All language subtitles for Agatha.Christie.100.Years.of.Poirot.and.Miss.Marple.2020.PROPER.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG

Murder on
the Orient Express,

Death on the Nile, And
Then There Were None.

We've all read an
Agatha Christie novel

or watched a TV adaptation.

There's been a few
over the years.

I think she's probably

one of the most
prolific novelists

the country's ever produced.

The only other books that
have sold more than hers

are Shakespeare's and the Bible.

She created a genre
really of crime writing

that's still around and
people just love it.

It is not always that simple.

In each
tantalising mystery,

Agatha's much loved
characters, Hercule Poirot

and Miss Marple
have astonished us

with their powers of deduction.

The little grey cells
have done well today.

But how does a short Belgian
and a little old lady

become two of the most famous
detectives in the world?

Nobody is beyond suspicion.

It is impossible
to conceal anything

from Hercule Poirot.

And how on earth
did Agatha Christie

come up with each
outrageously compelling plot?

She's the queen of crime

and her plotting is
absolutely fantastic.

She takes you by the hand,

she leads you into the maze.

Somehow she brings you
out the other side,

you're not exactly
sure where you've been

but you know you've
enjoyed the journey.

Now, 100 years

after the first Agatha
Christie novel was published,

a new Hollywood version
of Death on the Nile

modernises the story
for the 21st century,

as this lavish star
studied trailer shows.

So we take a look
back over a century

at 10 of Agatha's greatest works

with access to the
family archive.

I always think of
two Agatha Christies,

There is Agatha Christie,
the kind of global figure

and then there is what we in
our family refer to as Nema.

She was a lovely,
warm, kind person.

We hear from
the great lady herself.

You see, I put
it all down to the fact

that I never had any education.

And reveal
the life and secrets

of an author who has
entertained millions.

You start believing one
set of things to be true

and then she'll take
you on a very windy path

and at the very end, there'll
nearly always be a reveal

that you simply
had never expected.

This is a celebration

of a century of Agatha Christie.

Agatha
Christie is the world's

most influential crime writer.

From the classic drawing
room it was him scene,

to the clueless
psychic and detective.

Red herrings and murder abound

against a backdrop of
unassuming quaint charm.

Was there much blood?

She kind of paved the way

for everything
that's happened since

with regards to
crime storytelling

in theatre and television
and film, I think.

You know there are shows,

whether it's Death
In Paradise or Vera.

Midsomer murders.

Jonathan Creek.

Line of Duty.

We see her debt
absolutely everywhere.

But her extraordinary
impact on the world

wouldn't have happened if it
hadn't been for her first book,

The Mysterious Affair At Styles.

Published 100 years ago,

it's the tale of
a dastardly murder

in an English country house.

Exactly a century ago,

a mysterious unsolicited package

arrived in Vigo street
in central London.

Inside was a
manuscript for a novel

that would mark the
beginning of a phenomena

that would go on to enthral

billions of people
around the world.

This was the first novel
by Agatha Christie.

Four years earlier, in 1916,

the first world war had
been raging in Europe.

26 year old Agatha Christie

had recently married
husband Archie,

and he had gone to fight with
the Royal Flying Corp abroad.

At home in Torquay, Agatha
joined the war effort,

working with a nursing
call at a local hospital.

To pass the time, she
would often write stories.

In 2008, the Christie
family discovered

unheard recordings of Agatha.

This archive offers us
a fascinating insight.

They'll often ask me

what made me take up writing.

You see, I put it
all down to the fact

that I never had an education

and I found myself
making up stories

and acting the different parts,

and there's nothing like
boredom to make you write.

But one evening,

whilst reading detective
stories with her sister, Madge,

a challenge was set.

Agatha's sister
made a bet with her

that she couldn't write,

or certainly couldn't
get published, a novel.

Agatha took
the bet seriously.

I'd finished
the first book of mine

ever to be published, The
Mysterious Affair At Styles.

Agatha
could never have dreamt

of how successful
she would become,

and in particular,
in this first story

with the creation of the
most prolific detective

of all time.

He was the enigmatic Belgian
with a fastidious dress sense

and a head full of
little grey cells.

The scarlet pimpernel.

It is believed that when
this flower is open,

it is a sign that the prolonged
spell of the fine weather.

It is seldom seen
open in this country.

There were a lot of
Belgian refugees in Torquay

at the time of the
first world war

and that somewhere, somehow

she either saw
something or someone

that put, as it were, the
visual clue into her head.

Hercule Poirot
appears in 33 novels,

3 plays and more than
50 short stories.

Yet his first appearance in
A Mysterious Affair At Styles

is not particularly
complimentary.

Poirot was an extraordinary
looking little man.

He was hardly more than
five feet, four inches,

but carried himself
with great dignity.

His head was exactly
the shape of an egg

and he always perched
it a little on one side.

His moustache was very
stiff and military,

the neatness of his attire
was almost incredible.

I believe a speck of dust
would have caused him

more pain than a bullet wound.

And his appearance

wasn't the only unfortunate
thing about him.

This very unconventional hero

had some unexpected traits.

Evite.

Meticulous.

Arrogant.

Curious.

Sexless.

Infuriating.

Tricky.

As well as
a deeply ironic name.

Hercule is Agatha Christie's
joke, that I remember.

She took a little
man with a bald head

and a strange moustache,

an evite foreigner,

and gave him the most
masculine of names

based on of course, Hercules.

