Simply dripping with big stars, this glitzy treatment of an Agatha Christie whodunit is a complete mess, although Angela Lansbury doesn't do a bad job as spinster-sleuth Miss Marple and gains valuable insight into the detection game for her long-running TV portrayal of Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote. She's at the centre of things as murder and mayhem visit the sleepy English village of St Mary Mead which just happens to be the setting for a big Hollywood production of Mary Queen of Scots. Edward Fox as a Scotland Yard inspector wins all the points in the acting bouts, knocking spots off the heavyweight quartet of Elizabeth Taylor (then going through a bad patch), Rock Hudson, Kim Novak and Tony Curtis. The pastiche of an old British black and white movie shown at the start is more entertaining than the film itself.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes