Murder Most Foul

Miss Marple is the lone juror who refuses to convict a man standing trial for murder, even though her fellow jurors have all but settled on his guilt. Rather than accept the verdict, she sets out to prove his innocence herself, and her inquiries lead her to a struggling theatre company whose members seem tied to the killing of a former actress. To get close to the suspects, she joins the troupe as a performer, a cover that lets her watch the actors while she works out how the crime really happened.

The film is George Pollock's third outing with Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth, following Murder She Said in 1961 and Murder at the Gallop in 1963 and preceding Ten Little Indians in 1965. Margaret Rutherford returns as Miss Marple, the role she made her own across this run of adaptations, with Ron Moody as the company's manager, Charles Tingwell as Inspector Craddock, Andrew Cruickshank as the presiding judge and Megs Jenkins and Ralph Michael among the supporting players. David Pursall and Jack Seddon wrote the screenplay, and Ben Arbeid produced the British production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios and Lawrence P. Bachmann Productions.

Released in March 1964 and running ninety minutes, the film blends comedy and mystery within the crime and thriller genres. It holds a rating of 7.1 out of 10 on IMDb from around 7,000 votes, and the same score on TMDB from a much smaller base of 176 votes, a level of agreement that points to a settled reputation rather than a sharply divided one.