....we 're in Hell and we're punished for what we have done" says detective Blore .It echoes to another of Lombard's sentence "I'm the only one telling the truth in a room full of liars" .Both lines were not taken from the book,but they could ;actually the mercenary tells it ,but in a much more polite way:"what a duty-loving law-abiding lot we all seem to be!Myself excepted!'
Agatha Christie's finest work had something supernatural,eerie,not only because of Emily Brent repeating quotations from the Bible ,but also in its inexorable progression.It's a grim tale ,the one Christie book which used to make shiver when I was 14 .No Poirot,no Marple will come to the rescue in this God-forsaken world.
I do think that this is the best version of my favorite thriller I have ever seen.I saw five of them before ,including a stage production;the only one that came close to Christie's atmosphere was the 1987 Russian version -which bore the infamous initial title-and I daresay the BBC version was influenced by it:the flashbacks concerning Vera and Emily were already here.It was faithful like a dog to the book (except for Vera's rape by Lombard)
The BBC tried to update the novel,to modernize its old-fashioned ways;most of the time it succeeds :Marston's fondness for coke should not shock people as I read it:don't they forget that "the murder of Roger Acroyd" (1926) featured a junkie,the governess's son at that?Turning Brent into a repressed lesbian and Blore in (maybe) a closeted gay who beats a homosexual suspect to death ,why not? And the sexual attraction between Lombard and Vera begins on the train when the hunky gun for hire watches the secretary's legs ;anyway,in 1965,golden girl Shirley Eaton had sex with Hugh O'Brian ;ditto in 1974 for Elke Sommer and Oliver Reed.The only scene which does not work is the "coke and booze" fest/orgy ,except if we take literally Blore 's words about Hell (which came the last morning anyway). More minor changes were made ,to tease the reader:after Rogers's death, Vera's and Armstrong's roles are reversed :He has a nervous breakdown and the girl slaps him in the face .
Apart from this over-the-top extravaganza,all that remains is splendid indeed ;the three- hour length should not put off the viewers:whereas the precedent versions used to botch the psychological side -with the exception of the Russian effort- ,in Phelps's screenplay ,they are no more cardboard characters ,no more poor victims of a serial killer called Ulick Norman Owen ,but monsters (see the death of Mrs Brady or Armstrong's gory flashback) The ending is faithful to the book ,with an element taken from the play;it's rather smart,and makes Vera even more hateful.
The cast is close to perfect and all the actors must be praised ;Charles Dance told that they got on very well and it shows in their work.
This is a house full of ghosts ,alive or half-dead ,and other ghosts sometimes coming
from long ago and far away.
A must for Christie's fans.
Agatha Christie's finest work had something supernatural,eerie,not only because of Emily Brent repeating quotations from the Bible ,but also in its inexorable progression.It's a grim tale ,the one Christie book which used to make shiver when I was 14 .No Poirot,no Marple will come to the rescue in this God-forsaken world.
I do think that this is the best version of my favorite thriller I have ever seen.I saw five of them before ,including a stage production;the only one that came close to Christie's atmosphere was the 1987 Russian version -which bore the infamous initial title-and I daresay the BBC version was influenced by it:the flashbacks concerning Vera and Emily were already here.It was faithful like a dog to the book (except for Vera's rape by Lombard)
The BBC tried to update the novel,to modernize its old-fashioned ways;most of the time it succeeds :Marston's fondness for coke should not shock people as I read it:don't they forget that "the murder of Roger Acroyd" (1926) featured a junkie,the governess's son at that?Turning Brent into a repressed lesbian and Blore in (maybe) a closeted gay who beats a homosexual suspect to death ,why not? And the sexual attraction between Lombard and Vera begins on the train when the hunky gun for hire watches the secretary's legs ;anyway,in 1965,golden girl Shirley Eaton had sex with Hugh O'Brian ;ditto in 1974 for Elke Sommer and Oliver Reed.The only scene which does not work is the "coke and booze" fest/orgy ,except if we take literally Blore 's words about Hell (which came the last morning anyway). More minor changes were made ,to tease the reader:after Rogers's death, Vera's and Armstrong's roles are reversed :He has a nervous breakdown and the girl slaps him in the face .
Apart from this over-the-top extravaganza,all that remains is splendid indeed ;the three- hour length should not put off the viewers:whereas the precedent versions used to botch the psychological side -with the exception of the Russian effort- ,in Phelps's screenplay ,they are no more cardboard characters ,no more poor victims of a serial killer called Ulick Norman Owen ,but monsters (see the death of Mrs Brady or Armstrong's gory flashback) The ending is faithful to the book ,with an element taken from the play;it's rather smart,and makes Vera even more hateful.
The cast is close to perfect and all the actors must be praised ;Charles Dance told that they got on very well and it shows in their work.
This is a house full of ghosts ,alive or half-dead ,and other ghosts sometimes coming
from long ago and far away.
A must for Christie's fans.