Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42572 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-02-27
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.com
Angela Lansbury does the honors as Agatha Christie's determined sleuth, Miss Marple, in this adaptation of Christie's novel. A washed-up movie star (Elizabeth Taylor) is attempting to make a comeback but is driven to distraction by a mysterious event from her past. Also problematic for Taylor's struggling actress is a series of murders occurring with clockwork regularity in the quiet, 1950s English village where a film is being produced--killings that are all somehow connected to her. Despite the British backdrop, most of the suspects, including Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, and Tony Curtis, are American in this 1980 feature directed by Guy Hamilton (Evil Under the Sun). (At least Miss Marple's nephew, the redoubtable Inspector Craddock, is played by Edward Fox.) The bad news: this is a curiously flat, monotonous film, with a mystery hook that, sad to say, is among Christie's more familiar and predictable. Hamilton doesn't demand much of his largely ornamental cast, and they don't volunteer much to fill the void. Still, fans of Miss Marple and Christie, especially those with a burning hunger to see every film or television program based on the books, will want to check it out. This DVD edition is presented in the film's original widescreen format, and it includes television spots that were part of the film's marketing at the time of its theatrical release. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

A Mild Meow
Like many screen adaptations of Christie novels, THE MIRROR CRACK'D features an all-star cast--and in this case the casting would seem inspired: Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple, Rock Hudson as a film producer, Elizabeth Taylor as his movie-star wife, Kim Novack as a rival screen queen, and Tony Curtis as Novak's lover and the producer of the film they are all making. But director Guy Hamilton is more interested in having his cast offer star turns than in actually serving the story, and the result is a strangely uneven, extremely plodding film that only comes to life when Taylor and Novak square off in the series of hilariously written and performed cat-fights that run throughout the movie.

Part of the problem lies in the source material. THE MIRROR CRACK'D is one of Christie's lesser novels, written in a very sparse style and lacking Christie's usual knock-out solution in its story of a fan who drops dead of poisoning at a film star's reception. In order to flesh out the tale, the script piles extraneous scene upon extraneous scene--with the Taylor-Novak scenes a case in point: enjoyable as they are, they actually have little to do with the story and so tend to slow the film down. To make matters worse, the performances are extremely casual at best. Taylor and Novak are extremely enjoyable in their scenes together--but elsewhere they are merely adequate. Hudson and Curtis are flat. And Angela Lansbury, a normally brilliant actress, has one of her rare failures with the role of Jane Marple.

At most, this film is for viewers who want to be in on the last major cinematic gasps of Taylor, Novak, Hudson, and Curtis--and those who derrive a certain joy from evaluating the level of decay seen here in the aging cast. And most will enjoy seeing Taylor and Novak flog each other with nasty one-liners delivered with considerable flair. But cat-fight scenes aside, THE MIRROR CRACK'D is just one very mild meow.

Humourous and Likeable
It's not big, it's not terribly clever, and it won't change the way anyone thinks about anything at all, but this 1980 version of one of Agatha Christie's less-loved novels of the same name is still an enjoyable tale of murder and gentle rebuke.

Set in a highly stereotypical American vision of the 1950's English countryside, the whole town is abuzz when Lola Brewster (Kim Novak) and Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor) take up residence to film a production of 'Mary, Queen of Scots'. When one of Ms. Rudd's long-time fans is murdered at a reception given for the Star, Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury) and her nephew Inspector Delbert Craddock (Edward Fox) investigate the crime.

Script and direction are nothing more than diverting, with a nod here and there to the likes of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis - the two movie Queens feud continually - and some extremely clever one-liners - Ms. Taylor's line about Doris Day takes on a whole new level of meaning, as her director husband Jason is played by Rock Hudson. As Christie's well-loved sleuth, Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple is amusingly self-depracatory in her role, claiming that not everyone who comes into contact with her winds up dead. She'll never be Joan Hickson, but in a film such as this, Lansbury's lighthearted and somewhat campy performance is perfectly pitched.

Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson do passable jobs in their respective roles as Producer and Director, and the supporting cast is nothing more than perfunctory (including a rare nonspeaking cameo from a VERY young Pierce Brosnan), but for all that, they hang together well enough as an ensemble.

The plot and subsequent climax are forgettable, but, as with the rest of the film, come with a gentle likeable atmosphere that saves them from being mundane.

If you can pick it up cheaply, then go for it, it's perfect Sunday afternoon viewing. In total, 'The Mirror Crack'd' is a sweet, campy film that unfortunately stays too close to 'Average' to be a definite recommendation.

O.K. Agatha Christie
An American movie production invades a small English town, and if that weren't enough to cause a disruption, murder comes with it. Once again, Miss Marple comes to the rescue, with her incredible knack for detail and deduction, as well as her understanding of human nature. Miss Marple is played by Angela Lansbury, who doesn't quite capture the famous character, but is entertaining in the role nonetheless. Rock Hudson is the director, Tony Curtis the producer, while Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak are the stars of the American production. Their performances are alright, with Novak seeming to have a lot of fun, but nothing special. Actually, that's part of the problem with the film - it's competently done, but nothing more. There's some good dialogue between Taylor and Novak, but on the whole, the film lacks energy. It could have been a lot better, although it is certainly watchable.