The Mirror Crack’d
There is celebration in the village of St Mary Mead, spirits high after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II only a month before and now the arrival of their own homecoming queen, English rose turned Hollywood star Marina Gregg-Rudd and her American husband, director Jason Rudd, set to make a film of the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her rival, Elizabeth I, played by the producer’s wife Lola Brewster.
A woman determined to upstage at every opportunity, their spiteful reunion at Gossington Hall takes a turn for the nasty when another of the guests is taken ill, dying moments later; examination concluding that her cocktail had been spiked with a common tranquiliser which has toxic effects when mixed with alcohol, Marina having given her drink to the reminiscing fan who she spilled her own, it would seem the star was the intended target.
Based on the 1962 novel by Agatha Christie The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, the eighth to feature Miss Jane Marple, the title taken from Tennyson’s Lady of Shallott was abbreviated to The Mirror Crack’d for the 1980 adaptation by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler directed by Guy Hamilton starring Angela Lansbury, younger and more energetic than the character is normally envisioned, investigating vicariously through recollections of the witnesses rather than by direct participation.
Lansbury more restrained than in Death on the Nile, the relinquished mantle of diva is taken up by Kim Novak as Lola, while Elizabeth Taylor plays Marina as someone only alive when performing, an actor who exists to create illusion, Rock Hudson lives up to his name as stony Jason, with Geraldine Chaplin trying to appease the different sides as secretary Ella Zielinsky, Edward Fox taking aunt Jane’s lead as Inspector Craddock and Charles Gray is respectable as butler Bates, his reserve a contrast to the awkward sultry saxophone of the soundtrack.
Essentially Lansbury’s trial run for Murder, She Wrote which would launch in 1984 and run for twelve seasons, she never reprised the role of Marple with Joan Hickson creating the definitive interpretation the same year, and The Mirror Crack’d is unusual not only in that all the vital information is presented early, but that with a false opening of an interrupted film screening not only is Marple required to prove her ability by providing the solution but has a man endorse her findings, something never required of Hercule Poirot who is accepted as an authority.
Restored in 4K as part of StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics range, the new edition of The Mirror Crack’d is supported by an audio commentary by film historians Howard S Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson, a reflection on the character of Miss Marple by Jean Kwok, Rian Johnson, Matthew Sweet and Mark Aldridge, interviews with Lansbury, Sandler and producer Richard Goodwin, and behind-the-scenes and storyboard galleries.
The Mirror Crack’d will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from StudioCanal from Monday 24th November alongside Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun and a box set containing all four films, The Agatha Christie Collection
