When I was 9 I suddenly developed a taste for Agatha Christie novels. I'm fairly certain the first one I owned was "At Bertram's Hotel", but I don't remember if I got that before or after seeing the BBC adaptations of the Miss Marple stories. I could still hum you that theme tune, and for me Joan Hickson is the definitive Marple.
I must have been about 12 when the film "Agatha" (1979) was shown on TV, but I was thrilled to be allowed to stay up and watch it with my parents because I was fascinated by Agatha Christie's 11 day disappearance in 1926, which she never really gave a proper explanation for. Dad teased me that there was bound to be a sex scene in the film because it starred Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman, and, as I was a very pure minded 12 year old, the mere suggestion was completely outrageous to me! I don't actually remember much about the film now, except for the main plot twist, and it being the main reason I developed a distaste for Timothy Dalton that I've never quite got over. He's probably very nice in real life, but as Archie Christie he was a cad and a bounder so I could never buy into him being a romantic lead after this.
Last week I spotted the book that the film was based on. It was published two years after Agatha's death, so she didn't have a chance to respond to the solution posed by Kathleen Tynan. I'm only on chapter three, so she's only just vanished mysteriously and there isn't any indication of where she might have gone.
The art work on this is particularly 70's film tie-in, isn't it? Hideous, yet intriguing. Those are great portraits of Redgrave and Hoffman, but it's a weirdly composed image and I have no idea why they are peering off in different directions through wet glass. I'm pretty sure that doesn't end up being a plot point, but I could be wrong there.
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