The Mirror Crack'd

I've always been a heavy reader, and I tend to go through phases.  I went through a dinosaur book phase, a true crime phase, a biographies phase, a noir phase, and a scientific jargon phase, but the one genre that I have never truly had enough of is the murder mystery.  I'm not sure why that is; some are good, others obviously less so, but I think they serve as a palette cleanser for my reading habits.  Not surprisingly, I return to the works of Agatha Christie on occasion.  As much as I have liked her books --- and I read the crap out of them when I was ten --- I have never thought of them as being terribly cinematic.  The stuff of public television movies?  Sure, why not?  But actual cinema...that just never struck me as a great idea.  I found The Mirror Crack'd on Netflix and decided to give it a shot for a few reasons.  First, I wanted to see how accurate my instincts on Christie movies is.  Second, the cast looked pretty solid.  Most importantly, I have never read the book (or completely forgot about it if I have), so I could theoretically enjoy the mystery.

Like she can theoretically respect the privacy of others

The Mirror Crack'd is a Miss Marple mystery.  That means that the crime (murder) will occur in the small British village of St. Mary Mead (thus, limiting the suspect pool dramatically) and will be solved by an elderly spinster, Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury), thanks to her remarkable insight into human nature.  For this plot, a movie company has decided to film a period piece in St. Mary Mead.  The star of the picture is Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor), but her Hollywood rival, Lola Brewster (Kim Novak), was cast in a supporting role, seemingly just to spite Marina.  A party is thrown to appease the townsfolk and allow them to mingle with the filmmakers, and that is when tragedy strikes.  A local, Heather Babcock, dies after drinking a cocktail intended for Marina.  It is unquestionably murder, since the drink was mostly poison, but who would want to murder the star of the picture?  Many people, apparently.  Once again, it looks like it is up to a spinster to bring justice to the lawless streets of St. Mary Mead.

No, Rock.  She was poisoned, not karate-chopped to death.

When watching The Mirror Crack'd, the first thing you will notice is the high-profile cast.  Angela Lansbury is pretty decent as the all-knowing Miss Marple, even though she has obviously been artificially aged to play the part.  Miss Marple is a tough role to play, because she doesn't actually do much except explain the mystery at the end; Lansbury did a fine job, but it is hard to overcome the inertia of the character.  Interesting side note: this Miss Marple smokes.  You don't often see movies where sweet, elderly women smoke cigarettes any more.  Elizabeth Taylor was surprisingly good as a major actress, past her prime.  I thought she played her delicate moments quite well, but I absolutely loved it when her character was only acting upset.

I also enjoyed her fake smiles

Kim Novak was fun to watch as a foil to Taylor; the two traded quips and barbs throughout the film, and Novak's over-dramatic performance matched her character perfectly.  The supporting cast is pretty high-profile, too.  Rock Hudson played the movie director/husband to Marina Rudd; Hudson was suitably stoic, but nothing remarkable here.  Similarly, Tony Curtis played a slimy producer, but didn't seem to put much effort into it. 

Geraldine Chaplin has a supporting role, as well, although she managed to add some depth to her otherwise bland character.  You can spot a young Pierce Brosnan with a non-speaking role in one of the film-within-a-film scenes; he's little more than a prop with silly hair, but it's still fun to point him out.

The film was directed by Guy Hamilton, who is best known for his contributions to the James Bond 007 franchise.  I haven't seen a whole lot of his work outside of Bond, but I think it can be agreed that a cerebral spinster mystery is a change of pace from his more famous works.  Personally, I wasn't crazy for Hamilton's direction.  Sure, it was competent enough, but a lot of the film just felt too stagey to me; I felt like I was watching a teleplay or a theatrical reenactment.

Because a real Hollywood actress wouldn't look like a Chia pet

On the other hand, I was definitely impressed by the performances he got from Taylor and Novak --- maybe I was just underwhelmed by the non-Hollywood supporting cast members.

My biggest gripe with this movie is with Agatha Christie.  I recently did a little research on Gene Tierney after I reviewed Laura, which naturally led me to learn of her highly publicized tragedy.  The Mirror Crack'd took obvious inspiration from Tierney's life, to the point where I figured out the mystery immediately.  And that is saying something, since Christie mysteries always wait until the last few pages to reveal crucial plot elements.  This felt more like a ripped-from-the-headlines Law & Order episode than a proper movie because it was so obviously based on such a famous mishap.  If you don't have a mild obsession with Tierney, then the mystery will undoubtedly baffle you in the traditional Christie fashion.  Unfortunately for me, I seem to have inherited my grandfather's affection for her, which is admittedly a little unsettling.

Not "death threat" unsettling, but still creepy

I am willing to credit the two leading ladies for their performances and solid storytelling mechanics from the director and the principal supporting cast of The Mirror Crack'd.  Had I not been familiar with the true-life story the plot is based on, I am sure I would have appreciated it more.  As it stands, though, I saw the twist coming from a million miles away, and that ruins the fun in any mystery.

