Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple

A small warning beforehand - I have a complicated relationship with Agatha Christie which I talked about before.
I'm not a fan of her style and despite having read quite a few of her books over my lifetime, I have given up for good now.
I also said, however, that I like (most of) her plots and therefore prefer adaptations of her books. Not all of them and not all of them for the same reasons, though - and that brings me to the four Miss Marple movies with the wonderful Dame Margaret Rutherford.

They were my introduction to Agatha Christie as a child and it's always hard to beat cozy memories like a robust old lady fighting crime and still making you laugh.
In fact, the movies are still on TV on holidays here, sometimes two at a time, but last Easter it was all four of them ... and although I have the DVD box set, I will watch them if I catch them on TV. Always.
I love Rutherford's Miss Marple.
Christie purists will no doubt be shocked - it seems to be an endless discussion which Miss Marple is the best - and of course they are right if they say that Rutherford is not at all like the Jane from the books and that the movies don't follow the books! Even Christie disapproved! Shame!
I get it. Rutherford herself hesitated to take the role because of the topic. I can be a downright annoying purist myself about books and adaptations, but in this case I couldn't care less (and let's not forget Christie's dedication in "The Mirror Crack'd" - "To Margaret Rutherford, in admiration" - after the two women met).
Just hearing the theme makes me happy.



As mentioned, there are four movies.

"Murder She Said" from 1961 is based on the book "4.50 from Paddington".
In the book, Miss Marple's friend Mrs McGillicuddy witnesses a murder on a passing train. The police can't find a body, so she turns to Miss Marple for help who sends Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a freelance housekeeper to Rutherford Hall where they suspect the body to be.
Miss Marple is described as "an elderly, frail old lady" (elderly and old?).
The movie ignores Mrs McGillicuddy and Lucy. Miss Marple witnesses the murder, searches the tracks together with the village librarian Mr Stringer (played by Rutherford's husband Stringer Davis) and takes a post as housekeeper at Ackenthorpe Hall to handle the matter in person.

"Murder at the Gallop" from 1963 is based on "After the Funeral".
This happens in the book - after the funeral of Richard Abernethie, his sister Cora comments about him having been murdered. The next day, Cora is found dead and the family lawyer asks Hercule Poirot to investigate.
That's right, it's a Poirot novel.
In the movie, it's Miss Marple and Mr Stringer who witness the death of the old Mr Enderby and it's Miss Marple who finds Cora's body and then investigates at the "Gallop Hotel" where all the heirs are gathered.

Yes, I did complain about Angela Lansbury's Miss Marple smoking,
but give me Rutherford's dancing Miss Marple anytime! 😍

"Murder Most Foul" from 1964 is based on the book "Mrs McGinty's Dead".
After the conviction of James Bentley for killing his landlady Mrs McGinty, Superintendent Spence has  doubts about his guilt and asks Poirot to look into it in the village where it happened. Mystery writer Ariadne Oliver is there as well.
Oh, another Poirot novel.
Don't worry, in the movie Miss Marple can solve the case just as well as he could. Here she's the one jury member who has doubts and therefore prevents a verdict. After finding information at Mrs McGinty's house that links to a theater ensemble, she decides to infiltrate it ...

Miss Marple auditioning with "The Shooting of Dan McGrew",
a poem Rutherford also liked to recite in real life.
I love her capes - they were hers, no costumes - 
and would love to have one. I'm not the only one!

"Murder Ahoy" from 1964 isn't based on any Christie book but is an original story.
Miss Marple is on a board of trustees for the training ship "Battledore". One of the trustees has dropped dead in the middle of a meeting, and after discovering he has been poisoned, Miss Marple doesn't hesitate to check out the ship herself, in full naval outfit of course!

Mr Stringer had a little shock, but of course Miss Marple is prepared

A typical Christie Miss Marple? For me, that's undoubtedly Joan Hickson (who makes an appearance as the day help at Ackenthorpe Hall, by the way).
The most fun Miss Marple? That's Margaret Rutherford by far.
If you expect a Christie mystery and nothing else, the movies are not for you. Ignore the name Marple and you are in for a treat.

Although Rutherford was 72 when the last film came out, - one reason there are not more of them - she's not "an elderly, frail old lady". She has huge presence and she fills the screen.
She's a stubborn and eccentric Miss Marple, not afraid to speak her mind and not easily intimidated by police, suspects or murderers.
(Chief) Inspector Craddock - also an invention of the movies - doubting her over and over again only makes her more determined to solve the puzzles that he doesn't even recognize. After all she has read hundreds of mystery novels and is more than prepared. Her success confirms that. Why the police hasn't snapped her up as a counselor, I don't understand.

