The Worst Film Ever

the audience applauded

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

In what turned out to be Helen Hayes's farewell role, she reprises the role of Agatha Christie's famous spinster sleuth Jane Marple in Murder Is Easy. This also gives Hayes the once in a lifetime opportunity to work with another legend, Bette Davis who is the prospective victim of a poisoning plot.Helen's solicitor is worried about some strange goings on at his stepmother Bette Davis's place and is in fear for her safety. It turns out that the solicitor is the murdered party, shot while everyone else is seemingly accounted for. It's a typical Agatha Christie setup and of course there's the ever helpful Jane Marple to aid the police, in this case in the person of Leo McKern. Two more deaths occur before the mystery is solved.It's a delight to see both Hayes and Davis together and that's what the film is designed primarily to do. But frankly it's one of Agatha Christie's weakest plots. If you cannot figure out who did the crime almost immediately after the deed is done, you have not seen too many of these films. It's really rather obvious. Still for fans of Helen and Bette, it's not to be missed.

One of the lesser murder-mysteries form the pen of the baffling Agatha Christie, which is obviously why it was not filmed until 1985 and also why it was given a rather routine, "made for television" treatment.Christie's interfering old sleuth Miss Jane Marple is put to the test when an old friend is murdered, apparently to cover up an attempt to poison a rich heiress. Of course there are several clues and suspects that the wily Aunt Jane must consider. The plot, in truth, holds little inspiration, and most people with reasonable fathoming skills should be able to nut this not so bewildering murder out.Dick Lowry does little with little, and the cast are only average, though screen legend Bette Davis is worth watching just because she's Bette. Definitely not a must for murder-mystery or even Christie fans. Curl up in bed and read a good thriller instead.Monday, August 15, 1994 - T.V.

Actresses as varied as Margaret Rutherford and Angela Lansbury have played Agatha Christie's sleuth Miss Marple on the big screen. Rutherford was hugely popular at it, Lansbury less so. Joan Hickson has, thanks to a large series of TV films, become one of the most noted actresses in the role and many peoples' favorite. Here, prior to the Hickson films, is Hayes' second and last go round as the busybody with a nose for sniffing out criminal culprits. As darling as she is, she is hardly the epitome of this very British and very well-known (in the literary sense) character. She meets with a man who is expressing concern over the well-being of his step-mother, an old friend of Hayes'. So she boards a train and heads to the country estate of the family where it seems as though the step-mother (Davis) is being slowly poisoned to death. Davis' husband (Mills) has turned the estate into a sort of Home for Wayward Boys (one of whom is a young Roth.) Also on the estate is Davis' daughter Tutin and her niece Langland and nephew-in-law Laughlin. She is watched over by a stern and unfriendly caregiver (de la Tour.) Before Hayes can even delve into the poisoning issue, another member of the household is killed, shifting her focus to the discovery of the murderer. Before it's all over, her own life has been endangered a couple of times as she sniffs too close to the truth. This rather humdrum film benefits from authentic English scenery and locations, but really doesn't provide a lot in the way of entertainment. Hayes is always worth watching and is awfully cute at times (and has fun -badly- delivering a theatrical monologue as her character), but she fails to convince as a British subject and isn't given a script that's strong enough to help her form an interesting character. Mills, always a reliable actor as well, has another rather colorless role. Tutin tries to inject some drama into her somewhat silly part and McKern seems to be enjoying his blustery role of a police inspector. The bulk of the rest of the cast is portrayed by relative nobodys who would be hard pressed to pass muster on "Murder She Wrote" or "Father Dowling Mysteries". The biggest downfall of all, however, is Davis. Her character is supposed to be a sweet, caring, beloved Englishwoman who is suffering flu-like symptoms which could be poisoning. Instead, she's a brittle, severe, wraith-like, American who looks worse, upon inspection, than what Vera Miles discovered in the basement of the Bates house in "Psycho"! And people are scripted to keep telling her how great she looks! Someone as obviously ill as she really should NOT have been working, but she was determined to continue and apparently her name still drew 'em in, even in this state. The TV film drew over 20 million viewers! Difficult to the end, she was hellishly rude and obstinate with virtually everyone on the set, particularly Hayes. She has a personal makeup artist credited who was surely instructed to do her up the way she was done (with thick black false eyelashes and pencil thin brows), but it certainly was less than flattering. At this stage, she couldn't give her lines anything more than a screeching croak and had no facial expressions left. It is a sad, horrible disaster to see her wobble through this project (and she wasn't done! She filmed three more TV and feature films after this!) At least in "The Whales of August", her character was closer to her own life status than when she tried to pull off a healthy, appealing woman here. It should be noted that she and Mills were the same age even though she looks like his mother. And Hayes is only 8 years older than Davis, but looks younger. It is a shame that Hayes had to end her screen career in mediocre tripe like this, but as she said herself, at least she never had to resort to horror films or anything a family couldn't watch together.

One of Agatha's easier mysteries to solve begins with some decent location atmosphere and solid characters then soon nosedives, like most Christie adaptions, into the silly. I agree that Dame Bette looks sadly old here and is basically wasted, so Helen Hayes makes up for a lot as the nosy Miss Marple. The funniest part of unintentional giggles, next to that exploding car crashing thru the gate, which never happened in book form, is seeing Tim Roth as a so called delinquient teen. He's a riot here and helps the disappointment factor from jumping too high. It's also nice to see Leo McCern from Rumple of the Bailey in a token, gruffy, voice-of-the-law role which plays off the Hayes cuteness level without too much strain. Too bad the plot wasn't as meticulously handled as the scenery...