MURDER MOST FOUL is a fun and comic murder mystery featuring the inimitable Margaret Rutherford in her most famous role, that of Agatha Christie's sleuth Miss Marple. This time around, Marple investigates a murder with an apparently obvious suspect - he was caught red-handed, so to speak, at the scene - but follows a clue trail that takes her to a local amateur theatrics group.This is a well-paced and eventful little mystery with a decent cast and lots of character comedy to see it through. Rutherford dominates the proceedings, inevitably, with her larger-than-life character, and she's a real delight; relishing every line and dominating every co-actor from beginning to end. The mystery itself is cosy rather than exciting or dramatic, but the ensemble cast are very good. Ron Moody delights as the camp ham actor and manager; Charles Tingwell and Windsor Davis make a good tag-team as the police. Among the rest of the cast members, both James Bolam and Francesca Annis stand out in star-making performances. There's little to dislike about MURDER MOST FOUL.

Margaret Rutherford has a lot of personality, charm and originality. And, indeed, she was born to play Miss Jane Marple. She's perfect as the character created by Agatha Christie. If "Murder Ahoy" is about poop, this "Murder Most Foul" made in the same year, 1964, by the same director, George Pollock, is good. The story is captivating and, in addition, we have Ron Moody, the famous Fagin in "Oliver!" (1968), Vorobyaninov of "The Twelve Chairs" (1970), and Uriah Heep in "David Copperfield" (1970). George Pollock directed also "Ten Little Indians" (1965), the most successful film adaptation of Agatha Christie, in my opinion.

Margaret Rutherford is a delight as an inquisitive, defiant, dogged, analytical, and impressively able to think on her feet as an elderly "murder mystery enthusiast" that can be both a source of misery and information for her local police. When "Murder Most Foul" begins, she is on a jury that gets hung because she doesn't believe the person on trial is guilty.George Pollock, the director of this film, really sets up a hysterical opening where a cobblestone cop interrupts (he believes, but Rutherford's Miss Marple later proves wrong) a man as he seems to be rope-hanging his wife in a diabolical means to make her death appear to be a suicide after a manual strangulation. With money and a rose near the scene, Marple starts to deduce that there's more to this than meets the eye. The victim might have been blackmailing someone associated with a theatrical company (run by an autocratic, eyes-on-the-prize grandiose thespian played to the hilt by Ron Moody). When a second person tied to the company is murdered on the very day Marple is rehearsing for a part with the company's potentially latest play, she's sure the man currently jailed is innocent and that one of the current actors/actresses is truly responsible. When an attempt on her own life is narrowly diverted (another actress happened to be in the kitchen at the wrong time to turn off an iron as toxic cyanide poison fumes were smoking from a pot on a stove meant for Marple (with a letter purposely planted outside her room to get her into the kitchen) is also killed), Marple seems to be closing in on the identity of the killer. When she learns from an agent (Dennis Price; Kind Hearts and Coronets & Venus in Furs) about the first murdered woman, and that a supposed new play by Moody's Cosgood was actually performed eleven years ago with her in it, the learned development regarding a child naked Evelyn is the catalyst in an amusing conclusion where Marple proves to the killer that her prop gun has more bang than blanks would provide. Accidental mishaps in the back stage as all that carries out leads to hospital stays in slapstick fashion. Coming to Marple's rescue or a trap door that shouldn't have been open on the stage floor prove to be quite a raucous followup to the killer's confession and downfall.Marple's getting to the truth is what makes this a must-see for whodunit fans that love their murder mysteries gradually shedding of light events that, as a collective, bring us through all the dirt and secrets that unveils a murderer. A character named Eva (Alison Seebohm) is one of the more intriguing characters in the cast; she is almost like a harbinger of doom, speaking of dreams involving Marple and Death, also admitting to being in love with the second victim. She sleepwalks and eventually believes, for whatever reason, that Marple was responsible for her love's murder. The company has its share of divas and dilettantes, mostly catering to whatever butts will sit in their theater's lowly seats. That is what truly amused me about Moody's Cosgood. He really thinks his work is important, and that the building will be packed with admirers applauding every nuance and uttered word. Rutherford has a showstopping rendition of The Shooting of Dan McGrew which leaves the three in the building slack-jawed. The partnership with Stringer Davis (her husband in life) as the two work in concert to solve the case (he pretty much assists and does as told, haha) and the anxious but respectable alliance with Inspector Craddock (Charles Tingwell) offer plenty of charm and appeal. I particularly enjoyed how Marple "respectfully" corrects Craddock and leads him away from the usual mindset of a cop who follows clues no matter how deliberate they might be in a way which has him reconsidering generalities in favor of key particulars. Without Marple, Craddock's chances of solving the crimes committed in Murder Most Foul would have been slim to none. But it is Rutherford's unwillingness to step aside and let an innocent man pay for a crime he didn't commit that is the heart and soul of this series of Marple films. Stunning black and white lensing from Desmond Dickinson, especially at the beginning of the film which shows the silhouette of the strangling victim from a window while the cop outside is taking a swig of whiskey near a pub! How Marple is presented as a monkey wrench that halts the criminal justice system from operating in a status quo fashion makes her quite a heroine to root for. No one can pleasantly call a cop naive and gullible quite like Miss Marple and not make him feel like a total fool.

