Fidelity to text: 2 1/2 garrotes. Like the 1937 version, this film was freely adapted from Agatha’s short story Philomel Cottage and Frank Vesper’s stage play of the same name. Names, behaviors, even the time setting got reworked and the opening is wildly different. Quality of film on its own: 3 garrotes. It could have […]

Fidelity to text: 3 knives. Captain Hastings appears to arrange clay pigeon shooting competitions on board, along with several additional passengers. Subplots to further confuse the mystery are added to pad out the story. The altered ending, implausible as it is, is far more plausible than the short story. Quality of film on its own: […]

Fidelity to text: 5 murder weapons (compared to play); 3 (compared to novel). And Then There Were None is the world’s highest-selling mystery novel, so you’ve probably read it and wondered where the movie’s ending came from. The film is based on Agatha’s play, not her novel, and that’s why it’s not what you remember. […]

Fidelity to text: 3 and 1/2 poison bottles. There are the changes you’d expect: Pamela Lyall’s friend Sarah Blake vanishes, and Major Barnes becomes a younger, more interesting man with his own subplot. There are also the changes you wouldn’t: Poirot is accused of spying by the Italian authorities, and he gets an action-filled boat […]

Fidelity to text: 3 knives. There are the usual changes to simplify a complex plot which work. Then there’s the major change which did not work for me because it made the ending wildly unbelievable. Bad Anthony Horowitz (the screenwriter). Bad Anthony. What were you thinking? Do you really believe a woman would do that? […]

Fidelity to text: 4 guns. The changes fleshed out a skimpy story and improved the victim’s motivations. They added Miss Lemon as ministering angel, the play The Deadly Shroud, and a few changes to the characters. We also get a far more dramatic chase scene at the climax. Quality of movie on its own: 4 […]

Fidelity to text: 4 and 1/2 guns This little wonder is the closest adaptation of the novel you’ll find anywhere. Scene for scene, line for line, this movie is faithful to the point of being weighed down. Novels are often simplified for filming because film is such a different medium. It’s also a medium that […]

Teresa reviews “Four and Twenty Blackbirds” (1989) and finds it picture perfect. Fidelity to text: 3 1/2 staircases. Name changes, new characters, new situations, far more background material and eye candy (including plenty of gratuitous nudity, both painted and real), but the overall arc of the story remains, right down to motive and evidence. Quality […]

Fidelity to text: 4 poison bottles. Some complexities are removed to streamline the story. You won’t notice them gone. What you will notice are the added scenes. We meet Hastings much earlier on, recuperating at a hospital and torturing himself with actual film footage of trench warfare. You’ll get more time with Poirot too, helping […]