"And Then There Were None" - and other Agatha Christie adaptations

[jean]

the altered title rather gives away the denouement...

Except that it's the last line of the verse, and back then everyone would have known that.

[mercia]

Except that it's the last line of the verse, and back then everyone would have known that.

good point

[jean]

It's had other titles:

The little Indians
Ten little Soldiers

In that order, I think.

But I have just learned that The rhyme was adapted in the late 1800s from '10 Little Injuns', written by Septimus Winner in 1868.

[mangerton]

Really? I have no idea whodunnit in this one, they all seem vile - I care only to the extent that I shall fastforward to the end of the third episode to see!

I think the problem is the style. When done 'properly', an Agatha Christie can be pleasurable indeed (especially if you're like me and - as with sports events - for some reason seem to be incapable of remembering the 'result' for more than about a week!!)

I don't know whether you or others have yet fast forwarded, so I'll not reveal the denouement, except to say that of course their all being vile was pretty much the idea.

I read a lot of Christie - including this - in my teens and latterly the books began to annoy me, mostly I think because of the threadbare plots and because of the way they were written. If there is one thing I can't stand it's the misuse of the words England and English when Britain and British should be used. This was especially prevalent at the time Christie was writing, but that is no excuse. These authors, supposedly educated, should all have known better, and it's much worse when the error is perpetrated by a Scot, eg Buchan.

I find it as offensive as people now find the original title of the book under discussion.

Rant over!

[Nick Armstrong]

I don't know whether you or others have yet fast forwarded, so I'll not reveal the denouement, except to say that of course their all being vile was pretty much the idea.

I have, not sure how close to the book it was, but the dénouement of this version was an unpalatable mixture of the unpleasant and the silly which didn't manage to be interesting.

Murder on the Orient Express is a much better 'confined / claustrophobic' story, imvvvho

[Richard Tarleton]

I see that

Cornwall was used for many of the harbour and beach scenes, including Kynance Cove and Mullion Cove. Harefield House in Hillingdon, outside of London, served as the location for the island mansion. Production designer Sophie Beccher decorated the house in the style of 1930s designers like Syrie Maugham and Elsie de Wolfe.

The house certainly looked atmospheric, not to say odd, CGId onto the "island". I thought Maeve Dermody was Keeley Hawes at first, though her eyes are the wrong colour.

PS The Times TV critic today (Alex Hardy) also noticed a resemblance....

[eighthobstruction]

We regularly get told about the creative depth and the creative economy....well from my experience of scanning 50+ channels over the Xmas period....PHSHwwww....

....thank goodness for newly bought box sets of Curb your Enthusiasm....and True Detective Pt1....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why are so many on this thread turning into Christie-type characters?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I thought Maeve Dermody was Keeley Hawes at first, though her eyes are the wrong colour.

- I didn't notice the eye colour, but eventually thought Ms Dermody a little "squarer" in face shape.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why are so many on this thread turning into Christie-type characters?

I think I'm the fisherman who sailed the others to the island and then scarpered.

[ahinton]

I have, not sure how close to the book it was, but the dénouement of this version was an unpalatable mixture of the unpleasant and the silly which didn't manage to be interesting.

Murder on the Orient Express is a much better 'confined / claustrophobic' story, imvvvho

And it had a great score by the late lamented Richard Rodney Bennett...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think I'm the fisherman who sailed the others to the island and then scarpered.

But he was innocent.

[cloughie]

I think I'm the fisherman who sailed the others to the island and then scarpered.

You don't know?

[Pabmusic]

I don't know whether you or others have yet fast forwarded, so I'll not reveal the denouement, except to say that of course their all being vile was pretty much the idea.

I read a lot of Christie - including this - in my teens and latterly the books began to annoy me, mostly I think because of the threadbare plots and because of the way they were written. If there is one thing I can't stand it's the misuse of the words England and English when Britain and British should be used. This was especially prevalent at the time Christie was writing, but that is no excuse. These authors, supposedly educated, should all have known better, and it's much worse when the error is perpetrated by a Scot, eg Buchan.

I find it as offensive as people now find the original title of the book under discussion.

Rant over!

No, Mangerton - the rant is entirely justified, as are your comments about Christie's threadbare plots, which almost always (always?) serve as vehicles for the puzzle.

Now, the puzzles are often clever - especially in the way in which she executes sleights of hand - and when I too was a teenager they did fire my enthusiasm. Then I began to see their weaknesses and prejudices. Their weaknesses were often apparent in the generally poor way the stories translated into drama. It is after all hard to make drama out of something that is more of a puzzle - the characters are almost always one-dimentional caricatures: Colonel Mustard and the rest, with thin personalities and predictable attitudes. Many plots are ingenious, and the reaction is "How clever!" We enjoy the way we were misled, but beyond that, what is there?

Sherlock Holmes was a much more rounded character, who sometimes went against the accepted 'norm' and let the culprit off (as in The Abbey Grange, for instance). Agatha Christie characters, one imagines, could never act like that. In Ordeal By Innocence, the apparently innocent 'killier' who dies in prison is in fact shown to have been the mastermind of the murder all along. This is not the only such case: Christie could not admit (it seems) that the system had made an error.

I have several Christies here, all bought in my late teens or early twenties. In the front of my copy of Ten Little N...... (I acknowledge modern sensibilities, although the British edition retained the original title until 1985. The American edition never used it at all. Here in the Philippines you can buy it in American or Tagalog - Sampu Negritos) I have made a list of my favourite Christies - I read most of them. Here it is:

Murder on the Orient Express
The ABC Murders
Five Little Pigs
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Death on the Nile
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Ten Little N......
Towards Zero
Death in the Clouds
Cards on the Table
The Hollow
The Body in the Library

[ahinton]

But he was innocent.

So was Richard Rodney Bennett...

I'll get me coat if a sleuth hasn't stolen it.