#Joan HIckson

[mycroftholmesian]

Happy Birthday Agatha Christie!! The Queen of Crime! 🎂🎉🥳📚🔍

[itsawritblr]

"Mysteries are trash writing including Agatha Christie and nobody reads it anymore."

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

[missanthropicprinciple]

☕️

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Au Festival Agatha Christie de Torquay, une rencontre a été organisée entre Miss Marple, incarnée par Joan Hickson, et Hercule Poirot, joué par David Suchet. Miss Marple, connue pour ses observations astucieuses et son sens inébranlable de la justice, a vite remarqué l'attention méticuleuse de Poirot aux détails et l'approche méthodique pour résoudre les mystères. Poirot, en revanche, admirait la vive intuition et la capacité de Miss Marple à voir à travers les complexités de la nature humaine. Les deux détectives emblématiques ont partagé des idées et échangé des plaisanteries, ravisant les fans des personnages intemporels d'Agatha Christie.

[fashioninpaper]

A very cool handmade doll of Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Natasha Morezmore Studio shows how it was made step by step at the link below.

[joanhicksonsdaughter]

Happy 118th birthday to my irreplaceable & perfect heroine, Joan Hickson. I shall celebrate your birthday every year because you shall always be a light in my life, a sweet breath for my unhappy days and especially an example that I shall take with me every year. I love you and I shall continue loving and admiring you forever!

[mariocki]

Law and Disorder (1958)

"Right, now listen boys, it's all lined up: we're getting rid of the judge."

"What?"

"Knock off a judge? You must be raving, we'll spend the rest of our lives in clink."

"Here, let me out!"

"We don't have to touch him. Police are gonna arrest him."

"Oh, that's better. Thought we'd turned nasty."

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 11

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “It really is very dangerous to believe people. I never have for years.”

Number 11 is…Miss Marple.

Miss Marple is one of the most popular characters created by Agatha Christie: a woman whom many consider to be the single greatest mystery writer in the history of English literature. (Yes, even more than Conan Doyle.) While Christie wrote many marvelous books, and created a number of equally marvelous characters, only two have managed to make this list. On the bright side, however, one will be in my oncoming Top 10 (I won’t say who, nor where they rank exactly), and Miss Marple herself only JUST misses out on making the same, which I’d say is pretty good.

I mentioned with Ellery Queen and Father Brown the idea of the “Accidental Detective” or “Busybody Detective.” I think many would argue that, at least in the world of literature, Miss Marple – while not the first of this kind (the aforementioned Father Brown predates her by about twenty years) – might have been the most popular and influential. Miss Marple is not a detective by profession in any regard; she’s not even a priest or an author. She is, in fact, a rather prim, elderly spinster lady, who lives largely alone in a fine old house, living a life of sublime comfort and seeming tranquility and peace. She is, some would argue, the single least likely of all unlikely detectives there have ever been. She’s old, she’s petite, she’s mild-mannered, has a few eccentricities…in short, she seems more like that kind, well-off grandmother or aunt down the road than a super sleuth.

Of course, a super sleuth is what Miss Marple is. Miss Marple doesn’t go out of her way to find crimes and solve them, but whenever a murder or some other injustice effectively falls into her lap, and she feels the police aren’t doing well enough to figure it out, she takes it upon herself to lend her assistance in solving the crime. Her age, her experience, and – much like with Father Brown – her plain common sense are her greatest assets. While Miss Marple is not typically harsh or unkind, it’s indicated that – even before taking up her "hobby" of solving befuddling crimes – she’s seen a lot of human injustices and cruelties. Under her gentle-hearted surface, she’s privately a bit jaded. She’s not grouchy or overtly cynical, but she's also never remotely shocked or startled when terrible things happen, nor particularly upset by any motive for them, because she’s seen it all. She understands human nature and its capacity for evil, so she trusts no one completely and sees no great surprises.