Mr Stringer who, despite not having as much courage as his fearless leader, never deserts her. Just as Rutherford didn't desert her husband insisting on having him play along her. No Mr Stringer in the books, the role was created specifically for Stringer Davis.

Throughout the movies we also get glimpses into Miss Marple's past life. She can do so much more than knit (which you only see her do once in all of the movies although the inspector almost sits on her knitting project once).
Playing golf in the grounds of Ackenthorpe Hall: "I'll have you know that I won the Ladies' Open Handicap in 1921."
Showing off her mother's vintage saddle at the Gallop Hotel: "Well, I've done some riding in my time. Junior Silver Spurs Brockbrook 1910."
Analyzing the remnants of the dead trustee's snuff with the "Slogums Advanced Chemistry Set for Girls": "Strychnine."
In a fencing fight with the killer on the "Battledore": "I was Ladies' National Fencing Champion in 1931."

Is it a wonder that men are falling for her left and right?
I'm not joking, no spoilers this time, though.

Most people seem to agree that "Murder She Said" is the best of the movies and after that "Murder at the Gallop". Opinions vary about the other two.
I too agree on the first two, but unlike others I prefer "Murder Ahoy" to "Murder Most Foul" which isn't bad, but not as charming in my opinion.

Margaret Rutherford, however, is wonderful in all of them.
As she says in "Murder Ahoy": "I am always myself. Hmpf." Who wouldn't believe that?
Why don't you grab a hot beverage, a blanket, snuggle up on your couch and have a look for yourself?


Sources/further reading:

1. Diana and Connie Metzinger: The Miss Marple Mysteries with Margaret Rutherford. On: Silver Scenes, March 17, 2014
2. Ginny Kaczmarek: A Margaret Rutherford moment. On: Ginny Kaczmarek, December 7, 2021
3. Jack Buckley: Remembering Margaret Rutherford: murder on and off screen. On: Seen and Heard International, April 18, 2020

Random Saturday - Where did they go?

A few months ago, I said goodbye to Sharon McCone when I got the last book in the series. Yeah, that was a little premature because I had actually missed the book before that, but it was nice to end on that one now because I liked it better than the last one.
I also mentioned being sad when I read the last Discworld and Kinsey Millhone books after Terry Pratchett and Sue Grafton had died.

The other day it was time again to go through my books for a little purge. That's when I came upon the three books by Sandra West Prowell.

I got my first book by Sandra West Prowell at a fleamarket - not the first book in the series - and I was captured right away by her protagonist, the FBI agent turned private detective Phoebe Siegel living in Montana.
Phoebe comes from a Jewish-Catholic family, her father and one of her brothers were policemen.
Inheriting a lot of money from her aunt gives Phoebe the chance to buy an old house and to offer her services as a private detective at very reasonable fees. Feeling a connection to the victims is her main incentive.

The books are not Whodunits, they don't just tell the story of her cases, but also of problems within the family and of her relationships, but not in a way I find annoying. Of course that could have to do with there only being three books.
Character development is good, but it can also bring you down if for example the protagonist doesn't seem to have one happy moment in their life over I don't know how many books which has been a reason for me to abandon more than one series. Life can be depressing enough.

However, this is not supposed to be a review of Prowell's books, after all it's random Saturday.
I want to talk about why there are only three books. The last book had one of those short author introductions saying "... and is currently working on the fourth volume about detective Phoebe Siegel."
I was looking forward to that, to a new case and to see how her relationship with the Native American deputy would be coming along.
So every, now and then I looked her up, but the fourth novel never came, not even in English. Then I would forget about it again. I did that on and off for almost ten years wondering where Prowell had disappeared to, not obsessively, but usually when I put a book in my cabinet in a spot close to her books.
Weirdly enough, I can't remember having done the same with other authors. I guess it was that introduction. If she had been working on a new book, what had happened?

I'm also one of those people who watch some old movie or show and wonder where this actress or that actor has ended up and then look them up. I want to make clear, however, that I don't fall for those terrible clickbait YouTube videos showing fake pictures of someone's "gruesome fate"; and thinking about it, I usually limit my search to actors, actresses or authors (and sometimes cats and dogs I have become attached to on the web which may lead to tears, but that's a different story).

