MID-DAY MAYHEM

In 1980, makeup artists performed a cinematic feat by making Angela Lansbury, then 55, look older than she does now, at 85. The British sleuth/murderous baker/singing teapot starred as the elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple in The Mirror Crack’d, the film adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel. In it, Lansbury solves a crime involving two catty actresses (played by Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak), their husbands (Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis) and a curious case of death by nose-spray. Jessica Fletcher was but a twinkle in the eye of its creators at that point, but Lansbury early on proved she was the greatest thing that could ever happen to complicated plot explanations.

Tue., Aug. 30, 2:30 p.m., 2011