A Pocket Full Of Rye Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES PLOT SUMMARY
Wealthy business man Rex Fortescue collapses when he reaches his office. It is determined that he was poisoned. No one seems too upset, as everyone agrees that Rex was a tyrant. Soon however Rex's young wife also turns up poisoned. The maid, Gladyes, whom Miss Marple trained, writes to Miss Marple asking for help. Miss Marple arrives too late, as Gladyses' body is found strangled and strung up on the clothes line. Now it's personal, and Miss Marple is determined to see the murderer punished.
| Joan Hickson | Miss Jane Marple |
| Timothy West | Rex Fortescue |
| Fabia Drake | Miss Henderson |
| Clive Merrison | Percival Fortescue |
| Rachel Bell | Jennifer Fortescue |
| Peter Davison | Lance Fortescue |
| Frances Low | Patricia Fortescue |
| Stacy Dorning | Adele Fortescue |
| Martyn Stanbridge | Vivian Dubois |
| Tom Wilkinson | Detective Inspector Neele |
| Jon Glover | Detective Sergeant Hay |
| Selina Cadell | Mary Dove |
| Annette Badland | Gladys Martin |
| Merelina Kendall | Mrs. Crump |
| Frank Mills | Mr. Crump |
| Guy Slater |
6.90 out of 10 (168 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Found - the perfect Jane Marple
posted on 22 Sep 2007I recall a British TV series some years back entitled "J'Accuse" the purpose of which was to demolish certain popular sacred cows. They were programmes designed to delight of infuriate according to the predilections of the viewer. From my point of view I was in agreement with the treatment given to "Citizen Kane" but when it came to Laurence Olivier and Agatha Christie, definitely "Non!". As a youngster I devoured practically everything Dame Agatha produced and she remains to this day for my money the absolute mistress of the surprise "Who dun it" particularly when many of the more recent exponents of the genre are running to works of near Dickensian length. Christie needed little more than 200 pages for each of her superb plots, ideal when all you are looking for is a half-day divertissement rather than a complex literary work. For many years her novels seemed to defy good cinematic adaptation. The Rene Clair version of "Ten Little Niggers" worked reasonably well as it had a good cast, bags of atmosphere and stayed fairly true to the book. But then it was remade a couple of times in more exotic locations with disastrous results, the essential ingredient of claustrophobia missing. That was the trouble, Agatha was quintessentially English and cosy with little pretensions to humour.
Attempt to make her funny and you have those dire Margaret Rutherford - Miss Marple films that have dated to the extent of becoming excruciatingly embarrassing. Several actors have tackled Poirot with varying results but perhaps it is the very unreality and quirkiness of the character that make the part so difficult to play. Certainly David Suchet is more watchable than Ustinov, Finney and Molina. Miss Marple is a different matter. It just needed to find that someone who could convey the frailty of an elderly spinster with a razor sharp mind that could detect evil in the most unlikely. No wonder that the hammy humour of the well-built Rutherford was so wide of the mark. Angela Lansbury got much closer in the star-studded "The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side", so much so that it seemed that a passable Marple had been discovered. But the film was a one-off and it was only in retrospect after the casting of Joan Hickson in the TV series of the 'eighties and early 'nineties that one realised that Lansbury was not quite right for the part. Hickson however was another matter, casting so inspired that it seemed that she had been waiting all her life of mainly bit-parts as crotchety landladies and barmaids for a role she was just born to play.
(See my comments on the 1999 TV adaptation of "David Copperfield" where much the same thing happened for several British stars.) It is the absolute rightness of Hickson in the Marple role that makes this series of twelve easily the best visualisations of Christie's work, that and their faithful recreations of their author's time and place. "A Pocket Full of Rye" is very typical being somewhere between what was easily the best - the brilliantly plotted "A Murder is Announced" with some wonderful supporting roles - and the weakest - "They do it with Mirrors" - where the plot is much less interesting than usual. It enjoys that favourite Christie device of a series of deaths linked with the events of a nursery rhyme, the motivation of money which features in well over half her stories and a plot in which what happens in the present has its roots deeply embedded in the past. It is this latter feature that links her work to that of the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In both practically everything of significance has happened years before the curtain rises. The past therefore has to be explored in order to explain the present. No wonder that it needed a Miss Marple with the attributes of one who seems to be quietly ferreting away in the background to discover past secrets to make the character absolutely credible. It cannot be done through caricature as Joan Hickson so admirably realised.