Despite my later comments below I very much like this film and indeed all the Margaret Rutherford/Miss Marple canon. They are well acted and directed and time has certainly lent a nostalgic, black and white enchantment to the view with their depiction of a cosy, tea and cakes England which never actually existed but which we like to imagine did. And the murders, while hardly cosy, are interesting too. Indeed, and if one forgets such inconveniences as Agatha Christie's 'real' Miss Marple, on their own merits all four films, while hardly classics of the cinema, are most enjoyable and an excellent way of passing the famous wet Sunday afternoon.However, although none include the words 'Miss Marple' in their titles, they are all marketed as featuring her, presumably for fairly obvious commercial reasons, and thus I think there is a case for invoking the Trades Descriptions Act as they bear precious little resemblance to the Marple world of the books, viz:- 1. Margaret Rutherford was a brilliant actress and good in this role but she was physically so unlike Agatha Christie's description of Miss Marple that it is difficult to take her characterisation seriously. Miss Marple is variously described in the books as fluffy, delicate and, I believe, like Dresden porcelain and those words, ungallant though it must sound, cannot possibly be applied to Miss Rutherford. I believe that Mrs Christie shared this view.2. Only one of the films is based on a true Marple story (Murder She Said - 4.50 from Paddington). Two are actually Poirot stories and the other has no Christie connection at all. (The ITV Marple is guilty of much the same).3. Miss Marple has been moved from St. Mary Mead to Milchester. If there is a point to this it escapes me.4. The famous Marple method of solving cases by comparing them with past events and characters from her village has unforgivably been ditched completely.5. Jim Stringer appears in all four films but in none of Christie's stories. Of course the reason for this was to provide a role for Miss Rutherford's husband, Stringer Davis, who, she insisted, must be cast in any film she was in. (To digress slightly, while I much admire and respect the couple's devotion to each other, I feel that this was wrong. Although it probably does not apply in the Marple films, the character having been created specifically to provide a role for him alone, if Mr Davis was the best available for a particular part he would have got it anyway - if not it unfairly deprived another actor). His part here is in any case not really essential, being largely confined to fetching and carrying and acting as a sounding board for Miss Marple's thoughts, all of which could have been accomplished by other means.6. Perhaps slightly irrelevant but it still irritates me - despite all the help he receives from Miss Marple, even gaining promotion on the strength of it at one point, Inspector Craddock persists in regarding her as an interfering old busybody who should stop bothering him. With that kind of stupidity he should be back on the beat at least.This is of course all a matter of opinion and I have already seen the view that any story is open to interpretation in any way. I agree with this to an extent but it depends,IMHO, on how far it can go before it makes a nonsense of the piece in question. For example Shakespeare in modern dress can be quite valid except in the historical plays (they simply did not wear suits, jeans and T shirts in 1483). And if Miss Marple can solve a Poirot case how long before we see Iago whispering in Hamlet's ear? Or Dr Watson chronicling the adventures of Sexton Blake? Just one more comment, of no relevance whatever to the above. Did you know that Margaret Rutherford is an anagram of Target for Murder? Well, almost. There's a rogue A,H and R which I can't fit in anywhere. Any (printable) suggestions?