Marple - The body in the library - 2004

One of the best episodes, for sure, although I haven't seen all of them. This was a good one, I liked it from the start. I really enjoyed Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantry, a real pleasure. Marple was Geraldine McEwan, both funny and intriguing. It starts of course with the maid finding the body of a dead girl in the library, at Gossington Hall, and Dolly phoning Miss Marple right away :-p
I love scenes like the one with the policeman telling Dolly "nobody is allowed inside" and Dolly replying "oh nonsense" and going right in with Miss Marple :-p  so English-upper-class-superiority-complex :-p
Colonel Melchett was fun too (only at bits a bit exaggerated).
Arthur Bantry (James Fox) "I don't know her"- Melchett"the question is then, what the hell is she doing in your library?" I liked how he said that :-p
Of course the next thing to do was to find out who she was. A guest of the Majestic Hotel, Mr Jefferson (I think) reported missing a young dancer, Ruby Keen, and her cousin Josie (Mary Stockley) was able to identify the body, so the investigation moves to the hotel where Mr Jefferson stays with his son-in-law Mark (Jamie Theakston) and his daughter-in-law Adelaide (Tara Fitzgerald) and her son Peter. His son and daughter died seven years ago when a rocket hit nearby their house; now he's an invalid who feels lonely, therefore he befriended Ruby, finding her young and lively; he grew so fond of her he had decided to adopt her and leave her his money.
Another body, of a young girl, is found in a burned car, the one that guest Bartlett (David Walliams) reported missing. The superintendent (Jack Davenport) asks Miss Marple a little favour: he had her present while he was questioning all the young girl's friends, and she saw which one of them had more to tell: apparently poor Pamela had gone to a screen-test before disappearing.
I liked Marple a lot here, giving unrequested help to colonel Melchett (Simon Callow) before stating innocently "but please don't let me keep you", and asking questions about the fingernail clippings found in Ruby's room. I like how she looked with that thing in her hair, a nice Charleston-look, very nice, although she also looked exceedingly white. My gosh how white she looked!
She talked to Mark (I liked him, sort of) who said he liked Josie, while Dolly was talking to Adelaide, who said she liked Mark.. but apparently the like the same thing, because the solution is this: the "body in the library"'s fingernails were bitten, not cut, therefore she was not Ruby, so of course suspicions fall towards Josie who lied in identifying her: why? Because she had a lover who wanted Ruby gone. Josie and Adelaide had fallen madly in love, but because Josie hurt her ankle and called Ruby to replace her as the Hotel's dancer, Adelaide's son Peter was about to lose his inheritance (Peter was her first husband's son, not blood related to Mr Jefferson) so she planned to get rid of her. Adelaide looked for a young girl and pretended to be a film producer to get her where she wanted, then Josie did her make up and her hair (she made her blonde like Ruby) then they drugged her. That night, the only one to leave the table had been Adelaide, who took Pamela to Basil Blake's house and there she strangled her and went back to the hotel where Ruby was still alive and dancing.
At 2am Blake (Ben Miller with a dreadful hairdo) came home leaving Dinah Lee alone at a party, and upon finding the body an idea came to his mind: "it seemed quite good at the time". He took the body to Gossington Hall to "implicate Arthur as a sort of joke"- Dolly"I'm not bloody laughing!" :lol: She's great here :-)
I did not like at all Blake's hair and drunk scenes, but I did like Marple understanding that Basil and Dinah (Emma Cooke) were married and not simply living together: "the kind of quarrels you two have..". I loved that bit in the book too :-)
So, poor Pamela goes from : drugged and brought to the hotel room, to strangled in Blake's house, to dumped in Bantry's library, dressed obviously with one of Ruby's dresses. When Ruby went to change for the next dance, she went to Josie's room as told and fell asleep because drugged, and Josie killed her with an injection, then Josie changed and went to dance in her place. In the morning, she dressed Ruby as Pamela, cut her nails and put the clippings in her room, then put her in a car and set the fire. There, the plan was: Basil will be suspected and nobody will think of the Majestic guests, and anyway Josie had apparently no motive, and Adelaide had apparently an alibi. Still, Marple has no proof, so she has Mr Jefferson tell Adelaide he wants to leave his money to charity, so Josie tries to kill him but is stopped and arrested, and the almost last scene sees Josie and "Addy" shouting their love for each other through a locked door. It might have been heartbreaking, had they not been so evil. Marple:"when you're in love you think you're invincible, it blinds you"
It ends with Mark hugging Peter (I didn't like that scene) and Marple looking at the old picture of a man in uniform, her lost love.
I loved when Dolly said "isn't she marvelous?" and also when she described Marple as having "such a refreshingly low opinion on human nature" :lol: I liked her a lot, and her presence plays a big part on why I enjoyed this episode so much more than many others.

ITA c'è un cadavere in biblioteca