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Original poster

Why oh why do TV script writers think they can improve on Agatha Christie's plots?

209 replies

questionzzz · 09/12/2020 13:08

I absolutely hate the rewrites and plot embellishments that the newer TV scripts have done with the Agatha Christie books! It's not that they are just bizarre and unnecessary, they also have a weird ideological twist? which the original never had.
Eg just finished (re)watching "Agatha Christie's Marple: Why didn't They ask Evans". The original doesn't even have Miss Marple, ok fine, I get why they introduced her. But then, there' some completely random stuff about how the murderer, (lovers in the original) were brother and sister, long lost to their mother back in China, where the sister was sold as a "comfort woman", and now they are back plotting to kill the mother... huh? But why? why are you doing this? Most of the Poirot ones with David Suchet also have these completely random and bizarre ideological additions.

On a side note, absolutely obsessed with the 1980s shows with Joan Hickson (again)- she looks a bit like my grandma, loving the fashion, the gentle muted colours and body language.

OP posts:
DannyGlickWindowTapping · 11/12/2020 15:07

I did like the Crooked House adaptation a few years ago. Not read that book, so not sure if they fiddled with the story too much, but it had a bit of the feel of the "Hollywood" adaptations with lots of familiar faces.

sueelleker · 11/12/2020 15:26

@questionzzz

I absolutely hate the rewrites and plot embellishments that the newer TV scripts have done with the Agatha Christie books! It's not that they are just bizarre and unnecessary, they also have a weird ideological twist? which the original never had. Eg just finished (re)watching "Agatha Christie's Marple: Why didn't They ask Evans". The original doesn't even have Miss Marple, ok fine, I get why they introduced her. But then, there' some completely random stuff about how the murderer, (lovers in the original) were brother and sister, long lost to their mother back in China, where the sister was sold as a "comfort woman", and now they are back plotting to kill the mother... huh? But why? why are you doing this? Most of the Poirot ones with David Suchet also have these completely random and bizarre ideological additions.

On a side note, absolutely obsessed with the 1980s shows with Joan Hickson (again)- she looks a bit like my grandma, loving the fashion, the gentle muted colours and body language.

It's like the remake of "Sleeping Murder"; in the book and the Hickson film her step-mother was murdered, but in the remake she was the girl's mother, who faked her own death and came back as the step-mother. Unbelievable!
sueelleker · 11/12/2020 15:37

@user1471565182

Have a watch of Suchet playing Robert Maxwell. It was brilliant.
Totally different, but I loved him in "Blott On The Landscape".
Elderflower14 · 11/12/2020 15:43

@DannyGlickWindowTapping

I got the feeling that most of the JH ones were set in the 50s from costumes / vehicles etc.., but they were filmed in the 80s, and a lot of the cast didn't seem inclined to change their hair or wear wigs! A Caribbean Mystery always felt "modern", too. Don't know why!
The Joan Hickson Moving Finger was filmed at ours in 1984... We lived in a village close to Framlingham. It was also filmed in a village called Hoxne. ☺
user1471565182 · 11/12/2020 16:31

I dont agree she was a snob. SOme of her characters were yes but she wasnt.

user1471565182 · 11/12/2020 16:32

oh no come on now Malkovich was bloody awful. Including the accent (and he actually speaks french and lives there)

user1471565182 · 11/12/2020 16:34

How come they used your spot Elderflower? did they make changes to suit the period? it really does seem like a weird match of 40s, 60s and 80s from the ones ive watched, even using obviously 80s bungalows

Elderflower14 · 11/12/2020 17:25

@user1471565182

How come they used your spot Elderflower? did they make changes to suit the period? it really does seem like a weird match of 40s, 60s and 80s from the ones ive watched, even using obviously 80s bungalows
Someone recommended our kitchen.. The only thing they changed is the lightshade over the table. Mum's apron is still hanging on the back of the door... I'll find the links...
UserEleventyNine · 11/12/2020 17:44

Off to read "Come Tell Me How You Live"by Christie now.

Come Tell Me How You Live is a very entertaining light read - but it's also interesting from a historical point of view. It wasn't intended to be anything more than a personal account of Agatha's own experiences, but it takes place against the background of the Middle East as it was between the wars.

Original poster
questionzzz · 11/12/2020 18:35

I think "a snob" is a fair assessment of the whole Agatha Christie milieu- it was VERY upper class/upper middle class after all. In terms of character, Miss Marple was as much a snob as anybody from her time. Everybody is super conscious of class and place- that's the motive for most the murders! Servants, wealth and all that. In Pocketful of Rye she's training the servant girls- that's her connection to the murders. Poirot was more of a real snob I think :)
The snobbishness doesn't detract from the entertainment value- it enhances it, IMO.

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Original poster
questionzzz · 11/12/2020 18:48

So jealous of @Elderflower14's kitchen!

The remake of Sleeping Murder is another pointless, bizarre one. It's not even modernized! No lesbian sub-plots even! Just complete random nonsense/

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WitchesSpelleas · 11/12/2020 18:49

I have always loved the all-star Albert Finney Murder on the Orient Express and I don't think any other version comes close.

However, the Suchet version was interesting because Poirot took such a different attitude to the crime - very reluctantly and angrily agreeing to cover it up, rather than breezily conniving as in the Finney version.

