Fidelity to text 3 and 1/2 garrots (the murderer was radically altered although crimes and motivation still fit perfectly within Agatha’s own text). There were some other minor modifications. The other most important change is the date. The novel took place in 1942. This filmed version was set around 1950. Quality of movie 4 garrots. […]
Fidelity to text: one gun. The names match. Jane Finn remains a woman of mystery. The secret adversary of the title remains. Virtually everything else was altered from a little to a lot. Quality of movie on its own: one & 1/2 guns but only because it started off well and I like ’50s clothes […]
Fidelity to text: The original story is there but it’s been expanded far beyond what Agatha sketched out, especially considering how minimalist the source material is. Quality of movie: It’s good on its own merits and it’s a more interesting story than the original short story. Only purists will carp. This was our third watched […]
Fidelity to text Four poison bottles (it’s pretty close, with most of the major changes being made to minor characters along with one added major character, replacing someone else) Quality of movie four poison bottles (pretty good on its own merits) This was our second episode of the ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Marple television adaptation of […]
Fidelity to text: One gun (some names match and the house is terrific) Quality of movie: One gun (plot holes you could sail battleships through) My goodness, but those are low rankings. Remember, this is on a scale of one to five, with one being the lowest and five the highest. Officially, this is the […]
Four stars Bill and I love movies. We love cheese and crackers and wine (for me), beer (for him), and grapes. We don’t have money to spare and even if we did, I have serious cheapskate tendencies. To meet all these conflicting impulses, we developed a new hobby a few years ago. We select a […]
Because of our ongoing interest in all things Agatha Christie, we’ve begun watching movies based on her books. There are a lot of them so we’ve got plenty of filmed murder in our future. The adaptations will vary wildly in quality and fidelity to the source material as I’m sure you can imagine. I’m going […]