So - Apparently, the writers for he BBC couldn't find enough Christie works to fill heir series, so they took a story which had absolutely NOTHING to do with Miss Jane Marple ... and just tossed her in there.
Cheky Bastards!
As usual ... there's the normal SPOILER ALERT
And the reminder that the YouTubes at the end are NOT mine in any way, shape, or form ... I simply include them for your convienience.
Although - I will say have only found 2 audiobooks at the moment - however one is a very computerized voice (you can tell by how it reacts to commas in the text) and the other has a major skip within the story line (suddenly there's a policeman there, where there wasn't one vefore)
So ... patience.
THE SITTAFORD MYSTERY
Like I said, has absolutely NOTHING to do with Miss Marple -- in fac, she isn't even a blip on the radar.
And they took a lot of Liberty with the story itself ...
The BBC episOGICAL DIG in Egypt 19326 (more on this later), and then it goes from some discovery which was made to a clandestine meeting in 1951 (25 years later) between "Clive" and "Sir Winston Churchill" ... "Clive" is the important one here, btw ...
It then jumps to a scene where Clive (played by Timothy Dalton) is talking to his ward about his (the ward's) upcoming marriage ... interesingly enough - I didn't hear anything in the audiobook I listened to about there being a ward (but then, this is also the AB which had chunks of the book missing ... I have got to find another AB!)
Then it puts Clive on a train, where a elderly woman opens the door to his private carriage looking for her nephew -- Jane Marple instantly recognizes Clive, but not from all the news stories about him or about anything he has done, but simply as her nephew's neighbor ... wow ...
That's is waaaaaaaay off base/off script from the book ...
Then it jumps to his ward getting so drunk he falls on his face ...
Back to Clive driving home from the trainstation with Miss Marple in his car ... remember - she isn't even supposed to be in this story She gets dropped off at her nephews house and he continues on his way ...
He is greeted by his Butler .... this is sooooo far off course ...
You see - in the novel, it tells how Sittaford was purposefully chosen as the home by Clive because of its REMOTENESS ... there were only 7 houses and 3 sho[s in the entire town ... and 2 of those shared a store, and one of those was a post office!
The book does go on to say that Clive rented out his Sittaford home for the winter to a widow and her daughter for the winter, and he rented a place in another small town near by - but I would imagine all the small towns in the area would have been basically the same.
It also shows that Burnaby, Clive's best friend for lack of a better term, is there waiting for him ....
The episode is so different from the book so far, that it's nearly an entirely different story ... hardly fair to compare these two at all!
Not the least of which is CLive staying in Sittaford's local hotel, only thing is ... it doesn't have one!
Oh what a great mess they made of this story.
Its as if, the writer was given a list of ch
aracters, and a basic outline of what was to happen ... and let it go from there!
Its almost as if the writer, who likely came from London, just couldn't imagine what an old small town was like! And remember, this was filmed in 2008, broadcast in 2009, so it would have been some 60 years from World War 2.
Now ... in 1952, King George VII died and Queen Elizabeth abended to the throne ... This occured in February, and the "cold war" was in full effect ... and while Britian was "growing up" so to speak, it still had several small villages - in fact, it still does.
Still - it is hard to believe that they would have been "forgotten" ... someone needed to do a little more research I think.
audiobook: This is the computerized, unemotinal/monotone, version .... but it appears to be complete ... and there's a transcript at the botom of the "description" area.
Right off the bat .... there is no way I can do this without giving away a LOT of information ... because while the BBC episode and the book are close - they are different just enough to make a bit of a difference.
So .... yes ... straight off the start.
THE MOVING FINGER Quite the name for a book - in the BBC show it opens with the main character (NOT Miss Marple) gets into a motorcycle accident .... and while he's laying on the ground, we see his finger twitch ever so slightly - if you blink, you'll miss it~
They next thing that pops up is this same guy sitting in a passanger seat, and the car is beinng driven by his sister ... and it was her idea to go off on a vacation to some small town/village where they don't know anyone ... so he can finish his recovery.
She is totally an Uptown girl, like Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast At Tiffany's" ... and he's just, well, kind of like Arthur Fonzerelli - a nice kid, from the back alley ... and yes, he supposed to have a fondness for the booze and the ladies (but during the show, he isn't commited to perfecting either habit) ....
His sister in the show has RED hair ... and seems very much like a gal born before her time ... she seems more of modern day lady. an Uptown girl ... and you don't get anyn sort of a feeling that she changes at all.
Then there's Megan ... not sure if that's how its spelled in the book, but its how I'm spelling it ... is pivotal in the story. I nad never heard them mention her age before, but this time I did hear a single, in passing mention of her being 20 years old ... but she looks like about 14 or 15 years old ... pigtails, bike riding, immature.