Aunt Jane does it again
posted on 11 Apr 2007Outside o the two Miss Marple collection sets are three videos that are more of a made for television series. This is one "A Pocketful of Rye"
Rex Fortescue is out of character as he arrives at is office. You immediately know something is wrong because this is England and Rex has ordered his tea much too early. Yep mean old nasty Rex is found dead. Thorough detectives have determined that there was some mysterious grain in his pocket. If you remember the nursery rime you can follow the story. So how does Jane become involved? She trained the maid and is afraid for her safety. Naturally at several places in the mystery Miss Marple (Joan Hickson) points out the obvious to Det. Sergeant Hay (Jon Glover) who realizes and corrects the error of not listening to her.
There is only one repugnant scene where you have to watch Rex eat. Other than that it is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery.
Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
Sing a Song of Murder ...
posted on 28 Feb 2007Seemingly innocuous, English nursery rhymes often have a rather sinister origin; and noone knew this better than Agatha Christie, who repeatedly used them as a motif; most famously probably in 1939's "And Then There Were None" (a/k/a "Ten Little Indians"), where the murderer kills his victims, one by one, in the fashion of the "Ten Little Indians" ditty.
"A Pocket Full of Rye" is one of three Christie mysteries based on "Sing a Song of Sixpence;" the others are the short stories "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" and "Sing a Song of Sixpence," contained in the collections "Three Blind Mice" and "The Witness For the Prosecution," respectively. The nursery rhyme describes, in coded language, the modus operandi of a feared pirate known as Blackbeard, terror of the high seas between 1716 and 1718, who lured men into his services by promises of lavish pay and rations of rum ("sixpence" and "rye"), and often approached merchant ships under cover of friendly colors, only to have his concealed crewmen ("blackbirds in a pie") emerge at the last moment and assault the other ship, which more often than not resulted in rich takings ("a dainty dish") for Blackbeard ("the king") and his men:
Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing.
Now wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
In Christie's mystery, it is the murderer himself who uses the nursery rhyme to play his ghastly game with the Fortescue family. Soon after ill-tempered, wealthy patriarch Rex Fortescue (Timothy West) has died in his office of a rare poison - and subsequently been found with rye in his pocket - his impossibly young and, shall we say, free-spirited widow Adele (Stacy Dorning) is likewise found dead, in the house's drawing room and after having had tea, which uncharacteristically included a serving of honey. (The nursing rhyme continues "the king was in his counting house counting out his money; the queen was in the parlor eating bread and honey.") But while Detective Inspector Neele (Tom Wilkinson), in one of the few mysteries not featuring Milchester C.I.D.'s Inspector Slack, is still searching for clues and the press is starting to speculate about black magic, Miss Marple instantly zeroes in on the nursery rhyme, and as instantly she is worried: For the ditty ends with the lines "The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes, when down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose" ... and the Fortescues' maid is none other than one of Miss Marple's proteges: impressionable, naive, clumsy and not very bright Gladys Martin (Annette Badland). Unfortunately Miss Marple arrives too late to protect her; and now, of course, the matter becomes personal - and she will not rest until she has found the murderer who, she feels, must be among the surviving members of the Fortescue household; particularly given that an actual pie containing dead and decayed blackbirds has made its appearance in the house a while earlier. Indeed, there are suspects aplenty, including everyone from Rex's unequal sons Percival (Clive Merrison) - heir to the Fortescue business - and Lance (Peter Davison) - recently returned from Africa-, their wives Jennifer (Rachel Bell) and Patricia (Frances Low), Rex's bible-quoting sister in law from his first marriage (Fabia Drake), Adele's shallow "golfing partner" Vivian Dubois (Martyn Stanbridge), the family's perfect housekeeper (or is she?) Miss Dove (Selina Cadell) ... and the as yet unknown heirs of Rex Fortescue's former business partner, who quarreled with him over the rights to a certain Blackbird Mine.
