Agatha Christie on Screen

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) still is one of the most popular mystery writers.  Known for her characters of detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, she wrote novels, short stories and several plays.  Her stories have been adapted into films, extremely long-running television shows, TV movies, plays and even some video games.  I wanted to take a trip through some films and the music that accompanied.   

Detective Poirot appeared in a few British adaptations in the early 1930.  In 1937, there was Love From A Stranger [A Night of Terror in the US] based on a play version of her short story, Philomel Cottage.  Music was written by Benjamin Britten - one of his only turns in commercial film scoring after his unhappy experience.  The story was also the basis of the American-made Love From A Stranger (1947) with music by Hans Salter.


And Then There Were None (aka Ten Little Indians - one of Christie's most revived works) first became a film in 1945 with music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  One of the most popular adaptations was Witness for the Prosecution (1957) with music by Matty Maineck.  The suspenseful courtroom drama was directed by Billy Wilder and nominated for several Oscars including Best Picture. 


 
Miss Marple made several screen appearances staring Margaret Rutherford - Murder, She Said (1961), Murder at the Gallop (1963), Murder Most Foul (1964) and Murder Ahoy! (1964) all with music by Brit composer extraordinaire Ron Goodwin.  Goodwin also wrote the music to The Alphabet Murders (1965).  

In the 1970s, we get Bernard Herrmann's score to thriller Endless Night (1971) and then the masterful Murder on the Orient Express (1974) with Albert Finney as Poirot.  The film was nominated for several Oscars, including the score by Richard Rodney Bennett.


Ten Little Indians (1974) gets another adaptation, music by Bruno Nicolai.  Peter Ustinov began his Poirot tenure with Death on the Nile (1978) - music by Nino Rota.  The Mirror Crack'd (1980) featured Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple.  Evil Under the Sun (1982) brought Ustinov back with a soundtrack littered with Cole Porter tunes.  After some TV adaptations, Ustinov made his last Poirot appearance in Cannon Films' Appointment with Death (1988), featuring a score by Pino Donaggio.    


Poirot came back to the big screen directed and starring Kenneth Branagh.  Returning back to the strongest story, Murder on the Orient Express (2017) brought the detective to a new generation.  The score was written by frequent collaborator Patrick Doyle.  Branagh continued on with Death on the Nile (2022), again with a score by Doyle.  He then turned to the novel Hallowe'en Party for A Haunting in Venice (2023) with a minimalist score by Hildur Guðnadóttir.    

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  1. Maybe Agatha Christie was a British writer and she created the characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

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