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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 416125" data-attributes="member: 23"> Apparently I was... The Mirror Crack'd (1980) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpowermaxx2-i01.mycdn.no%2Fmysimgprod%2Fpowermaxx2_mystore_no%2Fimages%2FKgrOH_Soul_Media_Distribusjon_The_Mirror_Crack_d___1.jpg%2Fw855h1200.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=6fdce56e501f21894eeb2841bfd671d14d21da23cfbf09abcc334baf2f12a28e&ipo=images" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 635px" /> All things considered, the news is good. Expectations were well and truly in check and the film was consequently very enjoyable. The massive big-name cast helped this particular adaption, making it feel like a glamorous ensemble piece rather than a Miss Marple instalment (think of those glossy Seventies disaster films and you're practically there). And it needed that distraction. Angela Lansbury gives it her best but, despite one or two moments where I could suspend disbelief enough to believe her in the role, she's simply miscast. She doesn't look, sound or act quite right for this character. But such a fundamental error doesn't have to be damaging to one's enjoyment of the film. After all, Margaret Rutherford's comic roly-poly interpretation is about as far as one can get from Agatha Christie's creation, but there's no denying she's entertaining as a multiversal alternative. Lansbury's interpretation of the character seems to bridge the gap, falling somewhere between Rutherford's daft and quirky old bag and Joan Hickson's sharp, birdlike creature who misses nothing. Lansbury isn't as entertaining as Rutherford or as authentic as Hickson, but in a film in which the character is overshadowed by the larger-than-life theatricals who invade St. Mary Mead, she just about gets away with it. For me, the only truly unforgivable choice is a scene in which Jane Marple  - for no particular reason, apparently - smokes a cigarette. Adding insult to injury, she doesn't even inhale. Mostly she just holds the cigarette by her face and the once or twice she took a puff it was blown out before it even hit the roof of her mouth. Watching her here, Lansbury doesn't appear to be a smoker so this is rather a bizarre choice for a character who isn't said to smoke. The film looks very of its time, in a good way. Despite the period dressing, many of those Kent location shots made me feel nostalgic for the late Seventies/early Eighties. It's just the cinematography. It's (almost) as glossy as you'd expect a film with this cast to be. Yes, it does look at times like an image of how this Brit thinks many Americans think most Brits live (all that's missing is the fog), but that's the charm of Miss Marple's world anyway. There's something surprisingly complementary about the fusion between brash, glossy American stars and quirky eccentric British character actors. It feels as though it shouldn't work, but it does. If anything, the strangest-feeling scenes are those between two American actors, Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis, simply because of the height difference between them. With no attempt to disguise it here, Hudson towers over Curtis who must have had a crick in his neck from playing these scenes .I haven't seen Hudson in too many dramatic roles, but he's pretty decent here, particularly in his final scenes. Of the British actors, Richard Pearson (best known to me as Mole in The Wind In The Willows) would later appear in the BBC's adaption of The Moving Finger, while Margaret Courtenay would go one better by appearing in the final BBC Miss Marple adaption... The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side! The bitchy lines are great fun, particularly in exchanges between Liz Taylor and Kim Novak's characters. An early one yields the immortal: Incidentally, there's a slightly meta moment where Elizabeth Taylor's character looks in the mirror and says (to the best of my memory) "Lines, lines, go away. Pray, come back on Doris Day" (perhaps it was "bags" rather than lines. My memory is shocking).  Rock Hudson is on the bed and gives a knowing look which feels dangerously close to breaking the fourth wall. The black-and-white pre-credits sequence was very nicely done. I was watching with someone who had no idea what our film choice was, and he was convinced we were about to watch an old b/w film. If I hadn't known, I think I'd have been fooled up to the point Colonel Hall from Fawlty Towers' legendary Gourmet Night showed up. [MEDIA=youtube]jkywYFKSF0U[/MEDIA] During in a love scene where Taylor's character's character (she's playing an actress) is on a bed with a himbo, there were comments in the O'Drama household of "He looked just like Pierce Brosnan". And it turns out it was him. I'll give the film this: it's dangerously easy to devour. Probably repeatedly. Dare I say I think I had fun.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?