Luke Fitzwilliam was on a train to London when he encountered the elderly Lavinia Pinkerton. On discovering that he is heading for a job in Whitehall, she discloses her intent – to travel to Scotland Yard to report a murderer at loose in her village. This murderer can apparently kill without anyone suspecting because for a certain type of person, Murder is, apparently, Easy.
When arriving at London, Luke turns his back for a moment and Miss Pinkerton is dead, killed in a hit and run. His suspicions raised, he heads to Wynchwood-Under-Ashe to finish what his new friend started. But the deaths are continuing and nobody seems to see anything beyond an accident…
Hang on, I’ve read the book this is based on… but something seems different…
Oh, yes, that’s it. It’s rather boring.
Murder Is Easy isn’t the best Christie novel. It’s not very well clued and one piece of information is kept back in order to prolong the story. But it’s a nice idea and there’s a lot of scope for an entertaining adaptation. But this is just dull – and if I hadn’t remembered who the murderer was, I’d have struggled to remember that they had made much of an appearance in the previous 100 minutes.
There are all sorts of problems with the plot – the idea that so many deaths would be written off as accidents without any of the authorities being complicit is just daft. I know there’s an element that certain people aren’t listened to, but it just goes too far. And the fact that the number-plate of the hit and run is in the possession of the police, but isn’t handed over is nonsense for whatever reason.
Just a thought – did Murder Is Easy inspire Hot Fuzz?
OK, so on to this particular adaptation. It’s been done at least twice before, once as a US TV movie starring Bill Bixby as Luke and once as an episode of Marple with Benedict Cumberbatch (and Julia Mackenzie as Miss Marple, shoehorned into the plot).
The thing is, the Marple version is less faithful to the plot of the book than this one, changing the motive of the murderer and the role of a number of characters, in particular Bridget. Oh, and it has Miss Marple forcibly inserted into it, obviously.
Plotwise, this is a lot closer to the original novel, with all its flaws. There is some merging of characters and a change of order of some events. There’s also a slightly odd adjustment to the finale which I thought made one character a bit less effective, but overall, it’s pretty faithful. There were some additional character traits introduced, notably the doctor with a passion for eugenics, which felt out of place, but apart from that, pretty standard. However, as I said, it all comes across as a bit dull. The performances are rather odd for the most part – it’s as if the actors were told to act as they were in “traditional Christie” and this was their best guess at how to play it. It’s only in the final act where I was convinced by some of the performances and by then I’d already paused it to take a break from it about five times.
So all credit to the BBC for picking a title that had a lot that can be done with it and not messing it up completely like that version of The Pale Horse that I’d all but blocked from my memory. But next time, watch Hugh Laurie’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? to see how to do it.
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 
After liking the 2022 adaptation of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, I had high hopes for Murder is Easy.
I wanted to like this adaptation, but unfortunately I didn’t. On the positive side, the casting is good (e.g., Penelope Wilton of Downton Abbey fame as Miss Pinkerton, etc.), the culprit/motive are unchanged, and the brilliant use of an unwell cat as a means of poisoning is preserved. But (1) the pacing is wrong (i.e., way too fast with bodies dropping like flies). This should have been longer to build the suspense and tension. (2) The cinematography just looks off as all the colors are washed out. (3) A Nigerian protagonist in a 1950s English village is not credible, and (4) Strangely there is a superfluous look at the impact of British colonialism weirdly bolted on to this Christie story. Still it was better than the horrid Marple adaptation of 15+ years ago although that’s an incredibly low bar over which to jump.
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I’ve no problems with points 4 and 5. Yes, Luke is accepted surprisingly easily after an initial suspicion, but I’d rather that than constant suspicion. And colonialism is something that is completely glossed over in the UK school history specification so educating via entertainment works for me.
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Yes – you’re right. That topic is an important one. My challenge is that the BBC adaptation did neither that nor the detective story justice. The first half devoted too much time to the colonialism topic whilst then rushing through the detective story in the second half far too quickly with bodies dying every few minutes with little context or raising tension/suspense. For me the pacing was wrong and so both topics suffered.
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I agree, it could have been done better, but it made me go and do a bit of reading on the topic. Hopefully it had the same effect on others
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Just watched part one and truly, it’s like watching paint try. What a wasted opportunity
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It’s quite stunning how such a daft story can be made so… dull. Quite an achievement…
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I’ll give it a miss, then. Man, the British TV Christmas mysteries have been a disappointing bunch this year, haven’t they?
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I rather enjoyed the two Paradise episodes (having adjusted my expectations for Beyond Paradise) but neither had great puzzles. Quite enjoyed the latest Johnny Vegas/Sian Gibson story, Blood Actually, but mainly because the stupid humour in it appeals to me… were there any others that I’ve missed?
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Oh, I might be in the mood for some stupid humour, so thanks for letting me know there’s another one of those. Death on the Tyne and Dial M for Middlesborough were the other two movies. There was also a TV series called Murder, They Hope. So have at it!
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Yeah, I’ve seen them all. There’s one of the TV series episodes – series 1 episode 3 with the best serial killer theme that I’ve seen. And when I say best, I mean stupidest…
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I remember the original novel more clearly than some because it bored me so much as a teenager. I remember loving the premise but after a time the plot got too bogged down in the (spectacularly bland) hero romancing the heroine, and I finally gave up and flipped to the end during an interminable scene where he declares his love for her over tennis.
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