MISS MARPLE'S A WHORE

Been watching ridiculous amounts of TV, movies and DVDs. Santa was good to me and I got the 4th Season of The West Wing, Ultimate Kylie and the Scissor Sisters concert on DVD. Xmas was a quiet time chilling out with the family and doing bugger all. Went to Polo on Boxing Night with David, Jon and Scott and ended up totally pissed. So pissed in fact that I spent most of yesterday in bed being sick. I could say that I'm never going to drink again but I know that come Hogmanay I will be kicking up my heels and wrapping my lips around a vodka and orange like the Sue Ellen Ewing tramp I was born to be.

Agatha Christie's always been a favourite author of mine and at Xmas there's always a slew of movies based on her novels. ITV has reproduced Miss Marple with all star casts (I'm using the term 'star' loosely) in each mystery. We've had Joanna Lumley, Derek Jacobi, Jane Asher, Pam Ferris, Mark Gattis and Amanda Holden in them. It's all very campy as Miss Marple trots round St Mary Mead in post war Britain solving despicable crimes that are seemingly impossible wearing her cardigan and tweed skirt. Hints of Miss Marple having an affair are present now, the spinster was clearly a horny toad who needed her pipes cleaned.


SHOVELLED

My favourite Agatha novel is the fabulous 'Death On The Nile'. The novel's a tad dreary at times but the movie with Peter Ustinov and my favourite ever actress Bette Davis is hilarious. This IS an all star cast. Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, Simon MacCorkindale, Jane Birkin and Maggie Smith. They're all suspects in the murder of Lois Chiles' Linnet Ridgeway. Anyway everyone's convinced that it's Simon Doyle's (Simon MacCorkindale) jilted lover Jacqueline De Bellefort (Mia Farrow) who shot Linnet. Bette Davis and Maggie Smith play mistress and servant and their scenes are far and away the funniest of the movie. Bette looks like she shovelled on the foundation ala Baby Jane whilst Maggie's character Miss Bowers is a definite lesbo even wearing tuxedo garb at one point. Angela Lansbury (Jessica Fletcher to you and me) camps it up as the drunken novelist Salome Otterbourne and does a riotous tango with David Niven. The set piece finale shocked me the first time I saw it but good old Agatha sets everything in place so that the murderer is revealed! Bette had to film the movie in Egypt which she wasn't too happy about because in her day apparently Jack Warner would have built the Nile on a soundstage! Now that's just too much!

I remember seeing another Christie movie called "Appointment With Death" where Piper Laurie was killed by Lauren Bacall who then through herself out a window. John Gielgud and Carrie Fisher were also in it and there was a character called Ginevra which I thought at the time was terribly glamorous - now it's just terrible!