Once again, the character of Miss Marple is one who has been adapted many, MANY times over the years. The first highly popular interpretation onscreen was Margaret Rutherford: her somewhat comedic film takes on the Miss Marple stories actually reinvented the detective somewhat, accentuating her eccentricities and making her a more zany character than usual. While not really what Christie imagined, this version is still popular today. Other actresses who played the character in movies include Angela Lansbury and Helen Hayes. She’s also starred in a couple of TV shows; the most recent featured first Geraldine McEwan in the role, then later Julia McKenzie, after McEwan decided to retire from the series. Arguably the strangest interpretation was an anime with the very long title of “Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot & Marple.” This series adapted various tales of Christie’s, including not only the Miss Marple books, but also several tales featuring her other most famous creation, Hercule Poirot. The two detectives were connected by an original character named Maybelle: a relative of Miss Marple who works for Poirot.

Most fans of Miss Marple seem to agree that the definitive screen portrayal of the character was Joan Hickson, who played the part in a TV series that ran from the mid-80s all the way into the early 90s. (She is the fine lady pictured here.) Hickson also narrated several audiobooks of the Marple stories, only adding to her legacy. To say she was right for the role is an understatement: long before being cast in the TV program, Hickson had appeared in a play based on Christie’s story “Appointment With Death.” The author was so taken with her performance, she later told Hickson that she felt, one day, the actress could be a perfect Miss Marple. As evident from critical reception since, this was a case of excellent judgment. No matter who you prefer in the role, considering that as recently as 2022 there were new Marple stories still being printed (obviously by contemporary authors; Christie’s work, in general, has many contemporary treatments to uncover, some better than others), it’s safe to say this grand old lady is still in the prime of her crime-solving life.

Tomorrow, the countdown enters the Top 10!

CLUE: “The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.”

[bane-huntress]

I'm ill... and this was a thing XD

Just watching Miss Marple "Murder She Said" 1961, cos I'm watching stuff with Margaret Rutherford in... and it's way to early in the morning, cos my cold wont let me sleep /blagh...

BUT...

As I was watching, I was like "Hang on a minute, it cant be!" so I googled it. and Joan Hickson who went on to play Miss Marple in like the 90's is in it! Marple Inception! XD

Look, I'm tired and sick and had to share, cos I normally only recognise ppl by their voice, and miss Marple isnt something I ever really watch, unless it's on and someone else was watching, but she was one of the better ones, like a right old battle axe XD

/slups on Blackcurrant Lemsip

[motionpicturelover]

"A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" (1972) - Peter Medak

Films I've watched in 2023 (3/?)

Full film:

Films and series I've watched in 2023 (3/119)

[frank-o-meter]

[darlingbandit]

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg features what can only be described as the most disastrous couples’ get-together since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

[itsawritblr]

Miss Marple & Hercule Poirot meet.

For me there is no better Miss Marple and Poirot than Joan Hickson and David Suchet.

I wish they could have done a whole episode together.

[missanthropicprinciple]

Miss Marple: Oh dear me *playing people like a fiddle as she pretends to be a scavy old bat* 

[lifewithaview]

Joan Hickson and Gwen Watford in Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: The Body in the Library (1984) Part 1

The corpse of a young girl is discovered in the library of Gossington Hall. The murder victim is platinum blonde and dressed appropriately for a party, but the middle-aged homeowners of the Hall have not invited any party guests. In fact, Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife Dolly have no idea who that girl was. The local police is called to investigate. Dolly tasks the amateur detective Jane Marple to find answers to this mystery.

*First appearance of Joan Hickson as Miss Jane Marple.

[cultfaction]

Cult Faction Podcast Ep. 105: Theatre of Blood

In this week’s episode Douglas Hickox’s Theatre of Blood goes under the spotlight! It stars Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Harry Andrews, Coral Browne, Robert Coote, Diana Dors, Jack Hawkins, Ian Hendry, Joan Hickson, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Robert Morley, Milo O’Shea, Dennis Price and Eric Sykes. All that plus three more critics who need to heed the warnings of this…