Public interest in Agatha Christie, combined with renewed curiosity about her brief disappearance following the publication of her autobiography and Tynan’s book, made for an excellent prospect for screen adaptation. Any speculations about the disappearance so soon after Christie’s death were, however, bound to require great care in showing how a novelist with Christie’s popular profile might have responded to common experiences of family bereavement and marital betrayal. Before the various revisions of the screenplay are considered, along with the difficulties that made the production so tortuous, a brief account of the film’s narrative is necessary in order to evaluate its final speculations about the disappearance in comparison with the book and first screenplay. The film is not a straightforward adaptation of Tynan’s book, but many key details are similar, contributing to a well-acted and in many ways powerful and evocative screen account of those lost days in Harrogate.
Agatha starts with the lead-up to the disappearance of Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave) and concentrates on her retiring manner at a literary luncheon, her husband Archie’s (Timothy Dalton) coldness towards her and his announcement over breakfast that he wants a divorce. Key plot points are revealed early on, such as Agatha finding out that Archie’s lover Nancy Neele plans to visit to a spa to undertake weight-loss treatment. The important character Wally Stanton (Dustin Hoffman), an American journalist visiting the UK who attends the literary luncheon, is introduced. He befriends local journalist John Foster (Paul Brooke) who is also interested in following Christie’s increasing fame as a popular novelist after the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), the book being celebrated at the luncheon. Stanton tries to see Agatha at her house but is sent away by Archie who is angered by the intrusion. Agatha leaves and we see her car crash as she swerves to avoid a dog, a detail not in Tynan’s book, which simply states that “she drove off wildly and at speed in the direction of Newlands Corner.”8 The car is found empty and a major search begins at the Silent Pool and surrounding area. Archie does not seem too perturbed, dismissing the idea of suicide as “ridiculous.”
The film then shows Agatha on the train to Harrogate where she registers as Teresa Neele from Cape Town. The shots of her journey are particularly effective in suggesting a temporal and emotional break with her past life. A close-up of her sitting on the train at first has her face obscured but the flicker of the light then illuminates her face intermittently as she stares ahead, responding to the staccato strobe effect by shutting her eyes. The screen fades to black and we next see her face more fully lit, presumably after sleeping, and she looks more engaged as the train enters the station in Harrogate. In a few seconds of screen-time a rupture has been suggested that is similar to the dreaming effect in Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945), another film dealing with a female protagonist in the midst of a personal crisis and with train travel as suggestive of both contemplation and transgression.
At the hotel Agatha befriends Evelyn Crawley (Helen Morse), a resident who is receiving treatment at the baths. Agatha avidly follows the arrival of Nancy Neele (Celia Gregory) without confronting her and pretending to Evelyn that she is curious about Nancy as a possible relative. At the baths Agatha becomes fascinated with the workings of the equipment, taking notes and conducting research as if she is a detective. Meanwhile, Wally has been following Agatha Christie’s disappearance. He learns of Archie’s affair indirectly from John Foster and then from Agatha’s secretary and confidant Charlotte Fisher (Carolyn Pickles) via an advertisement Agatha has put in the Times under the name of Teresa Neele, which Charlotte takes as a signal that she is safe. Wally goes to Harrogate suspecting that Agatha has gone in search of Nancy. Soon after arriving he befriends Teresa Neele and gradually falls in love with her, knowing she is Agatha Christie but not letting her know he has seen through her pretense. While Teresa/Agatha is wary at first, she appears to some extent attracted by Wally, enjoying dancing, swimming and talking with him at the hotel. It seems that Agatha’s research at the baths covers how to cause a fatal accident with the electrical equipment, planting the suspicion that she is going to use this knowledge to kill Nancy. But we eventually learn that her plan, which involves Agatha pretending to work at the baths and switching around crucial electricity current dials on the apparatus, is for Nancy to unintentionally kill Agatha; suicide by proxy. Wally becomes suspicious of Agatha’s behavior and guesses her plan. After a suspenseful sequence involving Wally running to the baths, desperately searching for Agatha in the treatment rooms, he interrupts the “accident” in time to revive Agatha after her brief exposure to electric shock. Nancy had turned up for treatment and was asked by someone (Agatha) she mistook for Mrs. Braithwaite, the usual person who administered treatment, to turn on the electric current. Not realizing that the “on” and “off” dials had deliberately been tampered with, Nancy ignites a terrifying blast of electricity. Wally rushes in and, to Nancy’s horror, they find that that the person shaking in the chair is Agatha. Wally revives her after switching off the current.
