| The Mirror Crack'd | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Guy Hamilton |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on | The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side byAgatha Christie |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Christopher G. Challis |
| Edited by | Richard Marden |
| Music by | John Cameron |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Columbia-EMI-Warner Distributors |
Release dates |
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Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5.5 million[1] |
| Box office | $5.5 million[2] |
The Mirror Crack'd is a 1980 Britishmystery film directed byGuy Hamilton from a screenplay byJonathan Hales andBarry Sandler, based onAgatha Christie'sMiss Marple novelThe Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962). It starsAngela Lansbury,Geraldine Chaplin,Tony Curtis,Edward Fox,Rock Hudson,Kim Novak, andElizabeth Taylor. Scenes were filmed atTwickenham Film Studios inTwickenham, Middlesex, and on location inKent.
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In 1953, in the English village ofSt Mary Mead, the home of Miss Jane Marple, a Hollywoodproduction company arrives to film acostume drama aboutMary, Queen of Scots andElizabeth I with two rival famous movie stars, Marina Rudd and Lola Brewster. Marina is making a much-heralded comeback after a prolonged illness and retirement (due to a mental health crisis after her son was born with severe brain damage). She and her husband, Jason Rudd, the film's director, arrive with their entourage. Learning that Lola will be in the film as well, Marina vents her anger. Lola then arrives with her husband, Marty Fenn, the film's producer.
Excitement runs high as the villagers attend thevillage fête in the gardens of the local manor house, Gossington Hall, and with the organisers invited to meet the celebrities at an indoorreception held by the film company. Lola and Marina come face to face at the reception and exchange insults as they pose for the cameras.
At the reception Marina is cornered by a devoted fan, Heather Babcock, who bores her with a detailed story about having met Marina before during the Second World War. After recounting that meeting, when she arose from her sickbed to go and meet the glamorous star, Heather drinks acocktail made for Marina, but quickly dies. An autopsy attributes the death to poisoning via abarbiturate overdose.
Everyone is certain Marina was the intended murder victim. She has received anonymous death threats made up from newspaper clippings and her cup of coffee on the film set, which she refuses to drink, is found to have been spiked witharsenic, sending her into fits of terror.
The detective fromScotland Yard investigating the case, Inspector Craddock, is baffled. He asks his aunt, who happens to be Jane Marple, for help. She injured her foot at the village fête and is confined to her home. The suspects are Ella Zielinsky, Jason's assistant who is secretly in love with him and would like Marina out of the way, and the hotheaded actress Lola.
The main suspect, Zielinsky, calls and threatens to expose the murderer from atelephone box in the village. She is then killed by a lethal nasal spray substituted for her hay-fever medication. An autopsy reveals that it containedprussic acid.
Miss Marple, now back on her feet, visits Gossington Hall, where Marina and Jason are staying, and views where Heather's death occurred. Working from information received from her cleaning woman, Cherry Baker, who was a waitress on the day of the murder, Marple begins to piece together the events and solves the mystery. By that time, however, another death has occurred at Gossington Hall, which explains who the killer was: Marina Rudd, who has apparently died by suicide.
Miss Marple explains that Heather Babcock's story was Marina's motive. Heather had innocently infected Marina withGerman measles, a rather harmless disease to most adults but dangerous for a pregnant woman's foetus, when she kissed the pregnant Marina when they first met. She had caused Marina's child to be born withmental retardation. Hearing Heather cheerfully tell this story, Marina was overcome with rage and poisoned her. She then spread the idea that she was the intended victim, concocting the death threats and poisoning her own coffee. Ella, who called various suspects from a phone box, accidentally guessed correctly, prompting Marina to murder her. Jason confesses to Miss Marple that he had poisoned his wife's hot chocolate to save her from being prosecuted, but the drink has not been touched. Marina is nonetheless found dead, seemingly having poisoned herself.
In addition,Anthony Steel,Dinah Sheridan,Nigel Stock,Hildegard Neil,John Bennett andAllan Cuthbertson are among the actors who appear inMurder at Midnight, a black-and-white "teaser" movie shown at the beginning of the film.Natalie Wood was originally chosen to play the role eventually played by Taylor.[3]
Margaret Courtenay later appeared in the BBC TV adaptationThe Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side starringJoan Hickson as Miss Marple.