One day, much to my surprise, I found something, a post from November 2016 on Lise McClendon's website. McClendon also writes mystery and was a friend of Prowell until they lost touch.
She wrote the post on the day she found out about her friend's death over one year before.
Obviously, Prowell had unknown issues that not only made her stop writing (although the fourth Phoebe Siegel was supposed to be published in 2000 or 2001, and there was another standalone manuscript) and break off contact to writer friends, but that even made her stop talking about writing with her family.
I felt strangely sad about it. I don't know what I had expected to find, but that wasn't it.

Of course the same happens with people in our own lives. It's like a train. People go with you from the start to the end of the line, some go with you from just one to the next station, some get off suddenly, maybe even without saying goodbye, and sometimes you throw some off the train ... hm, maybe the analogy isn't that good, but you get the idea.
We can't expect to spend all our lives with always the same people around even if it may come as a shock if someone hops off without a warning after a long time.
With some people it's easier to accept, with others it isn't. Sometimes it hurts to feel you have been cut out of someone's life without knowing what you did or if it has to do with you at all. Sometimes you just drift apart and that's okay.
And sometimes you reach out and re-connect which may work out or not.

That reminds me that there's a friend I should call. It has been a while since we last talked.
Oh, and if you wonder, by the way, the Prowell books didn't get purged.

Source:
Lise McClendon: Remembering Sandra West Prowell. On:Lise McClendon, November 18, 2016

The "Queens of Crime" - Agatha Christie, the life

In this post about Agatha Christie's work and my personal dilemma with it, I mentioned her interesting life.
What do I mean by that?

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay on September 15, 1890 as the youngest of three siblings in a wealthy upper middle class family.
Although it wasn't encouraged by her mother, she learned reading at the age of four, and she was home-schooled in reading, writing, basic arithmetics, and music.
At the age of 11 she lost her father, a year later she started attending a local school, and when she was 15, her mother sent her to Paris where she completed her education.
When she came home again, she and her sick mother decided to spend three months in Egypt.

In 1912, Agatha was introduced to Archibald Christie whom she married in 1914. While Archie was in France during the war, Agatha first volunteered in a hospital and then qualified as an apothecary assistant working at the dispensary which inspired her to use poisoning as the method in her first detective story featuring Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective who had come to England as a refugee.

In 1922, the Christies joined Major Belcher's promotional tour for the British Empire Exhibition. During this tour they learned for example how to surf and were among the first Britons to surf standing up. I don't know about you, but the picture of an old/er Agatha is so ingrained in my mind that I have a hard time imagining her on a surfboard, but she enjoyed surfing thoroughly.

In 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce after falling in love with a friend of Major Belcher's, Nancy Neele. After a row, Agatha disappeared which of course led to a huge news story, but also to an extensive search with hundreds of police officers, thousands of volunteers, and even aeroplanes.
11 days later, she was found at a hotel where she had registered under a false name. She never gave an explanation and opinions about whether she disappeared in a fugue state or consciously are divided. Public reaction was mainly negative, also due to the costs of the extensive search.
The divorce went through in 1928, Agatha retained custody of their only child, Rosalind.

In autumn of 1928, Agatha travelled to Istanbul with the Orient Express and on to Baghdad where archeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife Katharine, who was a fan of her novels, invited her to the site of Ur. She became friends with them and they invited her to return in 1930.
During that second trip, she met Woolley's assistant who was ordered by Katharine to take Christie on a conducted tour of the country - Max Mallowan who was 13 years younger than her. The way she took everything during that tour in good humor, even getting stuck in the sand of a dry river valley, convinced him that she would make a wonderful life companion, and so he proposed to her just six months later.
This was the beginning of a second life on a different continent for Agatha beside that of a successful writer.
Katharine Woolley, however, didn't want another wife at the site which is probably the reason why the couple went to Nineveh next. In "Murder in Mesopotamia", which Christie - she used the name Mallowan outside her writing career - dedicated to the Woolleys, the victim was inspired by Katharine. According to Mallowan's biographer Henrietta McCall, Katharine was aware that the as difficult portrayed character was based on her and enjoyed the notoriety.

In 1932/33, Max and Agatha worked on their first own dig in Tall Arpachiyah near Nineveh. Both Agatha's celebrity status as a writer and her money helped Max' archeological career as this was the time when digs still had to be sponsored with private money, at least partially.
During the season - fall and spring - they were at the sites, in summer they were in England with Rosalind, and the rest of the time they spent either traveling or staying at home.
Max led the excavations, Agatha, who had taken a drawing course, started by doing drawings, but that wasn't really her thing. So instead she wrote in the morning, in the afternoon she recorded finds and put together broken ceramics.
In 1934, they travelled to Egypt and took a Nile River cruise which inspired one of her most famous novels, Death on the Nile.