Originally airing on TV in the 1980s, the BBC's adaptations of Agatha Christie's twelve Miss Marple novels featured Joan Hickson in the title role; quickly establishing her as the quintessential Miss Marple even in the view of the grandmother (or rather, grand-aunt) of all village sleuths and "noticing kinds of persons"'s creator, Dame Agatha herself. (After seeing Hickson in an adaptation of her "Appointment With Death," as early as 1946 Christie reportedly sent her a note expressing the hope she would "play my dear Miss Marple.") Prior versions, partly involving rather high-octane casts, had seen as Miss Marple, inter alia, Angela Lansbury and Margaret Rutherford, but had been decidedly less faithful to Christie's books. While Lansbury holds her own fairly well when compared to the character's literary original in 1980's "Hollywood does Christie" version of "The Mirror Crack'd" (and that movie's ageing actresses' showdown featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak is a delight to watch) the four movies starring Rutherford are only loosely based on Christie's books: Dame Margaret's Miss Marple, although itself likewise a splendid performance, has about as much to do with Agatha Christie's demure and seemingly scatterbrained village sleuth as Big Ben does with the English countryside, and of the scripts, only "Murder, She Said" is an adaptation of a Miss Marple mystery ("4:50 From Paddington"), whereas two of the others - "Murder at the Gallop" and "Murder Most Foul" - are actually Hercule Poirot stories ("After the Funeral" and "Mrs. McGinty's Dead," respectively), and "Murder Ahoy" is based on a completely independent screenplay.
Like all entries in the BBC series produced with great faithfulness to the tone and atmosphere set by Christie's original, "A Pocket Full of Rye" first aired (in three installments) in 1985, a year before the BBC's adaptation of the first Miss Marple novel ("Murder at the Vicarage," 1930 - the first BBC production featuring St. Mary Mead's elderly spinster was 1984's "Body in the Library," based on the second Miss Marple novel, written 1942). As always, Miss Marple finds the solution while the police are still hot on the pursuit of the wrong suspect. And the murderer's motive? "Oh, it was greed ... one knows that, naturally ..."
Also recommended:
Murder at the Vicarage: A Miss Marple Mystery (Agatha Christie Collection)
Agatha Christie: Five Complete Miss Marple Novels (Avenel Suspense Classics)
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
Marple Classic Mysteries (Caribbean Mystery/4:50 from Paddington/Moving Finger/Nemesis/At Bertram's Hotel/Murder at Vicarage/Sleeping Murder/They Do It with Mirrors/Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side)
Miss Marple - 3 Feature Length Mysteries (The Body in the Library / A Murder Is Announced / A Pocketful of Rye)
The Mirror Crack'd
Pocketful of Rye
posted on 08 Feb 2005Miss Marple really has her work cut out for her in this mystery. Financier Rex Fortescue is poisoned. Why was rye found in his pocket? Is the killer one of his two sons or his young bride? Then Gladys, a maid in the home who was trained by Miss Marple is the next victim. Gladys had tried to reach Miss Marpel. What did she know? Then another death occurs. Will Miss Marple find out who the killer is before another death happens? This story has several smaller ones running through it that keep you on your toes.
Another good entry in the Hickson series
posted on 04 Feb 2005This is one of my favourites of the Hickson Miss Marple series. Miss Marple is alerted to goings on at Yew Tree Lodge by an ex maid, Gladys but by the time she gets there, there have been three murders already including Gladys herself! The nursery rhyme of the title is largely irrelevant but the story is well plotted and the conclusion satisfying. I don't feel enough is made of the plight of the pathetic Gladys - the book does this so much more effectively and you really end up hating the murderer as a result but apart from that it's pretty good. The cast here is generally excellent. Tom Wilkinson is one of the better accompanying detectives and there are good turns from Stacy Dorning as the airhead second wife, Rachel Bell as the childlike Jennifer and Peter Davison as the charming Lance. Miss Marple finds a kindred spirit in the formidable Miss Henderson of Fabia Drake. My favourite though is Selina Cadell's Mary Dove - exactly as I pictured her in the book! A satisfying mid series entry.
