Film and Television Adaptations
The novel was adapted for a 1980 feature film with Angela Lansbury in the role of Miss Marple. Co-stars were Elizabeth Taylor as Marina Gregg and Kim Novak as Lola Brewster; the film was released as The Mirror Crack'd, the shortened U.S. book title.
A second adaptation of the novel was made by BBC television in 1992 as part of their series Miss Marple with the title role played by Joan Hickson, and starring Claire Bloom as Marina Gregg and Glynis Barber as Lola Brewster. This adaptation was mainly faithful to the novel, with minor changes. The novel was the final adaptation for the BBC series Miss Marple.
ITV Studios and WGBH Boston produced another adaptation for the Marple television series starring Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple, with Joanna Lumley reprising her role as Dolly Bantry, Lindsay Duncan as Marina Gregg and Hannah Waddingham as Lola Brewster. This version borrowed elements from the 1980 film, but ultimately remained faithful to Christie's original text.
Film director and screenwriter Rituparno Ghosh created a Bengali language version of Christie's story as Subho Mahurat (2003), which reset the story in the film industry of Kolkata (Calcutta). In this version, Sharmila Tagore plays the aging star Padmini, the counterpart to Christie's Marina Gregg. The movie features Rakhi Gulzar in the role of the equivalent of Miss Marple.
Read more about this topic: The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side
Famous quotes containing the words film and television, film and/or television:
“The obvious parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have frequently been noted: in both there is the orphan hero who is raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle and yearns to escape to adventure. Obi-wan Kenobi resembles the Wizard; the loyal, plucky little robot R2D2 is Toto; C3PO is the Tin Man; and Chewbacca is the Cowardly Lion. Darth Vader replaces the Wicked Witch: this is a patriarchy rather than a matriarchy.”
—Andrew Gordon, U.S. educator, critic. “The Inescapable Family in American Science Fiction and Fantasy Films,” Journal of Popular Film and Television (Summer 1992)
“The woman’s world ... is shown as a series of limited spaces, with the woman struggling to get free of them. The struggle is what the film is about; what is struggled against is the limited space itself. Consequently, to make its point, the film has to deny itself and suggest it was the struggle that was wrong, not the space.”
—Jeanine Basinger (b. 1936)
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)