Eventually they moved on to digs in Syria.
Agatha found her role by becoming the official photographer which was a hard, exhausting, and demanding task, both the photographing itself, but also the developing of the negatives. She didn't just take pictures, however, but also filmed, black/white and in color. In 1937, she even took a photography course in London which led to more creative experiments, not to her husband's joy as he would have preferred purely scientific photos to creative ones.

Part of their team in Syria for several years was the young architect Robin Macartney who not only assisted by drawing finds, maps, and plans, but also designed an expedition house.
Fascinated by Macartney's drawings, Christie asked him to design a book cover for her. In the end, he designed four dust-wrappers between 1936 and 1938. What she liked best about them was that each cover told something about the story by using elements from it, such as the Ramesses II statues and the Nile cruise steamer for "Death on the Nile", and I totally understand that because it seems to be a concept that publishers struggle with from covers I have seen myself.

First edition of "Death on the Nile"
with the dust jacket by Robin Macartney
via Wikimedia Commons
under CC BY-SA 4.0

Excavations came to a halt when WW II broke out, but after the war they came to Nimrud, a site Mallowan had long had his eye on. He became the first director of the British School of Archaeology and thus secured the necessary support for the excavation.
The couple was there throughout the 50s, they lived in the School's building, and while Agatha had a small writing room added to the team house, she also assisted again by collecting, recording, and cleaning artifacts, taking photographs, and restoring ceramics.

Nimrud Ivory "Lion of Nimrud"
By Unknown - M0tty, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

During the war Christie had written the book "Come, Tell Me How You Live" about their time in Syria.
Nimrud was the last site she went to.

Bull plaque, one of the Nimrud finds,
via Wikimedia Commons,
by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)
under CC BY SA 4.0

Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976 at Winterbrook House.

Did you already know about Agatha Christie's "second life"? Have you maybe even read her book about it? If so, what did you think?

Sources:
- Agatha Christie's adventurous 'second act' plays out in Mesopotamia in: National Geographic March 21,2019
- Bridget Roddy: Agatha Christie and Archaeology, An Understated Connection on: Trowels and Tribulations: IUP's Archaeology Blog, March 11,2022
- German documentary "Agatha Christie und der Orient" 2021
 - BBC Archive 1977 - The World This Weekend, Sir Max Mallowan
- Agatha Christie on Wikipedia

The "Queens of Crime" - Agatha Christie, the works

Joop van Bilsen for Anefo
CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

If you read my introduction about the "Queens of Crime", you will not be surprised that I'm starting this with Agatha Christie after being so sure you would know my first author.
Actually the title "Queen of Crime" has been trademarked by her estate in 2013.
Christie wrote 66 detective novels, 14 short-story collections, plays, poetry, and two autobiographies. Under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott she even wrote a few romantic novels. Only Shakespeare's works and the Bible have been sold more than her books.

First of all let me say that I haven't read all of Christie's books myself, simply because her writing style isn't always my cup of tea. To be more precise, some of her books were downright boring to me and I gave up eventually. There, I said it.
Don't hold my own style against me, I'm not a professional.
Now you could argue that it's not unusual for authors who have written a lot to have a few duds, and your dud may not feel like one to another reader.
However, it made me wonder if something was wrong with me for not getting how great a writer she was, no matter how I tried.

My first Christie book as a kid was probably "The Murder on the Links" because I remember we had that one at home. No idea if it was the only one, but I borrowed a few more from the library, never as my first choice, though.
Of course we had already watched the movies with Margaret Rutherford then, and although I'm ususally no fan of adaptations straying too far from the books and Rutherford was not at all like the books' Miss Marple, I love them all.

When I started my library training, the first book I checked out from my library was one of Christie's autobiographies. I read a lot of biographies back then, but couldn't get into hers, absolutely not because her life was boring, but because of the writing style. That's the first time I really noticed it.

