Spoilers ahead!I've seen this 1984 Joan Hickson version several times over the years, and I always like it, which is why I give it an "excellent" 10-level rating. But last night on seeing it again, it struck me: how can it be that the "rock solid" alibi for several characters is that they were in the presence of the murder victim, with many other witnesses seeing all of them together, while the victim was alive? An alibi has to apply to the period of time during which the victim was killed, not earlier, while everyone knew the victim was alive. Yet this is how the alibi for the eventual killers is described several times by the police. The real way the alibi worked is that the killers were seen in the presence of the victim while the victim was alive, and then remained in public, visible to many witnesses, continuously for at least an hour after the victim left everyone's presence, right up to and beyond the very latest time that the police later state is the latest moment that the victim (being elsewhere) could have been killed. Think about this strategy for a moment from the viewpoint of the killers, in planning their murder. They have to get a double, whom they will dress-up to impersonate the victim, and kill the double early enough in the day that when the police find the body and do their estimate of the time-of-death, the latest time-of-death the police will come up with happens to be within the window of time after the real victim leaves public view but while the killers are still in public view. But they also have to wait long enough before killing the double that the moment of the latest time-of-death is after the victim has left public view of the witnesses. That's cutting it pretty fine, and requires the killers to have a very good idea of how the police go about determining a victim's latest time-of-death. They also have to gamble that one of them will be called to view the body and make the identification (calling the substitute the real victim) and that no one else will be called on to make an identification. Otherwise, the substitution trick fails, and with it, so too fails the determination by the police of the latest time-of-death. One other interesting point: the killers planned to frame the film-studio man for the murder, leaving the body of the "double" at his house. He foils this temporarily by moving the body to the Bantry home - home of the rich squire of the county. Inadvertently, this saved him from the frame-up -- because it brought in and focused the excellent detectives on this case. It brought in not only Miss Marple, as friend to the Bantrys, but also the regional police Chief, because he was a neighbor to the Bantrys, and because the Chief would give special attention to anything affecting the Squire. Moving the body anywhere else, or leaving it in his own home, would have left the film-studio man at the mercy of the bone-headed detective who fell for the frame-up, because Marple would not have become involved and the Chief would not have given the case so much attention. Thus the film-man's moving the body to the Squire's house proved to be a disaster for the killers, because it brought in a swarm of detectives along with Miss Marple, all looking to find the killers. The killers certainly never expected that. The inadvertent lesson for us: if you want a murder to get solved, drag innocent rich people into it -- they'll have the money and insider connections to bring vast resources to bear on finding the real killer, not so much to pursue justice, but to clear their own names.

To be honest, a 2-and-a-half-hour episode of the Joan Hickson Miss Marple series may seem like a fearsome prospect to some, given the fact that most of the regular approximately 100-minute episodes feel slow and plodding. Surprisingly, "The Body In The Library" turns out to be not only the longest, but also probably the best-paced film in the series out of the 8 I've seen so far! The "body" of the title is discovered right away, and the murder investigation begins shortly afterwards. Therefore, you're caught up in the mystery before you have the chance to start worrying about its length. And this particular Agatha Christie story is thick enough to support that length: there are few slow spots, and although you might figure out bits of the plot (like the relevance of the second dead body), the revelation of the killer(s) is still a shocker! Personally I have not been crazy about Joan Hickson's interpretation of Miss Marple so far, but this is one of her best outings and she has some good introspective moments. The supporting cast is solid, and David Horovitch's Inspector Slack is (thankfully) not the off-putting loudmouth of such later episodes as "They Do It With Mirrors". (***)EDIT: Having now seen all the Marple films twice, "The Body In The Library" is, in my opinion, the best of the series. If you don't like this, "A Murder Is Announced" and "Nemesis", don't even bother with the rest.

I haven't seen the McEwan version but can't believe it comes anywhere near this one. This cast definitely do not ham up the story, which is a good one. Christie was parodying the kind of cliché'd tale that starts off with a body in the library of the manor house - she takes us right out of that static, country-house setting (which ignorant critics often accuse her of being stuck in) to the rather louche setting of an expensive seaside hotel. The hotel is full of people who aren't quite ladies or gentlemen (which makes them all the more amusing). And film man Basil Blake is actually living in St. Mary Mead with a blonde, without benefit of clergy (or so he'd have everybody think). This adaptation sticks pretty faithfully to the book and the cast are good, especially Styler, Horovich, Watford and of course Joan Hickson. I only have a few minor nitpicks. I miss the exit line of the tennis-playing gigolo, his upper class background exposed as a sham and his rich widow an item with an old admirer: "Dance, dance, little gentleman!" He was quoting a popular tune "Dance, Dance, Little Lady" but audiences couldn't be expected to know that. The dignity of the missing Girl Guide's parents is not as vivid as in the book. And Ruby's hair and makeup are all wrong: she wouldn't have had long fluffy hair in the 30s, and her rouge makes her look feverish. In the book, Basil turns out to have a heroic civilian WW I record, too. Christie reflected her times, and had a great sense of humour she's not always given credit for. The Body in the Library is the title of a book by her fictional avatar, Ariadne Oliver. Perhaps she thought she might as well write it herself. Someone should give us The Clue of the Crimson Goldfish...

This gem is indeed far superior to the Geraldine McEwan version. Although it is a very good attempt and the supporting cast are superb,the period detail very good and is faithful to the book, Miss McEwan just does not have the x factor for Miss Marple. In fact with the contrived voice and the gestures she tries just that bit too hard to achieve what Joan Hickson did with so much ease.I understand that so far only four of the series have been re-filmed out of a total of twelve, and I am sure that out of the available Miss Marple contenders. i.e. Angela Lansbury, Helen Hayes, Maragret Rutherford,Joan Hickson and Geraldene McEwan it will be found that Miss Hickson is the definitive.