Murder Most Foul *** (1964, Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Dennis Price, Terry Scott) – Classic Movie Review 866

The third Margaret Rutherford Miss Jane Marple movie Murder Most Foul (1964) sees the spinster sleuth as the only jury member refusing to accept her co-jurors’ guilty verdict in the trial of a lodger accused of murder. The jury foreman tells the judge they cannot make up their minds so the judge rules for a mistrial and arranges for a retrial in a week’s time, giving Miss Marple seven days to solve the case.

So she joins a local acting troupe and starts investigating most foul deeds among the bottom-of-the-barrel theatre company, trying to figure out who the real murderer is.

Loosely based on Dame Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot novel Mrs McGinty’s Dead, it is acted, written and directed with a more comic touch than Dame Agatha foresaw, but it still manages to do justice to her good mystery puzzle. Rutherford is not supposed to be ideal casting as Miss Marple, but she really made the part her own in the 60s and it is a good showcase for what she does best.

Among a particularly pleasing, loyal support cast, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell is back as the police inspector, Scotland Yard man Chief Inspector Craddock, Terry Scott plays the constable, PC Wells, Andrew Cruickshank the judge, Mr Justice Crosby, Dennis Price the theatrical agent Harris Tumbrill, Ron Moody is H Driffold Cosgood, Megs Jenkins is Mrs Gladys Thomas, James Bolam is Bill Hanson, Francesca Annis is Sheila Upward and Windsor Davies is Sergeant Brick.

Also appearing are Alison Seebohm as premonition-prone actress Eva McGonigall, Pauline Jameson as Maureen Summers, Maurice Good as George Rowton, Annette Kerr as actress Dorothy, Neil Stacy as Arthur and Stella Tanner as the landlady Flory.

And of course once again Rutherford’s real-life husband Stringer Davis plays Mr Jim Stringer.

Though David Pursall and Jack Seddon’s capable screenplay is based on Agatha Christie’s novel Mrs McGinty’s Dead, like its predecessor, Murder at the Gallop (1964), this movie was adapted from a Hercule Poirot novel, not a Miss Marple novel, so obviously again it changes the action and the characters, and a great deal. Miss Marple replaces Poirot and most of the other characters in the film are not in the novel.

The notable music score is again by Ron Goodwin.

In Murder at the Gallop, when reporting the second murder to the police on the phone, Miss Marple uses the phrase ‘Murder most foul’, a quote from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was used as the title of this Miss Marple movie. In Hamlet (I.v.27-28), the Ghost comments about his own death: ‘Murder most foul as in the best it is/ But this most foul, strange and unnatural.’

Inspecting the contents of the victim’s suitcase, Miss Marple finds flyers for a theatrical production of Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder, She Said’. This is a jokey reference to the title of Rutherford’s first Marple movie Murder, She Said, for Christie wrote no such play.

Locations include the courthouse in the market square of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire; the police station on Shady Lane in Watford, Hertfordshire; the Palace Theatre on Clarendon Road in Watford; the Memorial Park YMCA in Pinner, Harrow; and the village of Sarratt, near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire.

It follows Murder She Said (1961) and Murder at the Gallop (1963).

Murder Ahoy followed in 1964.

The dust jacket illustration of the US actual first edition.

Mrs McGinty’s Dead was first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1952 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 3 March 1952, price nine shillings and sixpence (9/6). It is unusual for a Hercule Poirot story because it is a village mystery whodunit, which Mrs Christie normally reserved for Miss Marple, and it has witty comic detail, both of which things must have attracted the Murder Most Foul film-makers to the book. The novel’s title is named after a children’s game – a follow-the-leader type like the Hokey-Cokey.

The novel first appeared as a serial in the Chicago Tribune in 13 parts from 7 October to 30 December 1951 under the title of Blood Will Tell.

A TV version of Mrs McGinty’s Dead was filmed in 2007 with David Suchet as Poirot in the ITV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot, first broadcast on 14 September 2008.

Murder Most Foul is also the name of a song by Bob Dylan released on 27 March 2020.

Ron Moody.

Ron Moody celebrated his 90th birthday on January 8 2014 and died on June 11, 2015 at the age of 91.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 866

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

The dustjacket illustration of the UK first edition.