Next came the TV shows "Partners in Crime" about the Beresfords and "Miss Marple" with Joan Hickson which aired in 1986 in Germany. We only had three TV channels at the time and were of course excited for a new episode every week. Back then I still added the date of purchase in my books and 1986 was actually the year when I bought the Christie books that I still own now, so there was definitely a connection.
That's also the reason for my mentioning the shows. Christie's books have not just been adapted for TV or movies, but also radio, video games, graphic novels, and more.
Unfortunately, I found those two adaptations not as exciting anymore years later. Mind you, to me Joan Hickson really is Miss Marple, in looks and acting, but the episodes could have been tighter if you know what I mean. Although British crime shows are my favorites and I don't mind a slow pace, there are some that are just too slow for me.
Isn't the opening perfect, though? I also love the music.



Then there was Hercule Poirot - Albert Finney (superb) and Peter Ustinov (always wonderful, but not my idea of Poirot) - and eventually David Suchet.
When we discovered Suchet, the ex also started buying Christie books, mostly the Poirot novels of course, both as audiobooks and in print. He devoured them, I tried and gave up once more.
Suchet makes Poirot lovable despite his quirks and high opinion of himself while I didn't like the book Poirot much - which is fine, Christie herself didn't.
My hope was the short stories would do the trick, but even they took me countless bubble baths.
I had to face not being a real fan. The Miss Marple TV adaptations with Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie didn't help, either. Heck, although I love Suchet's Poirot, Hastings, and the others, even some of those episodes are too slow for me, but I still watch them for him and of course the amazing production design.

Now you may wonder why I didn't just stay away from Christie completely.
The point is that I like the idea of it all, the puzzle, the settings, the plots. A part of me seems to hold on to the hope that I too will finally see the light, you could say 🤪
Not sure what that says about me. Maybe it just needs the right book ...

Over the years, I more than once felt I needed to defend myself for that unpopular opinion, so for this post I looked for the first time if there are others who feel the same way as me. Of course there are, and there are long discussions and a lot of opinions, new and old - which book they should read to change their mind, that they are simply stupid (welcome to the Internet), detailed explanations why Christie is so brilliant, or that crime fiction per se is stupid ("With so many fine books to be read, so much to be studied and know, there is no need to bore ourselves with this rubbish." (Edmund Wilson))

Then I read this in a blogger's book review:
"I'm very particular about the mysteries I read, I don't want them to try to be a literary novel with a side of murder mystery, but simply a puzzle."
I like to say I'm not a fan of terribly long descriptions, but thinking about it, it rather seems to depend on the descriptions, so it's hard to pinpoint what "terribly long" really is for me. Maybe my expectations were too high? Hm.
So I grabbed "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" from my book cabinet - simply for the puzzle, but although I made it through, it didn't blow me away. Maybe I just remembered the plot too well? I'll probably have to try a book I don't know at all yet.

Of course, all of this is only my personal opinion. If you love Agatha Christie, that's perfectly fine with me, after all I'm not Edmund Wilson 😉

Anyhow, what I definitely find interesting is Agatha Christie's life beyond that of a writer, but that will be the topic for another post.

Sources:
- Edmund Wilson on Crime Fiction, two essays from 1944 and 1945 (on The Crazy Oik)
- Review: The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, posted on "If You Can Read This", July 23, 2010

The "Queens of Crime" and more - Introduction

Do you know the four "Queens of Crime"? They were the most dominant female crime writers in the 20s and 30s, maybe you have heard of all of them, maybe not, but I'm quite sure you know the one I'll be starting with.

Their names are Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham.
On a book shop site I read that some would also include Gladys Mitchell and Josephine Tey in the club. Like in the case of Margery Allingham, I have heard the name of their best known characters, but haven't read any of their books. Yet. I had just had an Allingham book arrive a few days ago and hopefully I will find one or some of both Mitchell and Tey as well. And while I'm at it, I may dive into my library and add someone you may not know that well as a crime author, but for a different genre instead - Georgette Heyer.

Of course, I won't be able to do a review of the complete works, I won't even be able to read their complete works (except Sayers and Heyer, I think I own all of their crime books), maybe because I don't want to or because it's too much or because I wouldn't be able to get my hands on them at all.

One hope I have is to get over my reading slump again now that I'm not able to craft every day anymore, even if some of it will be re-reads, and I like the idea of keeping the posts limited to older crime novels for now. Maybe I will even discover someone completely new to me?
Maybe I will want to review individual books by those authors eventually and maybe I will just end up with short explanations why I like one author more than another, maybe I will even change my own mind about an author during the re-reads or maybe it will turn into something completely different?
I will see. You will see.

P.S. I took this picture in my library. This leather pouf has always been there, and as you can see, it has been abused by generations of cats. No matter how it looks, I wouldn't dare to throw it away, it holds so many memories.