The Long Good Friday

I do a lot of reading of lists and things like that to find interesting movies to watch.  I'm not always in the mood for a great movie (or even a good one), but it's nice to have a little insight into titles that I might otherwise ignore.  That's what brought me to the British Film Institute's 100 "Favourite" Brit flicks of the 20th century.  Many of the films I was familiar with, but The Long Good Friday was the first title (coming in at an impressive #21) that I had never even heard of.  So, with Easter right around the corner, I thought this an appropriate time for a viewing.

Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) is that oh-so-dangerous kind of gangster --- the type that is trying to finally go legit, and therefore has the most to lose.  He has an iron fist on London's organized crime and he has a finger in every dirty little pie (except drugs) in England's greatest city.  Harold has managed to keep the peace between the various criminal groups that he oversees for over a decade, and now (which is in 1979) he is on the cusp of two truly important moves.  He has visiting New York mobsters coming in to possibly give him financing that will allow him to buy up enough (decrepit) London dockyard land and influence enough votes to have London host the 1988 Olympics and build their Olympic town on his land.  The American mobsters get their dirty cash laundered, Harold has a legitimate source of income from the land deals, the city gets a boost of revenue, and all sorts of politicians and policemen get their palms greased.  Best of all, nobody gets killed because it's all mostly legal.  That's better than win-win, it's win-win-win-win-win.  There's just one problem.  On the Good Friday that the American mobsters come to visit, Harold's men start to die in spectacular ways.  His mother's driver is killed by a car bomb, his casino has a bomb in it, two of his best men are found dead; as the day goes on, the bodies and explosions keep piling up.  Who would dare, after a decade of peace, take on the proverbial King Kong of London's criminal underground?  Who could even think of it?  Harold has long since killed his rivals.  Whoever it is, Harold has no problem going to his most savage lengths to find the guilty party.  But what does he do when it is clear that savagery isn't enough?

It's hard to act like a tough thug when you're hanging by a meat hook.

While you might not know the names of the actors in this film, they are all pretty recognizable British actors.  Paul Freeman (Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark) has a small, but pivotal, role in the beginning of the movie.  P.H. Moriarty and Alan Ford (the villains from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, respectively) play some of Harold's thugs; Moriarty was pretty impressive as the knife-loving Razors.  Dexter Fletcher (another Lock, Stock alum) makes an early appearance as an ugly child.  Paul Barber (The Full Monty) gets his hands nailed to a floor to make him tell the truth.  Kevin McNally (Johnny's Depp's drunken buddy in all the Pirates movies) has a bit scene in a bar.  Most of these actors had pretty small roles in the film, but most of them have at least one memorable scene.  Heck, Pierce Brosnan, in his first film role, had a major supporting role as a very hairy-chested assassin. 

James Bond: the bathhouse years.

The film belongs to the lead actors, though.  Bob Hoskins is terrific as the street-level thug trying to be a gentleman, especially as that gentlemanly facade is slowly stripped away and we get to see just how brutal he is.  You don't see a whole lot of physically evocative performances from British films in general, but it was all but unheard of in the late-70s/early-80s; the best British films of the time tended to be epic and theatrically acted.  Seeing Hoskins gnashing his teeth together and seething with violence while wearing a fancy suit was a treat.  This is a performance that pre-dates --- and, in some ways, overshadows --- James Gandolfini's Sopranos role by over two decades.  But what sets this movie apart from other gangster movies, at least in the character department, comes from Helen Mirren's portrayal of Harold's girlfriend.  She could have played the typical gangster moll, but (at her insistence, I've heard) her character is smart, sophisticated, and is definitely the brains behind Harold's brawn.  Can you tell me the last time you saw a gangster movie where the lead female role was equal in power to the male lead?  I can't think of any, but you're welcome to try.  This is the youngest I've ever seen Mirren (she was in her mid-thirties at the time), so I was a little surprised to see her as, well...young and pretty.  While her part was definitely a supporting role, I thought her calm and collected smarts stole the scenes she was in.

I'm not too familiar with John Mackenzie's body of work as a director, but he obviously did a pretty good job with the actors here.  I love that the beginning of the film lays out some problems, but doesn't explain them until much later; this might be confusing at first, but I thought that showing what happened, but not hearing the dialogue in most of the scenes or knowing the context of the actions was an interesting (and ultimately rewarding) choice.  I wish I could say the same for some of Mackenzie's other choices.  Many scenes go on too long, adding little or nothing to the overall story and the score, while modern at the time, sounds positively archaic now.  I liked how he handled the actors and assembled the story, but I have to admit that the movie drags at times.

What sets this movie apart from your typical gangster movie is the problem it poses.  The police aren't getting in Harold's way, because he pays them not to.  Politicians aren't making a stink about it, because Harold pays them not to.  Harold's enemies aren't causing all these problems, because they're all dead.  As the enemy is slowly revealed, things start to make sense, especially once the motives for the attacks become apparent.  What I really liked about this movie was how it found an enemy that could take on mobsters and plausibly win.  The script was handled intelligently and it definitely spoke to some of the reality of 1970s Britain.

I will probably watch this again, and I might appreciate it a little more the next time around.  Even if I don't it's still pretty darn good.