Love, crime, and agatha christie

Abstract

With her small cast of characters, clear plotting, and largely selfcontained narratives, the stories of Agatha Christie lend themselves well to adaptation for the screen. However, the transition is not always straightforward, with characterization in particular being affected by the differing requirements of a film or television audience compared with the reader of a novel or short story. The gentle iconography of sleepy English villages or exotic foreign locales contrasts with the underlying darkness, and even cynicism, that motivates so many of the characters. In Agatha Christie’s works, love is rarely straightforward. It is usually subversive in some manner; love is hidden for money, murder, revenge, or another key element of her mystery formula. Using case studies ranging from elaborate Hollywood adaptations to British-produced television series, this chapter is an examination of how these adaptations use the dark side of love as a key theme and motivator, which is placed more centrally on screen than in the original published mysteries.