Paul Evans It's such a faithful and warm production. When winter breaks and the nights draw in, I can think of nothing nicer then putting the fire on, pouring a brandy and curling up to watch Bertram's.I will say that some elements of the story are a little far fetched, and require a stretch in the imagination, some of the robberies etc, but the production is so velvety I didn't even give them a second thought.Caroline Blakiston needs a huge level of applause for bringing the character of Bess Sedgwick to life. When you read the book she is the standout character, the interest and focus, Caroline makes her seem wealthy, edgy and wild. To see what I mean please check Polly Walker's performance in the poor remake, a great actress but doesn't bring her to life. 'Bigamy, trigamy what's the difference, scotch?'Bertam's itself looks so believable, when I read the book this is exactly how I picture it, sleepy, subtly lavish and full of rich and retired gentle folk, eccentric in their ways and staid in their appearance, it's the reason Bess works so well, she is meant to stand out. The music as always is spot on, melodic and non obtrusive. The costumes too look gorgeous, especially the one Bess wears at the end. I've mentioned before my opinions on Joan's interpretation of Miss Marple (so I won't bore again,) but once again she's just magical, scenes with Blakiston and femme fatale Joan Greenwood are just too good.The ending is wonderfully done, so exciting, dare I sat it manages to out do the book.It was never going to get anything other then a 10 was it. 10/10

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Miss Marple, the Terrible, is going to London, to Bertram's Hotel actually and you can be sure there is a lot of eavesdropping, watching, listening, observing and whatever helps find some truth out of an evanescent surface of things. But no surprise, once again it is a daughter-mother story, an abandoned daughter who comes across at the same time her mother and her long discarded father, though not forgotten. Miss Marple also has something against the aristocracy, at least aristocratic women who have nothing to do and feel more and more useless and bored in our modern world with brand new television (the old type I hardly remember). So from boredom to lovers and from lovers to killers and from killers to train-robbers, in any order possible, that's the way to add some piquant sauce to the drab life of an aristocratic lady. The second obsession of Miss Marple is canons, parsons, priests or whatever again, provided they can quote the Bible if possible without mixing the Song of Song and the Apocalypse. That's because young ladies need a watchful eye, I guess. And there the sky falls on the heads and shoulders of a few culprits with just a couple of sentences. Of course in a way we know what is going to happen and who is the criminal. The game of the director is to systematically mislead us with the music or an ellipse of some sort to make us expects what does not come, and frustrate our suspense with a little bit more suspense. Deliciously quaint.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

sherryminou07 I've been an Anglophile since I was a kid, but only recently had the patience to read Agatha Christie's books (so much detail!!). Bertram's Hotel became one of my favorite because Miss Marple goes to the big city and visits places she knew as a child. We get a bit of Little Jane and what she enjoyed.The British have always been great at adapting books to film. This Bertram's is an excellent example. It maintains the integrity of a book while condensing it into a short span.Bertram's Hotel is all that and more. The plot, characters and environment are beautifully done and wonderful to watch. An aging Joan Hickson (one of her later Marples) appropriately plays the aging Miss Marple. A friend replies "She must be 100 years old," or something to that effect.The mystery is intriguing and I love seeing one of my favorite sleuths still able to see everything for what it really is, while fooling everyone with her elderly appearance. I love the actress who plays Bess Sedgwick. She hits the mark as Christie wrote her and she's fun to watch. I actually cared a great deal about her although some things about her character are not so hot. That pretty much goes for all the characters with one exception. Vadislaus Marinovsky is appropriately arrogant, still in keeping with the book.This episode of the Miss Marple series with Joan Hickson is absolutely wonderful. I bought the DVD set and watch it often.ONE WORD OF WARNING: If you're a newbie, do NOT mistake the two series. The new Marple series with Geraldine McEwan is terrible!!

tedg Spoilers herein.This is the sixth or seventh in the series that I have seen. BBC has a policy of putting different creative crew in charge of each one, so they vary significantly. I found the `Alien' and `Batman' franchises to be a mini-lesson in film techniques, and this is a lot like that.Usually, the Marple crews use BBC or TeeVee conventions and shoehorn in the unusual conventions of Christie, which themselves vary from story to story. Here, the adapter and director have actually paid attention to the manner in which is the story is presented in the book.The book has the hotel as a character: the walls carry personality and act as a sort of Moriarity. It is contrived. The director cleverly uses this; the camera always locates itself as part of the architecture first. It both contains and observes the characters. The pans are inhuman. They reflect Maples' nature: nosey, skulking.On top of this, everything is perceived with dull colors, as if the film itself was a copy of Bertram's: an obsessively maintained antique.There is a physicality to the end that reflects that of this story's Moriarty.This is probably the best of the Hickson Marples.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.