Ady

Thanks Vertrees1 for your post - and welcome to this wonderful community
- as for the broken picture links, yes the site I was using dropped the account - I will repair all the links soon - so check back over the next couple of weeks.
Ady

Wilfried Mueller

According to the IMDB George Pollock died December 22nd, 1979 in Thanet, Kent. He was 72.

Wilfried Mueller, Germany

domino1980

Hi!

I´m a great Miss Marple Fan and love the actress Margaret Rutherford.
If you like to discuss about the four brilliant movies of director George Pollock register to my new Forum.
Miss Marple Movies

Cheers and nice greetings from Germany

Dominic

Marky B

I liked the Margaret Rutherford films (in fact I liked most of her films) and treated them the way intended,as a comedy. My favourite Miss Marple,however,is the late Joan Hickson. I'm afraid I can't warm to the ITV series starring Geraldine McKewan:she's forever going around with a kittenish smile and the emphasis seems to try and get big stars on it.
The first actress to play Miss Marple on television was Gracie Fields in Murder At The Vicarage in the late fifties. I saw Dora Bryan play the sleuth at the Billingham Forum in A Murder Is Announced.

Cheers and greetings from Britain.
Ta Ta
Marky B

I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas - how he got in my pyjamas,I'll never know

Rob Compton

I remember seeing Barbara Mullen (from Dr Finlays Casebook) as Miss Marple in "Murder at the Vicarage" - that would have been around 1974, at the Kings Theatre, Southsea.

She was excellent.

rgds
Rob

Wee Sonny MacGregor

According to the local newspaper of May 1964 some scenes for Murder Ahoy were filmed in Amersham Old Town, far from the sea. A photo was published showing Charles Tingwell and Margaret Rutherford (in naval uniform).

NappieB

That's an amazing bit of trivia!!! I spent quite some time in Amersham a few years later, and saw MURDER AHOY a couple of time some years after that, but never recognized the place from the movie.

I was back in Amersham in 2005 and it hasn't changed all that much...

"The future is yet to come" - George W. Bush

JVerity

Mark me down (and family - wife and son, 8) as a big fan of Margaret Rutherford's Ms. Marple, even over here in the US of A.
Her four Marple films were played a good deal in Germany in the 1960s and '70s, where my wife first got to know them.
Having spent some time in the English countryside as a boy in the 1960s, these Marple films - and especially the horsey one - bring back many sweet memories. I am not sure, but I imagine that much of that England, with that tone and look, is gone, now.
One of my favorite scenes in the movies - sorry, I forget which one - has Stringer going door to door, selling poppies or raffle tickets, to further some investigation. At one house, he gets invited in by a woman who flirts mercilessly with him. It's a very sweet, understated scene.
These were real films, not TV shows, and it is evident.
My understanding - from reading on IMDB, I imagine - is that Agatha Christie wasn't such a big fan of the films, as they didn't adhere much to her idea of Ms. Marple, but nevertheless she became good friends with the actress.
I don't know if these films have ever appeared on U.S. TV. Maybe long ago, when I wasn't aware of the films and didn't have a tube.
We find that we can watch these films over and over; they stand up. Children and adults each like them.

We have much enjoyed Ms. Rutherford in Runaway Bus, too, despite the lousy bootleg VHS print that we're forced to watch - we ordered it somewhere or other on the Web. It is not a grat movie, but a good entertainment, and it is definitely overdue for a proper, remastered release on DVD. Reviews on Amazon give the current DVD release bad marks.

earlb

Taken from the book '208 It was Great' by Alan Bailey:-
Charles Tingwell is a very nice Aussie. He came to fame many years ago in an old black and white TV series called, 'Emergency Ward 10.' He later came to fame again in 'Prisoner cell block eleven' after he returned to his native homeland. He did a few series on Luxy and we knew him by his nickname, 'Bud.' I liked him very much and, in those days, I was still very star struck. On occasions, he would have to disappear to make some little black and white 'B' films for MGM and I always thought how lucky he was to work with my most favourite female actress of all time, Margaret Rutherford. He would play police chief inspector Craddock against her 'Miss Marple.' He's still working in Australia today and I recently had the pleasure of seeing him in 'The man from Snowy River' live in the Melbourne Arena. The Man from Snowy River is a musical based on the life of Banjo Patterson, an Australian itinerant, who reputedly wrote Australia's unofficial anthem, 'Waltzing Matilda.'

Windthrop

You might also want to read a small section of Agatha Christie: An English Mystery by Laura Thompson. Theres not much in it about the films but there is a pic of Christie herself chatting with MR between takes. Am reading it at the moment - pages 430/431/432 are the MR bits. AC liked MR, in fact she dedicated Mirror Cracked to her, but disliked the films. She complained "Why on earth can't MGM write their scripts, engage Margaret Rutherford to play and old lady, "Miss Sampson", have plenty of cheap fun and leave me and my creations out of it ?". You can see her point but the films do have a charm of their own. You haven't mentioned The ABC Murders where she mades a cameo appearance.

Windthrop

You might also want to talk to -

Conrad Phillips
Ron Moody
Nicholas Parsons
Francis Matthews
Francesca Annis
Lionel Jeffries

also the only credited writer still alive - to the best of my knowledge is David D. Osborn - sometimes the middle initial isn't credited. How you would contact him I don't know.

bertie

Although I can't verify this I have heard that the shipboard scenes in Murder Ahoy may have been filmed on the 'Foudroyant' (formerly named The Trincomalee) an old sailing ship which was, at that time, moored in Portsmouth Harbour. It was used during WW2 as a storage ship and thereafter as a training ship - although it didn't itself move as it was not fully rigged. In the mid 1980s it was towed to Hartlepool.

The Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth or the HMS Trincomalee website may be able to help further.

jpv103

hi just want to say that even tough being non-british, Margaret Rutherford is the greatest I've seen. I watch the 4 thrillers over and over, and have as well in this business of trying to find out what places these films were shot at. Reading the forum, i've learned about Sarratt, St Mawes, Denham and so on. I want to visit Denham 1st, though I don't think it's easy to get to. By the way, does anybody know anything about Ron Moody, Driffold Coosgood? is he still with us? It'd be great to talk to him.
bye bye

lordtednfs

I too for many years visited Amersham and have had a "few" beers in the local, especially in Old Amersham where many of the Miss Marple adventures were filmed. But at that time, early to late 70's, none of it was relevent as it is now. I always had a strong love for movies, especially good British movies, but now being so far from home and the chances of seeing them here are one in a billion, I really appreciate and look back with very fond memories of visiting a little piece of film history.

I once visited a pub just "a few" miles away in Aldenham one Thursday evening which just happened to be the quiz evening, the pub being The Three Compasses, and one of the questions asked was "In what British war movie was The Three Compasses featured in?" I had no idea and put down The Black Windmill. Obviously being wrong, I later found out it was for one of my fave war movies 633 Squadron.

Has anyone ever written a book based on British movie locations? It would be a mammoth of a job and would probably take years to do. I know there are many websites dedicated to British movies, but books you can take most places.

Long the British movie scene and it's history.

____________________
Hooked off the line

Windthrop

Ron Moody was recently interviewed by Elaine Paige for her Radio 2 Sunday afternoon programme. He does still work - mainly in theatre.

That's the joke that killed the Music Hall