Classic Films in Focus: THE MIRROR CRACK'D (1980)

Director Guy Hamilton's 1980 film, The Mirror Crack'd, is not the greatest screen adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery; there are plenty of more likely contenders for that title, including Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and Death on the Nile (1978). That said, it is a solid enough picture, perhaps a bit slow, but worth the time for Christie fans, particularly those who favor the village investigations of Miss Marple, here played by the very capable Angela Lansbury. The best audience for The Mirror Crack'd, however, is undoubtedly the experienced classic movie fan, who will appreciate this picture's dense web of classic Hollywood references, allusions, and inside jokes.

As Miss Marple, Lansbury enjoys a ringside seat at a murder investigation that begins when a group of Hollywood players settles in the neighborhood to make a lavish costume drama. At a party hosted by the American celebrities, one of the locals, Heather Babcock (Maureen Bennett), is fatally poisoned, and the evidence suggests that the intended victim was actually troubled star, Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor). Plenty of suspects surround the actress, including her husband, Jason (Rock Hudson), her assistant, Ella (Geraldine Chaplin), and her hated rival, Lola (Kim Novak). Scotland Yard sends Miss Marple's nephew, Inspector Craddock (Edward Fox), to solve the case, and he naturally relies upon his observant aunt for assistance in discovering the identity of the murderer.

As a sleuth, Lansbury is best known as Jessica Fletcher, the heroine of the television series, Murder, She Wrote, but she makes a perfectly good Miss Marple, although in 1980 she was really too young for the role at only 55. There's less than a decade between Lansbury and her costar, Elizabeth Taylor, but Taylor looks decidedly middle-aged, while Lansbury's makeup and costume are designed to pass her off as a little old lady. The two actresses had first appeared together as sisters in National Velvet back in 1944, so The Mirror Crack'd represents a kind of reunion for its two stars. They are joined by an elite ensemble of classic Hollywood A-listers, with Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Charlie Chaplin's daughter, Geraldine Chaplin, and Kim Novak all playing substantial parts. Of the lot, Kim Novak has the most fun; she makes off with the entire film in her role as brassy, bitchy Lola Brewster, a wicked parody of the rotten Hollywood diva.

Christie's plot derives from a well-known Hollywood tragedy involving classic star Gene Tierney, which I won't summarize here because knowing what happened makes it all too easy to see how the mystery will end. Wait until after the movie to look it up if you aren't familiar with the real-life events. Other allusions in the film include the middle initial of Tony Curtis' producer character, a reference to David O. Selznick, as well as spoken lines from the characters that pay tribute to the other films of the stars playing the roles. Elizabeth Taylor, for example, gets to mock Kim Novak for looking like Lassie, with whom Taylor had starred in Lassie Come Home (1943), while Rock Hudson's frequent costar Doris Day is mentioned in another joke.

The Mirror Crack'd takes its title from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem, The Lady of Shalott; Christie named the original novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side and used the poem as a recurring motif. Most of the film's stars are easy enough to find in other pictures, especially Elizabeth Taylor. Blink and you'll miss an uncredited appearance by a very young Pierce Brosnan. For more Miss Marple, see the films starring Margaret Rutherford from the 1960s, starting with Murder She Said (1961). You can see Angela Lansbury in her most important early roles in Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). Director Guy Hamilton is best known for his work with the James Bond franchise; he directed Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973), and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)

Arriving late in the era of classic noir, director Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success (1957) dispenses with any pretense at cool and dives right into the murkiest end of the cesspool, with Tony Curtis’ pretty boy face a thin veneer for unrelenting ugliness. This is the darkest, dirtiest sort of tale, a sordid story of ambition, jealousy, and betrayal. Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster play characters so utterly despicable that they’re painful to watch, even if their performances are brilliantly conceived and crackling with smart talk.

Curtis plays press agent Sidney Falco, who wants success badly enough to play lackey to powerful Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Hunsecker pushes Sidney to break up a romance between the columnist’s kid sister (Susan Harrison) and a jazz musician (Martin Milner), but even Sidney balks at the depths to which Hunsecker wants him to go. When smears in the papers don’t do the trick, Hunsecker arranges for Sidney to frame the lover for drug possession and then set him up for a beating from crooked cops.

The love story between the two young people is the least interesting thing going on in the picture, until the kid sister finally gets desperate enough to play a few of her brother’s tricks. The relationship that really grabs our attention is the sick entanglement of Hunsecker and Falco, two men on different rungs of the ladder but both of them as morally bankrupt as rotten souls could possibly be. Falco is perfectly willing to pimp himself to Hunsecker for the scraps the columnist will toss him, and he’s equally ready to pimp his girlfriend for the same cause. Hunsecker is such a control freak that he can’t stand for his sister to have her own life; he’s willing to destroy a good man just for having the temerity to court her. These two specimens of human depravity are tied to each other as much by hate as by need; Sidney sits smiling a sycophantic grin while Hunsecker holds court and cuts him down, taking every verbal blow without flinching, but underneath we get the sense that he’s keeping score. None of this can end well.

Our story revolves around vicious columnists whose livelihood depends on their poisonous tongues, and the dialogue offers plenty of barbed bons mots. One of the most famous bits, “I’d hate to take a bite out of you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic,” serves as an apt example of the whole. If you like the dirty kicks of crooked conversation, then this is the picture for you, with Curtis and Lancaster both delivering some of the most venomous double-edged lines ever conceived in classic film. It’s wickedly smart stuff, though it leaves a bad taste in the mouth and the mind. Only a rat could get away with saying such awful things, but only rats could behave as badly as Sidney and J.J. do. We long to see both of them poisoned with their own bait and thrown out with the rest of the trash.

Sweet Smell of Success did not do well when it first appeared, but today it’s considered an important accomplishment, despite its flaws. Alexander Mackendrick only directed a dozen films, but his other work includes Ealing comedies like The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1954). For more of Burt Lancaster’s films from this era, try Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Run Silent Run Deep (1958), and Elmer Gantry (1960). Tony Curtis is best remembered for more likable characters in films like Some Like It Hot (1959), Operation Petticoat (1959), and The Great Race (1965). For more late noir, see The Killing (1956), Nightfall (1957), and Touch of Evil (1958).