I can see why producers feel they have to add their own material to stories that have been filmed many times before - they need to do something different to make their version worth watching - but often it doesn't really add anything to the original.

I dislike period pieces where modern attitudes are shoehorned in. Particularly equality of social classes - these producers don't seem to grasp that, in the past, the idea that the 'lower classes' were inferiors in every way was absolute, even seen as God-given.

Elderflower14 · 11/12/2020 18:56

@questionzzz

So jealous of *@Elderflower14*'s kitchen!

The remake of Sleeping Murder is another pointless, bizarre one. It's not even modernized! No lesbian sub-plots even! Just complete random nonsense/

We don't live there anymore.. Dad had the kitchen renovated a few years later. Where the aga is behind where they are sitting a bread oven was found!
Original poster
questionzzz · 11/12/2020 18:59

@WitchesSpelleas "I can see why producers feel they have to add their own material to stories that have been filmed many times before - they need to do something different to make their version worth watching - but often it doesn't really add anything to the original." I don't get that though. The whole point of timeless stories (such as, I think we can all agree, Agatha Christie's have turned out to be)- is that people know and love the original- and they are looking for something with captures that, maybe not word for word , and but at least the spirit of it.

The Christie remakes are as of someone took, say, Sleeping Beauty, and instead of having her fall asleep 100 years, had her go on a crusade for 2 years and then, I don't know, marry one of the fairy godmothers in a civil partnership. Which may be very well (honestly as I typed it, sounded like fun LOL) but it wouldn't be Sleeping Beauty!

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WitchesSpelleas · 11/12/2020 19:05

I don't get that though. The whole point of timeless stories (such as, I think we can all agree, Agatha Christie's have turned out to be)- is that people know and love the original- and they are looking for something with captures that, maybe not word for word , and but at least the spirit of it

Yes, I see that but the problem (for TV/film producers) must be that if version A. (totally faithful to the original) has already been made, what will make people watch versions B and C if they are also totally faithful to the original? There's some scope for updating production quality and including the latest popular actors, but in the long term what will make their remake stand out from the 'classic' version?

Original poster
questionzzz · 11/12/2020 19:20

@WitchesSpelleas "in the long term what will make their remake stand out from the 'classic' version?"- I dunno- the fact that their production got heaviliy criticised on Mumsnet and is always considered inferior to the "classic" version?

But seriously, we get remakes of, say, Shakespeare all the time! Some better, some worse. Surely there must be room for re-adapting Agatha Christie without the absolutely bonkers re-writing that they cooked up for the later versions that everyone seems to hate!

I think there's lots of room between "totally faithful to the original" and "keeping the spirit of the original but otherwise updating"- but so far they have totally missed the mark.

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Mittens030869 · 11/12/2020 19:24

Actually, even the JH versions of Miss Marple changed the plot in places. For example, in 'Murder at the Vicarage', the wife who murdered her husband committed suicide at the end because she couldn't live with what she had done. That wasn't the case in the book.

I think some changes are fine, but actually changing the identity of the murderer is completely unnecessary.

I think it's more the case that JH's portrayal of Miss Marple was much more faithful to Agatha Christie books. Geraldine McEwan's portrayal is all wrong for those of us who have read and enjoyed her books. (I do like Julia McKenzie's portrayal, though.)

Pashazade · 11/12/2020 19:25

@questionzzz as a further aside if you want a good Sleeping Beauty rewrite The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman is really good! Grin

DannyGlickWindowTapping · 11/12/2020 19:33

I think a lot of the murderers commit suicide in the TV versions, as there is no tacit understanding that they were hanged, as would have happened at the time. Plus, it ties it all up neatly, rather than leaving the ending like a loose thread. I know that there are several suicides / murder-suicides in the books, too.

UserEleventyNine · 11/12/2020 19:40

There are times when the original can't be improved on and a remake shouldn't be attempted. Imagine a remake of Casablanca or Brief Encounter or The Third Man.

(My ideal version of the Orient Express would be Suchet as Poirot with the cast from the original film.)

BagBoneSpawnShot · 11/12/2020 20:03

How much of an ego must you have, to think you can improve, or feel compelled to change the plot of author like Agatha Christie?

user1471565182 · 11/12/2020 20:12

Brief Encounter was already an adaption of a play though

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questionzzz · 11/12/2020 20:17

@Pashazade I've heard the Anne Rice one is quite compelling too, in places, LOL

@BagBoneSpawnShot Exactly.

Isn't there that bit at the the end 4:50 from Paddington where they catch the murdered (the doctor, natch) and Miss Marple goes off about how sorry she is he won't hang?

several suicides the books too- Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It wasn't just the awfulness of hanging- it was to spare their loved ones the shame and ignominy. Poirot spells it out clearly to Roger Ackroyd. I remember that- so dark and unfluffy.

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UserEleventyNine · 11/12/2020 20:24

Brief Encounter was already an adaption of a play though

So was Casablanca. But those are the definitive film versions, as the Hickson/Suchet versions are the definitive tv adaptations.

UserEleventyNine · 11/12/2020 20:27

It wasn't just the awfulness of hanging- it was to spare their loved ones the shame and ignominy.

Dorothy L. Sayers went for suicide a couple of times, for similar reasons.

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