Murder, funny matter?

Murder She Said (1961)

Come to think of it, she is a bit like some of the slightly older people in our lives that we know. (Hush, hush). All inquisitive and nosy at times. Poking their heads into unnecessary businesses and insisting what they saw was right and usually is. It sometimes can be annoying to the affected parties and invades into their something quite private called privacy. To the nosy-pokers, the older generations usually, this concept may be something quite alien! However, there are some who, under the cloak of privacy, do secretive transactions and pass it off as national security and insist that it cannot be questioned. That is another topic for another day!

Margaret Rutherford

Across the Atlantic, in a year's time, Ursula Andres would emerge from the waves draped in what was hardly accepted as garment appropriate for general consumption. Their British cousins were quite contended with casting a 70-year-old Margaret Rutherford, hardly a sex symbol, in a murder mystery penned by Britain's favourite author, Agatha Christie.

Here, in a typical mystery murder fashion, Ms. Marple is the only witness to a murder that had taken place aboard a moving train. Ms. Marple had the pleasure of being able to be the only person able to give details of the mishap as two trains crossed path at a crossing. Expectedly, nobody could verify the death. Neither body nor evidence was found, making our elderly freelance crime buster a pain in the neck.

Unable to take no for an answer, Ms. Marple took police work into her hands. She goes undercover as a maid (an old maid? a wee bit oversized and over-aged to assume the role of agile worker, you may ask) when she deduced, after doing her investigation. She gains employment in an estate and solves the mystery amidst interesting multi-layered characters who are occupants of the estate, and all have a dark secret behind them.

Based on the book '4.50 from Paddington', the movie managed to turn the somber mood of the book to a lighthearted one. Thanks to Margaret Rutherford and the witty screenplay. A sheer joy to watch movies of yesteryears. Unlike the present trend of glamorising exposure of flesh and the use megalomaniac special effect techniques, here the emphasis is on its characterisation and story.