And right away - the show jumps into things ... oh the book did this so much better, but the show only has 1 hour to develope and solve the crimes ... so ... they jump into the Poison Pen Letters right away.
Death Toll in the show? 3 ... Miss Marple shows up in the show to attend a funeral of a friend of a friend (a service buddy of her ex-lover) ...
The Book ... Yes, I am leaving the show right there .... I think the book did so much better. But the stories are so close to each other ... that I truly suggest you watch the show BEFORE you read the book, or listen to the book.
Miss Jane Marple doesn't show up until the story is over half done ... in the audiobook, she doesn't even get mentioned until 4 hours in on a 6 hour audiobook!
The book is written MOSTLY in FIRST PERSON!!! From the point of view of the MAN who is recovering.
Here's the first difference: in the show he was recovering from a motorcycle accident ... in the novel, the accident was with an AIRPLANE ... giving you the impression that it was an accident he got during the war. This would make sense as to why Megan wouldn't be too young for him -- in World War 2, most pilots in England were between 19-24 (if they lasted that long) ... I think it's important to understand this - because one might think he's simply an older man, say 30 yrs old, who survived the war -- but pilots had much shorter carriers. This one would have been a "lucky" one - most of those involved in crashes, died.
It also explains why his sister would have been so determined to stick around ... Oh ... in the novel - she is BLONDE, and flighty ... but later changes from simply being "Uptown" to being wowwed by the local doctor ... in fact, she has to act a nurse at one point - and it changes her entire life!
Megan is quite the character ... she starts out as a little thing, a bit mousy ... and blossoms into quite the gal ... very much like "Sabrina" (the Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart version is my favorite ... but Harrison Ford's remake was good as well). She suffers from a great lack of love from her mother and her step-father ... so she doesn't quite know what to do when feelings begin to bloom around the main character ...
Oh ... and there is a wedding in the novel, which they do not cover at all in the episode ....
Novel Death Toll: 2 ... Miss Marple shows up when a friend of her's in the village invites her to look into the case.
While Miss Marple puts together the last of the puzzle - the Main character (Mr. Burton) is the one who did ALL the work ...
Here is the embed of the audiobook: Again ... these are NOT MINE ... I simply put them in to make it easier for you.
They have still showing the Geraldine McEwan versions of Miss Marple on my local PBS station ... which is very good, I like her protrayal of Miss Jane Marple ...
But .... very much like last week's episode .... the story, while it shares several basic marks ... almost seems like a different story than the one in the book.
The Sleeping Murder
A bit of history of the story ...
Appearantly after World War 2 ... Agatha Christie decided to write the final cases for her most important detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple.
She wrote them, and shipped them off to her publisher - under the directions that they NOT be published until after her death.
This is the final case of Miss Jane Marple ...
In the book, it appears she is still rather active ... and her instincts are as sharp as ever.
But it is the LAST novel for Jane ... although, it seems she lives on in the end (unlike Poirot, who dies in his final story)
In the Series - yup we're going to start with this one - the story opens in India, filmed Bollywood style with dancers and music in the Bollywood style ... pretty but ... fluff, just filler. They use this scene to introduce Gwenda (main character) and her father. In the series Gwenda is ENGAGED to be married ... and traveling to England alone to find a new home for her and her fiancee .... She is met by someone who her husband has pick her up at the airport and show her around the country, helping her look for a home.
During one of these trips, they go to a seaside and eat an ice cream cone ... when she notices a house over on the opposite shore - just nextled in ..
He finds that the house is for sale and she purchases it.
She appears to have "psychic" abilities - finding where a door was hidden and discribing the wallpaper in a room that is hidden away.
Yeah ... and that's about it, really.
In the book ... her name is Gwenda BUT she is already MARRIED ... she does arrive ON HER OWN to purchase a house, but there is NO ONE else, at least I don't remember it being mentioned, which drives her from place to place.
In the book, Gwenda says she has NEVER been to India, or England ... and that she was raised in New Zealand (interesting this bit, you don't hear about too many characters living in NZ) ... she's about 22 or 23 years old. She was too young to remember her mother, and barely remembers her father .... she was raised by his wife and her husband.
In the book, not only does she find the hidden door, but also an old pathway which had grown over, and the wallpaper hidden in a cabinet, which had been locked but the key lost.
Both feature Gwenda & Jane going to a stage production ... both feature Gwends getting up and walking out of the play upset by what happened on the stage ... but I do like the way the book gets into what happens afterwards .... Miss Marple is so kind and gentle, bringing Gwenda a hot water bottle to help settle her shakes.
