Miss Marple: At Bertram's Hotel (1987)

Very Cool!!!

Too much of everything

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I always like Agatha Christie Miss Marple especially with Joan Hickson. Then things that went on in this episode woke me up. Supposedly this hotel was a high class hotel with rich people. The suspense surrounds different things that happen in the hotel.There are competing characters, Bess, Elvira, Michael Gorman, Ladislaus Malinowski and more. No Inspector Slack.A woman that is highly respected is really the head of a group of thieves. She is having an affair with a man who is also going to marry her daughter.What I find offensive is a man who sleeps around is a womanizer and questioned by police is wearing Christian Cross. I am a Christian and this is how they portrayed this man in this episode. That is the only time you see the Cross at all. I find the more I re-watch these videos the more I see they offend me. I don't know if Christie put these in her stories I never read her books. Many women played Miss Marple and they played in episodes by the same name but the episodes are similar but not the same. Example Geraldine McEwan played Miss Marple in "The Body in the Library " which is totally different which has lesbians kissing which is disgusting but the one Joan Hickson was in had nothing like that.So I think people are re-writing Christie's stories and putting their own morals in videos in different years. At the end Miss Marple praises a certain criminal as "remarkable"I support the law. I don't think criminals that do many bad things then confess to something they did not do to help someone else is "remarkable". I am very dissappointed in the way things turned out.

Spoilers herein.This is the sixth or seventh in the series that I have seen. BBC has a policy of putting different creative crew in charge of each one, so they vary significantly. I found the `Alien' and `Batman' franchises to be a mini-lesson in film techniques, and this is a lot like that.Usually, the Marple crews use BBC or TeeVee conventions and shoehorn in the unusual conventions of Christie, which themselves vary from story to story. Here, the adapter and director have actually paid attention to the manner in which is the story is presented in the book.The book has the hotel as a character: the walls carry personality and act as a sort of Moriarity. It is contrived. The director cleverly uses this; the camera always locates itself as part of the architecture first. It both contains and observes the characters. The pans are inhuman. They reflect Maples' nature: nosey, skulking.On top of this, everything is perceived with dull colors, as if the film itself was a copy of Bertram's: an obsessively maintained antique.There is a physicality to the end that reflects that of this story's Moriarty.This is probably the best of the Hickson Marples.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

One of the later Marple mysteries, it was first published in the swinging sixties, but has wisely been reset in the far gentler 1950s. It is one of Christie's lesser works and unfortunately this television production does not improve on it. Caroline Blakiston's central performance as the irrepressible Bess Sedgewick, is a master class in scenery chewing, and the plot borders on the ridiculous - a criminal mastermind uses an exclusive London hotel as a front for an assortment of nefarious activities. The supporting cast includes Joan Greenwood, in a nothing role, but still mesmerising us with her honeyed voice, radio stalwart Preston Lockwood, charmingly dippy as the absent minded Canon, and Irene Sutcliffe, suitably prim and proper as the hotel receptionist. George Baker is also around with his uninteresting interpretation of a dull policeman. This, alas, is one for die-hard Christie fans only.

The direction, acting and total production is wonderfully done in this adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel. The leading actress is superb...from the first scene which juxtaposes the arrival of Miss Marple and Lady Bess Sedgewick arrive at Bertram's Hotel is a joy of contrasts and adept editing. Throughout the film this actress (playing Lady Bess} is mesmerizing! The whole production does a fine job of recapturing the late 1950's England. A fine addition to the Joan Hickson/Miss Marple series! What a gift to have the Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot series on DVD.