Agatha is saved by Wally’s timely intervention. Producer Gavrik Losey wanted it to be clear in the film that Agatha’s attempt would not have worked, that she was an amateur blundering in the world of electricity and that “all she would succeed in doing is blowing the rheostat and giving herself some sharper, nastier shocks than the machine normally gives.”9 Nevertheless, these finer details were not included in the film; instead, Wally tells her when she recovers that her plan was “very clever.” In addition, the need for great care over Christie’s image in the film explains why in Tynan’s book Agatha tries, but fails due to an interruption, an experimental “dry run” of murder on Nancy, an incident that does not feature in the film. Tynan did not approve of this omission—she thought the “dry run” was “essential to the plot … she must appear to be carrying out one of her own stories.”10 To imply that Agatha was in the end not planning a perfect murder, the book refers to a letter written to Evelyn explaining about the suicide intention. In the film, neither the “dry run” nor the letter were included, nevertheless leaving the impression that she did indeed intend to kill herself. Both book and film were caught between needing to maintain suspense for much of the plot, while taking care to suggest that even though Christie wrote murder mysteries she would never entertain committing murder herself.
After the news of the missing author being found spreads, Archie reveals little about the incident at a press conference, puts down Agatha’s disappearance to illness and denies that he has been having an affair. Agatha visits Wally for a final time before leaving Harrogate; he tells her he loves her and that he will not publish the story. By this time their relationship is mutually respectful even if Agatha cannot return Wally’s affections. Agatha says she will go back to Archie because they must get a divorce, a remark that Wally comments on as a “surprise ending.” He watches as Agatha and Archie leave Harrogate on the train. Echoing the final words of the book at the end of the film, a title informs us that two years later the Christies divorced.11
A Contested Production and the Hoffman Factor
The above version of events that reached the screen only reflects part of Kathleen Tynan’s original vision, which related more closely to her book. Many compromises were reached along the way, making the production a highly contested one for creative as well as financial reasons. The credited screenwriters were Kathleen Tynan with revisions by Arthur Hopcraft. Murray Schisgal and Christopher Hampton also contributed but they were not credited. By examining the screenplay’s evolution during the production process, it becomes clear that key details and nuances of character were omitted, some more striking than others. When films are adapted from books, the editing of details and even the cutting of major elements is often necessary, but with Agatha the process caused an unusual amount of contention that started in autumn 1977 and continued during 1978 before the film was completed and finally released in February 1979.
Tynan was made aware of the need for changes to
the original script but was not entirely comfortable with them all, writing to director Michael Apted that she felt “let down” and that “some of the tone of the film and the meat are being irretrievably lost.”12 One major change was the reduction of the significance of the character Evelyn, Agatha’s new friend in Harrogate. In the book she is a close confidante who accompanies her on shopping and bathing trips, and who Agatha generally uses to gauge the impact of her new persona as Teresa Neele. Losey later commented: “The principle of the script, which would have made a better film, was that it was the tale of two women” (Agatha and Evelyn).13 Changes in casting might have influenced the decision to reduce the role of Evelyn after Julie Christie, forced by ill health to pull out of the production, was replaced by Helen Morse, a less high-profile actor. Tynan was not entirely happy with the reduction of Evelyn’s role, but accepted it. She wrote to Michael Apted on 20 November 1977: “The film must … work as a psychological thriller; a study of a woman in crisis who because of the experience she undergoes, and with the help of two catalysts—Wally and Evelyn—changes and grows. Of course Evelyn’s part had to be curtailed, both from the plot point of view, as well as her relations with Agatha. Wally can do the same but better.”14 Advertising for the book and film reflects the augmentation of Wally as a character and also Hoffman’s co-star billing. The book features Vanessa Redgrave as Agatha in the foreground with Hoffman as Wally in the background whereas in the film poster this positioning is reversed.15
Tynan’s comments do show some agreement with changes to Wally’s role but in view of her criticism of some of the script changes it seems she was not happy with the extent of this, even claiming that Hoffman did not want this:
In principle I think it’s daft to write in scenes for Dustin that don’t carry the film forward plotwise or emotionally. It’s quite evident how magical Dustin and Vanessa are together. I think it would only be damaging to Dustin’s part to overexpose it just for the sake of putting him on camera whenever we can. He’s always opposed that idea from the very first meetings we had.16
There is great stress on Agatha’s vulnerability in the book and her state of mind is signaled very early on, but as an inevitable result of adaptation from page to screen there is less opportunity for quite this depth of despair to surface in the film, Redgrave’s performance notwithstanding. In both the book and the film, however, Agatha’s assumed identity as Teresa Neele allows her to step outside of herself, a process observed most keenly by Wally who understands that this helps her psychologically. His collusion with her pretense is clearly motivated by a desire to be close to the famous writer, while at the same time allowing him to collect the information he needs as a journalist.
Despite the fact that much was made of the augmentation of Wally’s role as a result of Hoffman’s First Artists contract that stated he could only star or co-star in a film, Wally was always a central character in the book. The main difference in the film is that there is more physical intimacy and suggestion of romance, for example in a scene when Wally asks Teresa/Agatha if she would “care for a kiss” which she refuses at first, although she later returns the question with the opposite result. There is also a scene in which Wally and Teresa/Agatha are swimming, with him supporting her body tenderly as she appears to struggle against the water. These scenes risk cheapening their relationship, which in the book is more subtle, a point Tynan was keen to stress must be handled carefully in the absence of a more prominent role for Evelyn. Giving Evelyn more emotional weight in the book was arguably safer than exaggerating the romance angle with Wally to the extent that it is in the film, since the latter is in danger of making Agatha more akin to Archie who is cast as unloving and unfaithful.
