then we come to Marina Gregg. She’s endured plenty of tragedy although plenty of it was self-inflicted (the aggravation of five husbands!). She was a movie star; rational thought doesn’t play much part in the acting profession.

But the casting of Claire Bloom as Marina didn’t work. Ms. Bloom is an accomplished actress, but she didn’t make me believe that she was a movie star that eager fans like Heather Badcock idolized and movie magazines swooned over. Elizabeth Taylor did. So did Lindsay Duncan in ITV’s version of The Mirror Crack’d, although she didn’t have nearly as much star wattage as Elizabeth Taylor. Claire Bloom was competent, but she is not and never has been a movie star.

Did Marina Gregg deserve to meet Heather Badcock, eager fangirl, and get exposed to rubella, ensuring her fetus would be born with severe birth defects? Well, let’s see. Marina was desperate for children, desperate enough that when she could bear none of her own, she adopted three kids. She rescued them from penury, opened up her home, gave them the chance at a new life. And then, several years later when she became pregnant, she dumped those kids as fast as she could because they weren’t her own. How do you think those kids felt?

Agatha tells us via Margot Bence, photographer, who was one of those abandoned kids. Margot loathed Marina Gregg for what she did to her and her adopted brothers. All of them struggled emotionally. Margot had a lot to say in the novel, very little of which made it into the film. This was a real pity because it shows us much, much better what kind of person Marina Gregg was. Let’s quote Margot:

“Why shouldn’t I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they’re loved and wanted and then show them that it’s all a sham.”

The other two versions of The Mirror Crack’d didn’t spend much time with Margot Bence. In the 1980 version, Margot didn’t get a line of dialog. In the 2011 film, Margot got a few lines but nothing like her scene in the novel. I expected to see much more of Margot in this version because the opening showed Margot snooping around, shooting photographs, and praying in church before going to the village fête.

As she left, we see her taking off her wig that was part of her disguise! And that’s it; we never get an explanation for why she disguised herself.

In sum, the scriptwriter chickened out. Margot’s role in Marina Gregg’s life was again glossed over, despite the emotional damage it did to Margot and her brothers. Once again, Marina Gregg, movie star, is excused for truly awful behavior by everyone around her. She’s Marina Gregg and so does not need to be judged by normal standards of human decency. We don’t get the scene in the novel where Margot tells us that Marina Gregg didn’t recognize her, despite having raised her! Instead, Margot once again gets disappeared.

The karma wrapping around the film was fascinating. Marina Gregg harmed children through her own selfishness, and she didn’t care one damned bit. Heather Badcock harmed children through her own selfishness and if she’d known, she’d have been devastated. When Marina Gregg’s compromised baby was born, did she do what most mothers do and do her damnedest to take care of that child? No, she did not. She abandoned that baby (he wasn’t perfect thus fulfilling her need for perfection) to caregivers in an asylum. I’m sure they were competent caregivers but she wasn’t there. She didn’t even visit that child. It was too emotionally distressing for her, according to her enabling husband, Jason Rudd.

And there we are again, making excuses for Marina Gregg, movie star. What happens to everyone on that film set whose livelihood depends on Marina Gregg showing up to do her job? Nobody cares because they’re just spear carriers in Marina Gregg’s life.

This film could have been richer and deeper if the scriptwriters had mined the undercurrents that Agatha layered in. Instead, it was flat and lifeless. Chances that could have been taken, i.e., more time with Margot Bence, were ignored. Discussions of what kind of person Marina Gregg was, what pursuing fame and then catching it did to her. Not there. Disappeared from view like those children.

This version of The Mirror Crack’d was competent, but it could have been so much more. We’re still waiting on an adaptation that does full justice to Margot Bence and her brothers, abandoned by Marina Gregg when they became an unwanted stage prop.

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