Oh yes -- the book is definattely the way to go ... but the series isn't bad either ...
just WATCH THE EPISODE FIRST ... otherwise you'll feel a tad disappointed.
Again, I have embedded what I could find on YouTube for you ... enjoy ... and remember ...
THESE ARE NOT MY VIDEOS ... I have only embedded them for your enjoyment.
The episode I saw found
(I have not found a good video of this story yet ... just very short clips)
Let's get this out of the way at the very beginning -- its a case of a "story within a story" ... and a point which I never realized until I watched a documentary (featuring historian Lucy Worsley) but we'll get into that later.
And likely, I have several mistakes in this post ... my computer is acting up something fierce today ... not sure what's going on but I do know it needs an update
And before we begin ... let's do a Death Count: BOTH book and series have 3 deaths, but there is one additional attempted killing, but the roles have been reversed from book to series episode.
I will embed both parts of the YouTube audiobooks at the very end ... these are NOT my videos/works in ANY WAY
A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED
Now when I first saw this episode of the BBC television series .... I thought it was one of the BEST Marple stories I had seen ...
Miss Marple is actually INVOVLED, a PART OF, the murder count!!
Although, obviously, she, herself, does not die .... she is very much involved!
So the major difference I noticed with the series episode and the book, has been the OPENING ... Now I understand that the novel has more time to build the story (page count being the only hinderance) and the episode is limited mostly by time (its was a 2 hourde) and technology (although special effects aren't used, there's a couple other things) ...
The Opening: In the Episode, it opens with a "News Reel" like what used to occur in movie theaters/cinemas back during and after World War 2 ... and this does occur AFTER World War 2 ... so it makes sense ... ACCEPT ...
This does NOT actually occur in the book ... in the book, it opens with the scene which comes AFTER the newsreel of the series ....
A paper boy is delivering the morning paper ...
Does anyone these days remember newspapers being delivered by YOUTH, on a BIKE? One of my brothers used to delivery them -- I remember waking up one morning as a kid (maybe 5 or 6 years old) and finding him siting at the top of the basement steps carefully rolling that mornings paper into a throwable roll ... he sent me back to bed - he was not happy, it had rained during the night and some of the papers had gotten damp and they all stank ... But, the morning newspapers had to be delivered BEFORE the sun came up ...
In this episode, as well as in other shows which feature paper boys overseas (such as Downton Abbey, Upstairs Downstairs, and All Creatures, both versions) they get their newspapers delivered AFTER sunrise - the paper boy is riding his bike while the sun is high enough in the sky to form hardly any shadow at all!!
Okay ... so that's the beginning.
In the book, it goes through HOW a person who lives in a small village/town ... where life is going so slow, where "nothing" seems to be going on ... it goes over HOW a person will generally go through the newspaper ...
Headlines, sports (perhaps) ... but EVERYONE seems to check out not the "Help Wanted" or "For Sale" ads ... but absolutely everyone, who is anyone, checks out - and often laughs at, or gossips about - the PERSONALS ...
Think of it as the "X" of their time ... the posts were short, brief , and varied ... generally not fitting into any other category ...
This time and ad appears announcing a dinner party at a local lady's home, where a murder will be committed!
The ad is nearly identical in both book and episode ...
During the dinner party, local "guests" invite themselves ... thinking this is supposed to be a party game (like the Breakout Rooms of today, only instead of solving clues to escape the room, they try to guess Who-Done-It) ...
The murder itself ... pretty close to each other.
Now in the book, Miss Jane Marple does not show up until QUARTER WAY into the story (based on the Audiobook being in 2 parts, each 4 hours long) ... and it turns out that she is related to one of the Police officers investigating the original death.
But they kept much of the same dialogue when she shows up, only they have placed her from the beginning in the hotel where the original murder victim worked ... and we find out just how smart she really is ... LOL
Now there is a word used to discribed older ladies in the UK ... one which has a totally different, not so mice meaning over here in the US ... it is only used in the BOOK - I would suppose because someone pointed out the issue ..
Old women are called "Pusssies" ... as in pussy-cat - and I assume its because it seems like so many elder ladies seem to own cats ....but - yeah - thought I'd better mention it.
Miss Marple gets much more time exploring the room where the hold-up/mrder took place ... gaining more insight from it than any of the police detectives.