As the production progressed Tynan was less involved and additional writers were brought in to work on the script; Hoffman also made many suggestions for re-shooting scenes. Agatha went well over budget which prevented Hoffman from having the executive control over final cut he desired. The film started out with a relatively modest budget of £1,728,004 but this rocketed as re-shoots commenced, largely demanded by Hoffman who was eager to extend his role as Wally Stanton. Hoffman was keen to explain that in asking for re-shoots he was trying to perfect his performance rather than wanting to be on screen simply for the sake of his personal aggrandizement. This can be ascertained from a long report published in Variety early in 1979 where Hoffman defends his position, claiming that First Artists and not he pushed for the augmentation of his role.
I feel somewhat passionate about this … because First Artists has tried to use the old reliable ego formula with stars in the press. The star wanted it rewritten for him, they seem to be saying. Number one, I would have just as well preferred to have a part that was supporting, but they wouldn’t allow it. Number two, when it was to be made co-starring and I asked for the extra three weeks of rehearsal, that was all I asked for.17
Despite these protestations and even though Wally’s romantic attachment to Agatha was accentuated in the finished film, Hoffman was frustrated at not being able to exert more of an influence in the editing stage. We get a fairly detailed sense of his wishes for the film in a letter from editor Jim Clark to Phil Feldman, First Artists’ president and chief executive, in which some of Hoffman’s suggestions are discussed.18 Cross-cutting different scenes was one preferred strategy; for example, in the film’s opening scene Hoffman wanted the film to convey a greater sense of the complex emotions going through Agatha’s head as she watches an engraver completing work on a gift for Archie, a tankard engraved: “Archie, my love, my friend, Agatha.” Clark records that they tried cross-cutting this scene with footage of publishers Collins & Fisher waiting for Agatha to go to the literary reception, but “this became scrappy and confusing.” Similarly in the literary lunch scene, Hoffman wanted more cross-cutting between Agatha and Wally but Clark interpreted this request as Hoffman wanting to make up for an inadequate performance: “I feel we can’t go any further than we have…. If Dustin wanted more out of this he should have played the scene in a less passive manner at the time. I get a little tired of actors who expect the editor to ‘‘create’’ something they didn’t deliver when they had the opportunity.”
On the other hand some of Hoffman’s recommendations were carried out: for example, he requested that a scene of Teresa/Agatha and Wally joyfully dancing in the hotel should be intercut with the desperate searches for Christie. This underlines the stark contrast between the personal abandon in a luxury hotel experienced by Agatha and the great number of people and level of resources and seriousness behind the nationwide search for the missing author. For the scene in the swimming pool that represented “the peak of trust” between them, Hoffman wanted even more explicit suggestion of romance, an idea that Clark was not sympathetic toward: “I searched through all that footage for the most ‘romantic’ elements, and cannot believe we had anything more touching.” Clark writes: “If Dustin believes there was footage with ‘so much love in it’ which I haven’t used, let him come find it. Maybe our definition of the word ‘love’ is different. I’ve been through that footage a 1000 times and it hasn’t yielded more riches.” Hoffman’s suggestions were clearly interpreted as unhelpful interference by professionals such as Clark who were unused to actors trying to assume a major role beyond their performance.
It would seem, then, that Hoffman did exert a degree of influence in spite of his overall impression of being reined-in as the budget spiraled out of control. He was allowed to shoot a key scene towards the end of the film in which Wally once again declares his love for Agatha in a hotel as she recovers from her ordeal. It represents the conclusion of their relationship as Wally says he will not publish the story, which would surely have been a great professional scoop, and Agatha appears to care a little for Wally even though she makes it clear that she will return to Archie. Wally hands her his story, which she places in his suitcase as she gently folds his shirts, kneeling down and handling his clothes with loving care. Such gesture
s of tenderness are to convince the viewer that they have formed a deep friendship for which she is grateful. As Jim Clark’s comments reveal, this was about as far as the rest of the production team was prepared to go with the romance angle, a view that chimed with Losey’s awareness that it needed to remain as one-sided as possible. Despite the controversy Hoffman was pleased with aspects of the final film, including Vanessa Redgrave’s performance and the cinematography, as well as claiming that he always maintained respect for Kathleen Tynan’s original screenplay.19 These may have been diplomatic remarks to the press just before the film’s release but as an example of a well-crafted film with top stars, beautifully shot by award-winning Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storano with astute direction and a fascinating story-base, Agatha subsequently enjoyed wide release and eventually made a modest profit.20
The Ageless Agatha Christie Page 25
