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With Dahl, Fleming and now Christie this sadly appears to be happening across the board with classic authors. It's all part of the insidious snowball effect of self-censorship.
Given that she was a woman of her time with prejudices against, well, pretty much every non White and non Christian people, and that transpires in her stories, I don't think there'll be much of Christie's work to read. I guess she's never had anything against Belgium. And French speakers in general.
I've never watched any Miss Marple adaptations and have only read a few of the Poirot novels but I take your point. These sort of amateur sleuths with no police background always seem to be on the scene when a murder happens. That's where they eventually lose credibility, especially over time. An extreme example would be Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote who seems to be followed by murders everywhere she goes. It all becomes very silly after a while. I also doubt that the actual police would take very kindly to an elderly spinster always stepping on their toes and meddling in what is essentially police business alone. At least Poirot had a background in the Belgian police and was a private detective more in the mould of his famous consulting detective predecessor, Sherlock Holmes.
That's because she committed those murders and made hundreds of innocent people take the rap for them. Jessica Fletcher is the most successful serial killer in the history of humankind. And remember that she was played by Angela Lansbury, who portrayed one of the most unspeakably evil women imaginable in The Manchurian Candidate. IT ALL ADDS UP. Murder, She Wrote? Murder She Committed!!!!
It'll be interesting to see a later Poirot novel adapted, in this case Hallowe'en Party (1969) which, unlike the previous two Branagh Poirot films, has never been filmed before.
Yes, I remember seeing a bit of that one when it was originally broadcast. I think they updated the story to the 1960s. Although the novel was first published in 1969 I think the story must be set a good bit earlier than that.
It's a tough one to adapt: the source material is set in an untypical time for a Christie novel, you'd imagine her stories to be set in the 20s-30s. Poirot as a character in the 60s doesn't quite work, given that he was already a man past his prime in 1917. Then again Halloween was not nearly as big in the 20s-30s,,especially in England, and the young people in the novel behave like 60s people.
On a side note, if it's not her best mystery, it has one of her darkest villains and maybe the most interesting one. And just how many murders are committed? It's almost a slasher.
I have a copy of the novel in my collection. I must read it some time as it sounds rather intriguing. I've not read a Poirot novel from that late in her writing career. It's an interesting choice for a film adaptation as it's probably one of her less well known novels. I was reading reviews for her last written (though not published) Poirot novel Elephants Can Remember (1972) and they were pretty terrible. It's speculated that Dame Agatha may have been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease in her last years and this obviously adversely affected her subsequent writing.
Hallowe'en Party is the first Poirot novel I read and as atypical as it is it might be my favourite Agatha Christie novel. Because Halloween is my favourite holiday, because the novel has quasi horror elements in it and because it's one of the most violent. I suspect there are far more victims to the assassin than the official ones, so the body count is pretty high too. I suspect because of her old age, there are a few loose ends that Agatha Christie forgot to address. She could have made a decent horror writer: she loved the supernatural and many of her books have genuinely scary moments.
Postern of Fate was her last novel and it's a bloody mess. A great mysterious setting, but there's no real resolution.
On the other hand, I would like to see an adaptation of her "peplum" novel, Death Comes at the End. An Agatha Christie novel set in ancient Egypt opens some interesting possibilities.
Passenger to Frankfurt was maybe her worst. Her protagonist is absent for most of the novel! And nothing amounts to anything.
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A HAUNTING IN VENICE Out of the Theater Reaction! | Kenneth Branagh
Real locations and less CGI music to my ears.
https://www.wallingfordtowncouncil.gov.uk/2023/04/bronze-sculpture-of-agatha-christie-to-be-unveiled/
https://collider.com/a-haunting-in-venice-poirot-tv-show-differences/
Both Poirot and Marple were not exactly gumshoe, physically active or strong characters. (Sherlock at least did box, fence, and us that Japanese wrestling technique I cannot remember.) Poirot and Marple were just brilliant, keen, observant, and able to think outside the box and look at things, always, from a psychological perspective. I enjoy them being eccentric in their own ways and different from all others in their worlds.
One of my favorite Poirot stories is The ABC Murders. One of my favorite Marple stories is Nemesis. Suchet's episode on The ABC Murders is perfect, in my opinion. Joan Hickson's Nemesis also my firm favorite (and I appreciate the gentle humor with her nephew being part of the story; and also prefer the episode's final ending more than the book's).
Oh and just because someone is old don't discount them at all as far as reasoning and deduction goes. Miss Marple has seen the gamut of humanity in her little village and she can apply all those memories, knowledge, and experience to give sharp deduction. Her instincts are also sound.
I actually thought I would kick around an idea of writing about retirees solving murders now that I am fully (and so happily!) retired ... then I see somebody gone and done it, so to speak with the Thursday Murder Club series. I have not read any of them yet. Who of you has, and do you think they are good? I do want your opinion. Thanks! :)
Here is a bit about it. It also says Amblin has bought the rights and there will be a film. I'm intrigued. I hope the books are good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thursday_Murder_Club
The books, as you would know having read about them, follow four elderly residents of a luxury retirement village, who have their own "Thursday Murder Club", where they meet every week trying to solve unsolved crime cases. Obviously the gang end up in the middle of live cases in every book. Although Joyce is the character that is given most attention, with her own diary pages as part of every story, my favourite character might be Elizabeth, who is a former MI5 intelligence operative!