Now there is an aspect which I am rather surprised to see in 1950 ... the idea of homosexuality .... the book simply takes it as a fact, doesn't make any blatant mention of it - and the series episode treats it just as well, we see them holding hands, bickering, living in the same household ... but nothing more than what is shown of any other couple. Where this story filmed or written today, it bould be surrounded with as many pointers and bright lights as possible -- I think the way the book and series treated it is definately the better way, it "narmalizes" it, something which is simply there. But in 1950 .... it was still ILLEGAL in most of the world to be homosexual - so Agatha Christie took a huge risk including this couple in the story! Not giving any clues about who it is , you will have to either read, listen, or watch the story yourself!
Lots of Red Herrings in this book .... people we never see, people we see just a few times, and dead people all making appearances to keep things hopping!
While the book and series do differ a bit ... it is one of the best adaptions I've found so far ... but then, I have only started doing this series.
And if you think the actress who plays "Lettie" looks familiar, she played Madame Hooch, the Riding Instructor, in Harry Potter and the Sorcer's Stone ...
So the second episode of "Agatha Christie's Miss Marple" was on our local PBS station yesterday ... and it is actually a rebranding of the "Marple" series, which starred Geraldine McEwan ... my second favorite Miss Jane Marple (the most favorite being Margaret Rutheford, she was the perfect "aunt" if you ask me) ... I feel Ms. McEwan simply fit the part so well, she played her a little off center withou making her a total nut job,
But I have begun to listen to audio books at night on YouTube ... from various pages/channels but they are all UNABRIDGED, which means they are in the original words of the author, nothing added, nothing taken out, "world without end" so to speak ...
And while there are SOME changes which can be expected turning a book which will take at least 7 hours reading time (if you do it in one go, in one sitting, if you can do such a thing) into a one hour show ... there are simply some things which should NOT be changed ...
Such as the time of year ... in the show, there is no snow on the ground - and even though St Mary's Mead is a made up little village, one would expect them to have snow, most of the UK gets snow by Christmas I'm pretty sure .... but not a flake exists. Why do I say Christmas? Because in the novel it very clearly says that Mrs. Elspeth McGuillicuddy shows up at Jane's with a load of Christmas shopping she had done before boarding the train to the closest station to St, Mary's Mead.
In the show, it opens with the death of Mrs. Crackenthorpe ... I don't know why thugh - it doesn't really do much for the story ... in fact, it enters into "fact" things which are later found to be unknown at the time, but are discussed later on ... its a very strange scene and totallyNOT in the book ... it should have been cut out.
In the book, Elspeth arrives at Jane's all upset because she saw a murder - as one would expect - so Jane feeds her supper where the subject is forbidden to be spoke of, but afterwards she gives Elspeth a glass of homemade wine (not your typical grape juice and sugar variety either) and they decusss EVERY aspect of what Elspeth saw on the train.
I wish they had kept THIS in the show instead of inserting the other bit ... this was much more important, but then Elspeh would have been a larger part of the story, and I don't think that was what the director/BBC really wanted at the time.
In the book, Elspeth seemed like just an old friend of Jane's who knew Jane would look into things and just wanted it to be known she wasn't seeing things as the train preople thought she was. In the show, she seemed to be "gotta find it in the newspapers" to suddenly being "yeah, whatever" ... we won't see her until the end of the story now. But then we don't see her until the end of the novel either.
Enter Lucy ... she is a very bright educated woman who upon graduating from college, decided to enter into service - not military service, rather taking care of people's houses - like a maid, only more so ... but then you wouldn't know this unless you read the book ... It is completely overlooked in the show- and I think its an important part ... all we know from the show is that Jane pops in unannounced at Lucy's place ... where apparently Lord Montbatten is also ... and she is intrigued at the chance to find a body. About Lord Montebatten ... he was supposed to have been the favorite uncle of King Charles 3rd, but was killed by an IRA bomb on his boat ... he is still considered a hero over there I guess ...here's the link to his wikipedia page: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma - Wikipedia
Oh - he is NO mentioned in the book, btw ... not sure why they put him in the show.
During the show, it seems as if Lucy is simply out for a walk when she find some clues to where the body left the mysterious train ,.. and Lucy takes boht the compact and the ENTIRE piece of fur she found on the side of the rail embankment. In the book - she was only supposed to take HALF the fur, and she found it while looking for a golf ball in the long grass which grew on the embankment ... My parents used to play golf when we were kids, my father did for quite a while as well after my mother passed, and he passed the love of the sport onto a couple of my brothers and my oldest daughter ... so I know some thing about golf. It is near impossible to play with a coat on - even a windbreaker can be uncomforatable with the way you need to twist your body to hit the ball ... so I would think that the weather would have to have warmed up by this time ... I'm going to guess somewhere around a month or 2 after the murder ... so either January or February ... I do not know the weather in the UK but I'm going to guess that it has to be maybe in the 40F-50F range? That's still light coat range for the most part .... maybe a woolen sweater.
