A Caribbean Mystery (1989) (TV)

Director:

Christopher Petit

Writer:

T.R. Bowen (screenplay)

Release Date:

25 December 1989 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

While on vacation at a resort hotel in the West Indies, Miss Marple correctly suspects that the apparently natural death of a retired British major is actually the work of a murderer planning yet another killing.

Plot Keywords:

Miss Marple | Hotel | Resort | Barbados | Murder

Cast

Joan Hickson	...	Miss Marple
Donald Pleasence	...	Jason Rafiel
Adrian Lukis	...	Tim Kendal
Sophie Ward	...	Molly Kendal
T.P. McKenna	...	Dr. Grahame
Michael Feast	...	Edward Hillingdon
Sheila Ruskin	...	Evelyn Hillingdon
Frank Middlemass	...	Major Palgrave
Robert Swann	...	Greg Dyson (as Robert Swan)
Sue Lloyd	...	Lucky Dyson
Barbara Barnes	...	Esther Walters
Stephen Bent	...	Jackson
Joseph Mydell	...	Inspector Weston
Valerie Buchanan	...	Victoria
Isabelle Lucas	...	Aunty Johnson

Also Known As:

Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: A Caribbean Mystery (UK) (series title)

Runtime:

USA:104 min (DVD)

Country:

UK | USA | Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Barbados

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Quotes:

Jason Rafiel: I had to think about this quite a bit before mentioning it to you.
Inspector Weston: And why is that, Mr. Rafael?
Jason Rafiel: It wasn't my idea, and the person who had it - the idea, I mean - is a little old lady who knits and wears lace. She also has a mind like a bacon slicer.
Inspector Weston: Why didn't she come to me herself?
Jason Rafiel: She didn't think you'd take her seriously.
Inspector Weston: I might have done.
Jason Rafiel: I doubt it. It's a very good disguise. She even had me fooled for a minute.
[He laughs]
Inspector Weston: Better have her name for the record.
Jason Rafiel: Miss Marple.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Version of A Caribbean Mystery (1983) (TV)

A commercial excursion

Originally screened as a Christmas treat, this "Miss Marple" adaptation-- part of a cycle established since 1984- was mainly shot in Barbados and presumably commanded a bigger budget than usual. All the more surprising that direction was entrusted not to a BBC trusty but to Chris Petit, a critic who had turned road-movie maker, imitating Germans such as Wenders.

True, Petit had previously helmed PD James's "An Unsuitable Job for a Woman", with many an attempt to "subvert" that conservative Queen of Crime's material in a feminist direction; but the movie tanked, and this Agatha Christie version is more respectful. As others have remarked, the screenplay (by regular Christie scenarist Trevor Bowen, who as usual writes in a small part for himself) introduces a dash of political correction. Miss M trots round to Isabelle Lucas's shanty for a nice cup of tea to show she's no segregationist, and Shaughan Seymour's haughty white colonial administrator patronises the black police inspector: reasonably so, since the latter has less to do with solving the crime than Miss M's English foil DI Slack, as it turns out.

Donald Pleasence injects an amusingly repellent late cameo as a rough old fellow guest; Barbara Barnes (what happened to her?) is alluring as his put-upon secretary. But for the most part the story unrolls with no conspicuous directorial touches. This was Petit's height as a commercial proposition; subsequently he sank back into the wilderness of arty late-night TV projects. The explosion in British feature film production since the early 1980s seems to have left him as high and dry as Michael Winner, though one would not bracket them for any other reason.