Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

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.

The Body in the Library is one of the most satisfying of the twelve Marples starring Joan Hickson as a not-really-very-sweet little old lady who possesses "a mind more cynical... than any barrister you'll ever encounter.." as one older copper tells a young and ambitious inspector in this episode. Gwen Watford plays Miss Marple's batty chum from Saint Mary Meade (their home village). She is Dolly Bantry and is married to Moray Watson's daft and courtly Col. Arthur Bantry.If Hickson's Marple displays momentary hints of menace it is only that. Hers is a very subtle and dry performance, crammed with sparkling humor that shoots out from her beady little blue eyes. Hickson was a formidable comedian and she is very much one in these shows, powdered over with politeness and modesty. She is never annoying, like Geraldine McEwen's Marple is from time to time with that Old Mother Hubbard portrayal of hers; not her fault really as the producers of that later series had a political agenda which ruined the stories and scripts and any chance of McEwen's being as good as Hickson.With the cast alone you have one of the classics of British television from the mid-to-late 20th century. It isn't only that Joan Hickson is nigh perfect for the role of Miss Jane Marple, it is also that the supporting actors, direction, locations, props, everything are splendidly done. It took me awhile to accept the musical score because I had been watching the pretty awful Marple series with Geraldine McEwen and the score to those productions was very 20th century sounding, like the music of Prokofiev or Britten. In the Hickson series the music is disarmingly charming and almost sounds trite at first. Now it is one of the highlights in an already brilliant achievement. It is catchy and sticks in the mind, it is also frequently very funny. The ballet music in They Do It With Mirrors is hilarious.Some of the highlights of the supporting cast are Jean Simmons, Renée Asherson, Joyce Carey, Claire Bloom and greatest of all joys, Joan Greenwood who plays Selina Hazy in At Bertram's Hotel. After this film Greenwood went on to play a brilliantly macabre Mrs Clenham in Little Dorrit, dying young at 65 and still much missed.The vital secondary roles, inspectors, murderers, victims, chambermaids, cooks, butlers, young lovers and vicars are all appealingly cast by actors familiar to fans of British television. There are no misfires in the casting, which is very rare.The directors take a lot of time surveying the English countryside and the sea. The series, in general, is extremely atmospheric and has just enough sinister shots to prevent the story from becoming merely light entertainment.This Hickson Marple is the one to have in your collection if you need a Marple series to watch on demand, as I do. The Margaret Rutherford movies were bogus but entertaining, and Rutherford is her usual bumbling, hilarious self, but these Hickson shows are the real Marple as Mrs Christie intended her to be.I rate this series a 9 because I still think there is room for something even greater and more like the original stories. Some of the Hickson stories are updated to the 1950s when the entire series takes place. It works fine, but still....

There are two sorts of viewers of this film. Those who see it having first read the novel, and those who see it not having read it.Those who have read it first recognize a superlative job done by the scriptwriter and director, getting all the essentials of the story included within three fifty minute episodes. Those who have not read it first find the film filled with matters that only seem to dither along as Miss Marple herself and merely obstruct the eventual conclusion.Agatha's novels are very difficult to condense into 90 to 120 minutes. There are always delicious elements left out or plot lines that are not developed or explanations not made.In this adaptation, SPOILERS COMING!!, the conclusion wraps up the sleuth's thinking, but leaves out the novel's attention to what happens to Conway Jefferson's daughter in law and her son Peter, resolving the question of the final distribution of the old man's wealth. Maybe the director and scriptwriter decided that the woman was not sympathetic enough to talk about. Indeed, they did present her as something of a cold fish who flirted with two men without any resolution of their fates in the film. It's all explained in the book where she comes across much more sympathetically.But this may be a minor quibble. Many commentators have rightly given this film very high marks. I agree with those who accord this movie top rank or near top rank for its kind.

Joan Hickson's first appearance in her outstanding portrayal of Miss Marple - and the first BBC adaptation written by Trevor Bowen. It was first broadcast in three 50-minute episodes.Suspense: For me, the structure of the adaptation is one of its qualities: each episode ends with a cliffhanger, while parts two and three begin with a shot of the body in the darkness of the Library at Gossington Hall. Watch out for the macabre ending to episode two involving a bonfire, a laugh and a native mask. The use of shadows and closeup shots to create sinister effects are a feature of the BBC adaptations and the first film contains some good examples of this. In my opinion, the closing ten minutes are worthy of a Hitchcock thriller or an expressionist film of the 1920s or 30s.Characterisation: Each member of the cast is suited to their respective roles. Moray Watson's staccato accent makes him an ideal Colonel Bantry; Jess Conrad's appearance is perfect for the role of Raymond Starr; Gwen Watford is brilliant as Dolly Bantry - she is what I would expect a wife of a retired colonel in the 1950s to look like. Members of the cast interact well together: I am thinking here of the opening scene in bed where Dolly browbeats her husband into viewing the dead body in the library. There's also the bond between two elderly friends in the form of Sir Henry Clithering and Miss Marple when the retired professional detective and the amateur sleuth are reunited.Comparison with ITV version: I do not mind the ITV version, but there's no where near as much thought given to casting and scripting as there was in the BBC version. There is too much overacting, particularly with Simon Callow as Inspector Melchett and Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantry. There are also some comical elements which seem a bit cheap and contrived.Overall, the BBC's adaptation of the Body in the Library is highly recommended and is something I will never tire of watching.