In both book and show, Jane stays at the local village to the estate where Lucy is employed ... in the book, it is a friend ... in the show its a police officer who grew up in St.Mary's Mead ... Also in the show, Jane is shown reading a book (not mentioned at all in the book, but an interesting side note) called "Woman in Darkness" or something like that ... I have not found anything about it, if anyone knows anything please comment on it ... I don't know if I want to read it, but I'm interested in what its about.
While all the Crackenthropes are characters in the series, most of them are there just for filler ... in the show, there are little quirks given to each..
Such as a lisp, which gets made fun of by a brother-in-law ... a whinny cry baby .... a brother who thinks he's god's gift to women ... etc. While in the book, the FATHER is served up as penny-pinching, judgmental, and a bit of a wretch ... leaving Lucy to wonder if she had just been propositioned ...
However, the book and show focus in on 2 main characters from the family ,.. and if I tell you, I will spoil the whole thing ...
So let's get to the end - when we find out who did it
There are some pretty major plot changes here ... on the show it takes place in a train - Jane on one, Elspeth on another with the police friend of Jane's .... In the book, it happens in the parlor/dining area of the Crackenthorpe home and Elspeth walks in ...
Either way Elspeth sees the killer from behind and exclaims "Tha;s Him!!!!" In the book, both trains get the emergency stop cord pulled and an arrest is made ... the end, kind of In the book, Jane explains everything to the police cheif who then ge's a confession from the killer and he is taken away. Elspeth admits that she never really saw the killer's face, so she would never have been able to testify against him.
And I think that's the real difference ... Where the show is very much Do the Crime, Do the Time ... the book is more, think things through before you give in
Okay ... now to the biggest spoilers ... if you don't want to know stop reading now.
SPOILER ALERT
In the show - the time is taken to explain WHY the lady was killed ...
You see, she was really the doctor's wife - who refused to give him a divorce because she was Catholic (think Henry 8th) and if she hadn't concented to the divorce then it would have been dragged throu the newspapers and the Crackenthorpe father would never have allowed him to marry his daughter.
But this doesn't seem to make much sense because according to Grandfather Crackenthorpe, the wealth of the family was to pass over Father Crackenhorpe, to his oldest son, then to his heir - which apparently no one knew about until the mother of Alexander's friend shows up and it turns out that the firend is actually the heir ... but no one finds that out for quite some time ...
Anyhow ... for having just found out that the doctor only wanted her for the money ... Miss Crackenthorpe seems to be handling it pretty well.
Now that I know the way the story was supposed to go .. I find the show kind of disappointing ...
Kind of like when you watch Wizard of Oz and then read the book ... you will never look at the Scarecrow the same way again .. the perv.
I have loved the Agatha Christie series which feture her charcters Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple ,..
I have also found several of the books on YouTube as well .... I tend to listen to them at bedtime or during my morning tea ....
Yes - there are a few of us Americans who enjoy a morning cup of tea instead of coffee .... although I like that too, I tend to take it with a lot of creamer and a tad too much sugar.
I have come to enjoy tea with brown sugar these days ... it gives a delightful taste and I tend to use only half of what I use of white, refined sugar.
Any way .... back to the books/series.
I have been able to find Hercule Piorot on cable quite often (currently on my local PBS station) and now I have found that they are also doing Miss Marple as well!!!
Oh paint me happy!
The current acress playing Miss Jane Marple is actually the second best Marple n my opionion ...
My list goes:I
~Margaret Rutheford (the movies had a wonderful amusement to them)
~Geraldine McEwan (she has such a great face, it is quite expressive)
~Helen Hayes
~Joan Hickman ... there's just something about her that just rubs me wrong ... but I know that several people think she is very good
I'm sure I've missed several others, such as the other one of the "Miss Marple" BBC series ... but its pretty obvious that they simply haven't made much of an impression.
This week's episode on PBS "Agatha Christie's Miss Marple" was The Murder At The Vicarage .... a wonderful episode! I've seen this particular episode about 6 times, if not more.
But I have not read the book -- Agatha Christie ws never on my radar as a younger reader, as an adult I tend to have too much to do to just be able to sit and read ... even before bedtime - but I've found a way around it.
Audiobooks ...
Only thing is ... in the t.v. episdoe - the one I've seen so often - it seemed as if Miss Marple was a friend of the vicar's wife, Griselda ... But in the book, it begins with Griselda saying horrid things about Miss Marple from the very beginning!
A very interesting switch to have made ...
but here's the link to the Librivox version of the book on YouTube:
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