The novel was published in 1962. In 1977,Warner Bros. announced thatHelen Hayes would play Miss Marple in adaptations ofA Caribbean Mystery andThe Mirror Crack'd.[4]
Film rights forMirror passed toJohn Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, who had previously produced adaptations ofMurder on the Orient Express (1974) andDeath on the Nile (1978). In 1979, they announced they would make the film starring Lansbury, who had played a support role inDeath on the Nile and was appearing on stage inSweeney Todd. Production would be put on hold until Lansbury finished her run in the musical.[5]Nat Cohen who had made the decision to financeOrient Express and bought the rights to other Poirot novels felt it was a mistake to make a Miss Marple film.[6]
In August 1979, Brabourne suffered leg injuries ina bomb blast that killed his mother, son, and father-in-law,Lord Mountbatten, but he proceeded with the picture.[7][8]
Hamilton was given the job as director. He told the producers he was not a fan of Christie's novels and they said that is what would make him ideal for the film. Hamilton described the script as "awfully funny".[8]
The casting director,Dyson Lovell, said that since the film was set in the 1950s "it seemed like a good idea to use stars from that era".[8] Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis and Taylor signed to play support roles. Taylor took over from Wood. Curtis made the film after being fired from the Broadway playI Ought to Be in Pictures.[9]
It was Taylor's first film in three years. She said, "I have said for two years now that I would not go back to films unless it was something that absolutely intrigued me, and something that would not take me away from my husband for too long. I have found just that inThe Mirror Crack'd and am longing to work with some very dear friends again."[10]
There had been a series of Miss Marple films in the 1960s starringMargaret Rutherford. Hamilton said that Rutherford "was a divine clown but she was no more Miss Marple than... fly to the moon. We are doing Miss Christie's Miss Marple, a more serious person, a gossip, a bit of a snob. And she doesn't fall off her bicycle into the village duckpond".[1]
Lansbury said she played the part of Marple "absolutely straight. I'm trying to get at the woman Agatha Christie created: an Edwardian maiden lady imbued with great humanity and a mind of tremendous breadth. She's very exactly described in the books as tall, pale-complexioned, with twinkling blue eyes and white hair - not a fat galumph of a creature at all. I base my performance on that. Also on the fact that she has tremendous alertness and curiosity allied to a great appetite for murder." She signed a three-picture deal, meaning the intention was to make two more Marples.[11]
St Clere Estate, inHeaverham, part of theSevenoaks town ofKent, was used as Gossington Hall, the grand home of Marina Rudd (Taylor) and her husband Jason (Hudson). Ye Olde George Inn and a bridge on Church Street inShoreham are both noticeable in the production, doubling as part of the village of St Mary Mead. The village ofSmarden and St Michael's Church are also used to double as the village. Also throughout filming the "Thatched House" cottage in Smarden was used as Miss Marple's cottage. Smarden is located in theAshford district of Kent, and the traditional thatched houses and village shops made it a perfect filming location.[12] The film was shot on a 10-week schedule from 12 May[13] to 18 July 1980.[14]
"It was fun", said Curtis. "A piece of cake. I didn't have to get all sweaty like inSpartacus and I had a good time." "I never had so much fun making a movie", said Novak. "It may not be my greatest role, but I didn't have a studio executive breathing down my neck, dictating my every move."[15]
Novak added that she and Taylor "...both had a lot of funny, bitchy lines to say to each other. In real life, that bitchiness rarely exists on a movie set, but actresses have certainly thought about it a lot. But they've never said it. That's why this movie was so much fun." However, her return to filmmaking was only temporary. "Doing something once in a while, likeThe Mirror Crack'd, is fine and it makes me feel likeCinderella at the ball. But as a steady diet — no way."[16]
The title — shortened from the one used for Christie's book — is part of a line fromThe Lady of Shalott by the English poetAlfred, Lord Tennyson:
Biographers theorise that Christie used an incident in the real-life of the American film starGene Tierney as the basis of the plot ofThe Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.[17] In June 1943, while pregnant with her first daughter, Tierney contractedGerman measles during her only appearance at theHollywood Canteen. Due to Tierney's illness, her daughter was born deaf, partially blind with cataracts and severely developmentally disabled. Some time after the tragedy surrounding the birth, the actress learned from a fan who approached her for an autograph at a tennis party that the woman (who was then a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps) had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with German measles to meet Tierney at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. In her autobiography, Tierney wrote that after the woman had recounted her story, "I stood there for a very long minute. There was no point in telling her of the tragedy that had occurred. I turned and walked away very quickly. After that, I didn't care if I was ever again anyone's favorite actress".[18]
The incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information was imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in Christie's story. Tierney's life experience had been well-publicized.
The film was considered a box office disappointment in the United States.[19]Filmink argued a possible reason was the film was "a Marple story where Marple didn’t do much investigating (she’s injured, so her nephew, played by Edward Fox, does the bulk of heavy lifting)."[20]
Lansbury never reprised her performance as Miss Marple, although she would play the similar role ofJessica Fletcher in TV'sMurder, She Wrote.
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