A Disappointing Continuation

A different way of telling a story

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Miss Marple is made trustee of The Battledore, a training ship for youngsters. During her first meeting fellow trustee Cecil Folly Hardwick is killed with poisoned snuff. Miss Marple smells a rat and contrives a way to spend time on board to Battledore, to find out what Folly had uncovered there.The humour is here by the bucket load, Rutherford as always is a pure joy to watch, and this time she's met her match, Lionel Jeffries is utterly brilliant to watch, he's so much fun. I think Derek Nimmo being called 'Muscles,' is one of the funniest bits.The pièce de résistance has to be the sword fighting scene, can anyone in their wildest dreams picture Joan, Julia or even Geraldine wielding a sword, watching a now 72 year old Rutherford fighting with a sword is worth the watch alone. The final instalment of Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple films is total entertainment, fun and proper escapism. True that any links with Agatha Christie have now completely gone, but it seems not to matter, as the story is there just there for fun. I've read that more were planned but never happened, what a shame.Great entertainment, real family fun (if the kids are a bit quirky that is, like I used to be and enjoy this kind of yarn.) 9/10

The good: well it has a jaunty theme song. At least it honors the original form in that the order we see things in is roughly the order of discovery by the detective.By this entry in the series, they had seriously lost their way. What genuinely started out as detective stories had morphed into humor-driven light entertainment. Characters are just silly. Slapstick appears for the first time.There is no deduction, only snooping. This Marple has no hard won village-centric wisdom. What she accidentally discovers, comes from the book she is reading that just so happens to be the pattern the murderer used. Once again, we have this old woman putting herself at risk, presuming that the murderer will confess to the hidden police before killing her.You should avoid this one.

Ever since I was 11 I've loved Agatha Christie and Miss Marple. And while they are not perhaps films that die-hard traditionalists of Christie's work the four George Pollock-Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple films are entertaining enough still. Murder Ahoy is the fourth and last of the series, and for me it is also the weakest. The main problem is the story, which is rather contrived and confusing at points(Christie's lack of involvement and that it wasn't based on any of her work- even with a couple of moments where there are echoes of it- was all too evident here. While the sword-fighting scene is tacky and just felt silly compared to everything else going in the film and while there are some witty and funny moments the script does sketch over the characters too much so we never get to know anybody. However, the setting, locations and period detail are great, and the black and white photography is crisp. Pollock's direction is smooth, the film goes by at a good- if not as zippy as the other three- pace and there are some decent clues and solving of them. But the strongest points are the music and the cast. The music is deliciously catchy, just love the opening theme. Margaret Rutherford steals the film and is simply terrific(if somewhat unconventional) as Miss Marple, her in the naval uniform alone is guaranteed the viewing, while Lionel Jeffries seems to be having great fun as the Captain. Overall, not great but definitely worth watching. 7/10 Bethany Cox

'Murder Ahoy' was not based of course on any of Agatha Christie's books (although there are a couple of points in common with 'They Do It With Mirrors') and it is the last of the four Miss Marple films featuring Margaret Rutherford. The naval theme is echoed in Ron Goodwin's score - delicious as ever. The basic plot is actually quite weak, the final showdown equally so but Rutherford is always enjoyable to watch as Miss Marple and she has a reasonable supporting cast around her even if Lionel Jeffries overdoes it a bit sometimes (when he reins himself in, he's actually rather good). Mr Stringer gets a bit more to do, possibly because it's an original script.Like all these early Marple films, this is good fun and worth a look but it's the weakest of them (in my opinion).