The Ricci Look
posted on 08 Aug 2004Do this: read the Marple mysteries. They are an amazing collection of experiments with the form. The whole idea in Christie's mind is one of competing forces, competing realities. The narrator, reader and detective conspire to make one of these competing realities dominate.Her whole game is based on the rules of the genre. She bends them, twists their influence. Each story takes one of these rules and goofs with it. But it all depends on the rules.Now watch these TeeVee Marple movies. Not a one of them respects the rules. In the books, you work the puzzle. But TeeVee viewers just want it to be worked out on the screen and don't care to have the clues properly presented.Its a scandal to anyone whose mind is still alive.The one interesting feature here is the boff gold digger. BBC's bread and butter is faces and spaces, and they spend particular attention to faces. The engineered face in this crowd is Adele, what is now called the Christina Ricci look.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
Not much fun
posted on 07 Oct 2003Probably the least interesting of the BBC TV adaptions; and one of the few unavailable on DVD for some reason. The only really entertaining parts come from the formidable elderly actress Fabia Drake, who plays "Miss Henderson".
She wanders around making stern condemning comments; the best comes when the ditzy young blonde wife makes a comment about going to the Clubhouse (located on a nearby golf-course as I recall). Miss Henderson gives a loud sniff, and mutters "Clubhouse! .... WHOREhouse!" which always leaves me in stitches. Otherwise its not that memorable; I can't recall if the book itself was very interesting to begin with. Its fun to see Tom Wilkinson in a younger role.
A Nursery Rhyme Points to Murder!!
posted on 21 Aug 2003+++++
I watched this movie without reading the 1953 Dame Agatha Christie novel that it was based on. (Christie wrote twelve Miss Marple murder mysteries altogether.) I'm glad I did this! Why? Because it forced me to really watch the movie in order to try and deduce who the murderer was.
This movie begins with a wealthy person dying. The police, led by Detective Inspector Neele (Tom Wilkinson), are called in to investigate. Forensics determines that this person was poisoned and it is found that one of the victim's pockets had seed (later determined to be rye) in it. At this point, a nervous member of the estate that the dead person owned (called "Yew Tree Lodge") writes to Miss Marple (the late Joan Hickson) and tells her of the death. Miss Marple begins an unofficial investigation but not before two more suspicious deaths occur.
The major clue to these deaths, as Miss Marple determines, is a sixteen line children's nursery rhyme:
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocketful of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn't that a dainty dish,
To put before the King?
The King was in the counting house,
Counting out his money;
The Queen was in the Parlor,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird,
And bit her on the nose.
Eventually, a surprising accidental death occurs.
Who are the people that live at or are associated with this estate? They are as follows:
1. Rex Fotescue, a London financier and the estate's owner (Tim West)
2. Adele, Rex's young wife (Stacy Dorning)
3. Miss "Effie" Henderson, Rex's sister-in-law from his first marriage (Fabia Drake)
4. Vivian Dubois, Adele's "golf partner" (Martyne Stanbridge)
5. Percival Fortescue, Rex's son from his first marriage (Clive Merrison)
6. Jennifer, Percival's wife (Rachel Bell)
7. Lance Fortescue, another son of Rex from his first marriage (Peter Davison)
8. Pat, Lance's wife (Francis Low)
9. Mary Dove, housekeeper and supervisor to the staff working at Rex's estate (Selina Cadell)
10. Mrs. Crump, the estate's cook (Merelina Kendall)
11. Mr. Crump, the cook's husband (Frank Mills)
12. Gladys Martin, the estate's maid and Miss Marple's protégé (Annette Badland)
Joan Hickson (whom Agatha Christie herself wanted to play Miss Marple) captures the essence of the heroine super sleuth in her performance. (Hickson was 79 years old in this movie!)
The cinematography is visually stunning. All costumes are authentic looking. Also, the background music adds to each scene.
