Best Agatha Christie story adapted to film/tv?

Kyriakos

Kyriakos

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I haven't watched that many of them, but of those I watched I liked:
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Death on the Nile (1978)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Ten Little Indians/And then there were none, I have watched only in the recent adaptation (with Tywin Lannister)

Evil Under the Sun (1982) was ok, but a bit low-production value/cheap imo :)
The Mirror Crack'd (1980) has a lot of stars too, but I think that the story just isn't very elegant.

My favorite probably was Orient Express, due to the massive stars it had. But Nile and Witness are also very good.

 
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Murder on the Orient express, obviously. I thought answering anything else would be heresy.
Death on the Nile is good too.
They all have the advantage of having complicated but logical stories. There should be more of that.
 
I have to go with Witness for the Prosecution (1957). It's not just a great adaptation, but a great film on its own as well. Probably helped that Billy Wilder was director and the cast includes Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich.

If you liked Witness for the Prosecution, check out Anatomy of a Murder (1959), directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jimmy Stewart. It's another great courtroom drama
 
Just watched "Murder she said" (1961).

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I don't know why they maimed the title; ok, I can imagine that putting "murder" there would help sell the movie, but they could have made it a bit more interesting. This is adapted from the novel "4.50 from Paddington".

As usual for Agatha Christie plots, it can seem quite dull until the reveal - which means it works, since you expect less of a clever idea and so are happily surprised. She was excellent in forcing you (due to the story itself; can't observe x when a massive y is in the way) to focus on a diversion tactic by the murderer.
In the case of this plot
Spoiler :
it is of interest that the murderer makes callous use of everyone, including the girl he killed his wife in order to be able to marry
.

Overall, this is a pleasant film. A bit on the comedic side - but this isn't rare for Christie. Not quite on the level of Witness for the Prosecution, which is possibly her Oedipus the King* (or perhaps not; The Mousetrap is far more famous, though I have only seen a stage adaptation, in late highschool)...

As is also usual for her - and practical, anyway - there are a couple of very convenient opening stages, without which this couldn't become a plot. And then again you have the deliberate misdirection with a few people going a bit out of their way to look suspicious, when they aren't the killer.

*only by way of analogy, of course. Nothing can come close to Oedipus.
 
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Well, Nile is my favorite; I just love Ustinov's Poirot and all the somewhat eccentric and flamboyant supporting characters and you can't beat the Egyptian locations. But Orient might have the best murder mystery of the two, so I have both.
 
EvaDK said:
Well, Nile is my favorite; I just love Ustinov's Poirot and all the somewhat eccentric and flamboyant supporting characters and you can't beat the Egyptian locations. But Orient might have the best murder mystery of the two, so I have both.
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I don't recall the particulars (obviously remember the guilty party ;) ), but Orient didn't have the typical Agatha Christie diversion you can (also) find in Nile. I like it because the Poirot there is my favorite and it has bigger/more stars than the other Poirot movies.

Plot-wise, I prefer Witness, from those I have watched. It just doesn't have as many forced elements; it is more cerebral instead of forced false incrimination and convenience, imo.
 
Kyriakos said:
Plot-wise, I prefer Witness, from those I have watched. It just doesn't have as many forced elements; it is more cerebral instead of forced false incrimination and convenience, imo.
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Witness for the Prosecution? I haven't seen the Billy Wilder film, despite being a huge fan of his. :blush:

Strangely enough, I'm actually watching a miniseries based on it from 2016 with Toby Jones, Andrea Risenborough and Kim Cattrall set in the 1920s.
 
EvaDK said:
Witness for the Prosecution? I haven't seen the Billy Wilder film, despite being a huge fan of his. :blush:

Strangely enough, I'm actually watching a miniseries based on it from 2016 with Toby Jones, Andrea Risenborough and Kim Cattrall set in the 1920s.
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You should watch it, like Joao said it has nice cinematography and two great actors :)
 
EvaDK said:
I absolutely will. I have The Apartment (my favorite rom-com of all time), Irma la Douce (same leads), Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd. and Avanti.
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I like Toby Jones, but the bbc series trailer imo really seems to have destroyed the plot :/

Without going into spoilers, it appears the age of the love interest (in question) was altered, and they also changed the war to ww1 (which does no favors to the dynamics; in the movie the point was that the german woman was naturally viewed with distrust if not hatred, due to ww2).
Both elements are crucial to the balances of the film (and I suppose Christie's original plot).
 
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Kyriakos said:
I like Toby Jones, but the bbc series trailer imo really seems to have destroyed the plot :/

Without going into spoilers, it appears the age of the love interest (in question) was altered, and they also changed the war to ww1 (which does no favors to the dynamics; in the movie the point was that the german woman was naturally viewed with distrust if not hatred, due to ww2).
Both elements are crucial to the balances of the film (and I suppose Christie's original plot).
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Oh, the 'German woman' Romaine is loathed by her fellow performers in the BBC version, despite claiming to be Austrian, not German.

This version retains Agatha Christie's rather depressing original ending, while I think Wilder's film version has Christie's altered ending.
 
EvaDK said:
Oh, the 'German woman' Romaine is loathed by her fellow performers in the BBC version, despite claiming to be Austrian, not German.

This version retains Agatha Christie's rather depressing original ending, while I think Wilder's film version has Christie's altered ending.
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Hm, the movie does have the ending Christie wrote later (for the play version). I wouldn't call it less depressing, though the movie does end in somewhat of a positive note :)
 
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