Finally, I have noticed in this Miss Marple series that the cassette containers have the wrong still pictures usually on the back of the container. For this movie's container, however, there is a wrong still picture on the front of the container. (This picture is from "Murder at the Vicarage," another good Miss Marple murder mystery.)
In conclusion, this is a fun movie even if you have read the novel it's based on!!
(1985; 100 min; made for TV; closed-captioned; British drama; full screen; color)
+++++
A great tape
posted on 31 May 2002When a rich man dies under very mysterious circumstances, Miss Marple (played by Joan Hickson) becomes interested. However, when she begins to really follow the details of what has happened, she quickly realizes that more murders are sure to follow. This is a very deep mystery, and only Jane Marple can find out what is really going on and why! [Color, released in 1985, with a running time of 2:33.]
Every once in a while, an actor comes along who not only plays the role of Sherlock Holmes, but actually redefines the role. Well, this has now happened with Agatha Christie's detective, Miss Marple! In 1984, veteran actress Joan Hickson (1906-98) was tapped to play Miss Marple, and the rest, as they say, is history.
This is a great tape, and a great small-screen adaptation of Agatha Christie's excellent book. If you are a fan of great mysteries, then this is for you. Heck, even if you just like high-quality British drama, then you will love this movie. I love this movie, and give it my highest recommendations!
Slightly above-average episode
posted on 05 May 2001Although I wouldn't classify "A Pocketfull Of Rye" as one of Agatha Christie's best stories, it still keeps your interest; there is a variation on the "ABC Murders" theme (the killer hiding the one and only murder that is important to him / her among a series of seemingly related murders), and a pretty clever solution to the problem of "murder via long distance"! I must admit that my favorite part of this film is by far Selina Cadell as Mary Dove, the efficient housekeeper. Smart, sarcastic, observant - she is the thinking man's ideal wife. I particularly loved the scene where she confesses to some "minor discrepancies in the home accounting"! I just wish she had more to do in the second half. Second favorite is Fabia Drake as Miss Henderson, who has some of the best lines: "I have ALWAYS been very peculiar" and "The journey between Vice and Evil is but a step". And third favorite is Tom Wilkinson as Inspector Neele, a likable, level-headed fellow who is quicker to appreciate the value of Miss Marple's contributions than a certain Inspector Slack! (***)
One of the better TV translations of an Agatha Christie novel...
posted on 22 Sep 2000JOAN HICKSON was an excellent Jane Marple and this is definitely one of the better TV works of Agatha Christie's A POCKET FULL OF RYE. The clever plotting uses a nursery rhyme (one of Christie's favorite ways of linking a complex set of clues to a murder), and gives a nice assortment of suspicious characters a chance to make the perfect sort of red herrings.The mystery gets underway as soon as Rex Fortescue is killed. He's a rich, nasty old man who has a fortune tied to some nasty business in his past, and enough enemies to make everyone a likely suspect. Crisply acted and played in elegant British fashion by an assortment of reliable British supporting players, it keeps you interested in solving the crime along with the baffled inspector, who is no match for Miss Marple.Hickson is perfectly cast as the wise old lady and makes the character seem as though Christie had her in mind for the role.
Incorrect video packages
posted on 04 Nov 1999This is just to say that I have almost all of the Miss Marple videos and several have incorrect pictures on the jackets. For instance "A Pocket Full of Rye"... has a picture of a scene from "Murder At The Vicarage" with Joan Hickson and Paul Eddington. There are a couple of others also. I makes it a little confusing when you go to choose one to watch. Thank you.
Stygian gloom
posted on 20 Jan 2009Now available on a BBC DVD, this episode of Miss Marple is unfortunately plunged in complete darkness from beginning to end, making it at times quite difficult to see who is actually on screen. Maybe this is intended to add to the atmosphere of the house in which the action takes place, and indeed houses in mourning would have had their curtains drawn at the time, but need all the lights have been off as well?Though a fairly faithful adaptation of the book, one of Agatha Christie's later thrillers, there is not a great deal of detection or thought process in the play and when presented with the killer, my reaction was simply 'oh'.When you can see them, some nice early '50's details.