He's not a fully
rounded character.

We don't know a
lot about his past.

We don't know a lot about his
feelings and his thoughts,

but that is sort of the point.

His function in the book is to
be a kind of extended brain.

It is his brain that matters.

Not only
did Agatha introduce us

to a curious and instantly
memorable detective,

but she established a genre
that has survived a century.

That of murder and betrayal
in sleepy English villages.

It's a hundred years
since the publication

of Agatha Christie's
groundbreaking first novel,

The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

The book that first introduced
us to Hercule Poirot.

It is set in 1916 during the
middle of the first world war.

Lieutenant Hastings,
an army officer,

has been injured fighting
on the Western front.

He's invited to
spend his sick leave

at the beautiful manor
house, Styles Court,

by an old friend,
John Cavendish.

Hastings is staying at Styles,

a very beautiful mansion.

Had a very nice long driveway.

It really does tick
a lot of the boxes

that we might expect
from Agatha Christie.

She's good enough to supply
us with a floor plan,

which means that we
really have to think

about the novel as a puzzle.

But all is
not well at Styles.

John's stepmother,
Emily Inglethorpe,

has recently found a new,
somewhat younger husband.

Mr. Hastings, my husband.

I'm delighted to
meet you, Lieutenant.

And the
rest of the family

are suspicious of his motives.

Watch that devil.

The characters we see in Styles

are probably the
type of characters

who lots of people think
are the archetypal Christie

sort of list of
suspects and victims

because we have
upper middle class

or upper class people here

but they're also people
who are very interested

in things like hereditary wealth

and how this is
gonna work for them.

So lots of people who
might have a good reason

to perhaps change the family
tree in a particular way.

As she was
writing her novel,

Agatha was moved from
general nursing work

to the more
specialised pharmacy,

where she began to
learn about poisons.

This would go on to feature
as the murder weapon

in many of her stories and
Styles was no exception.

When Mrs. Inglethorpe
is found poisoned,

Agatha uses her
specialist knowledge

to cleverly develop the mystery.

She has really thought
through the way

that particular suspects
might be able to administer

a fatal dose of this poison.

Hastings, being there,

suggests calling in
an old friend of his

whom he knows to
be in the vicinity,

who wow happens to be the
greatest detective on earth.

That's handy.

The Mysterious
Affair at Styles

was also the moment when
Poirot acquired his sidekick.

Hastings?

Good lord, Mr. Poirot.

It is indeed.

I played the role
of Captain Hastings

in the television series,
Agatha Christie's Poirot.

I got a call from my agent

and then they asked me
to go back subsequently

to read with David Suchet,

and we read a couple of scenes,

which seemed to go quite well

and they asked me
to play the part.

They are completely
opposite characters.

Hastings is much more
worldly than Poirot.

Poirot is supremely intelligent

and analytic and incredibly tidy

and meticulous about everything.

Hastings is quite the opposite.

You said to me that
Madam Inglethorpe

ate very little for supper.

Yes.

One of those curious
little facts, mon ami.

We put it here.

The detective needs two things.

He needs somebody he can talk to

so he can explain what
his thought processes are.

But also the author
needs that sidekick

to misdirect the audience.

We are possibly half a
step ahead of Hastings

because he'll say
something like,

if you cannot see in this room,

what I see, my dear
friend Hastings,

then you are even more of
an imbecile than I thought.

And of course we are
then tantalised by that,

what is it he can see
that Hastings can't see?

We flatter ourselves we're
clever than Hastings,

but we still can't quite see it.

Over the years, the
eccentric Belgian detective

has appeared in dozens
of feature films

with many great actors
taking the role,

including Peter Ustinov, Albert
Finney, and Kenneth Branagh.

But it took over
70 years for Poirot

to make it onto
the small screen,

and getting the very first
adaptation off the ground

was no mean feat.

So my mum who was TV
producer, Pat Sams,

and she had persuaded
the estate to allow her,

my mum, my mum, to put
Agatha on the small screen.

'Cause Agatha in her lifetime
had said I'm films or nothing.

And mum always described
it as going to the board,

the Christie board, and giving
a sort of an oral examination

of her immense knowledge
of Agatha Christie.

ITV's Poirot series

was first broadcast in 1989

and went on to run for a
staggering 70 episodes.

Actor, David Suchet, played
Poirot in every one of them

and for many he has
defined the role.

It's almost like something
weirdly magic is going on

because he seems to
me just to actually be

the perfect
embodiment of Poirot.

Whenever I read
Agatha Christie now

and read a Poirot, I'm
afraid I see David.

David Suchet's
approach to the role

has become the
stuff of TV legend.

He wore a fat suit,

and so he had this custom
made kind of wooden thing

where he'd just
sort of lean into it

and so in between takes,

he'd just sort of sit
there in this thing

and lean and have his
cup of tea and stuff.

It is well known that
he remains in character

a lot of the time.

I don't think I ever spoke
to him on the set as himself.

He was the character.

When he was having lunch,
he was the character.

It was a kind of moment of truth

when we did Death In The Clouds,

some of which was
filmed in Paris,

that has a big French crew
as well as some English,

and David'd come out
and say ah bonjour.

Bonjour mes amis.

And the first assistant
came over and said,

ah, bonjour David, and then
started speaking French

in a really fast Parisian way.

And of course,
David didn't get it

'cause he doesn't speak
French that quite as well

as you think he does.

The
introduction to Poirot

and his relationship
with Hastings

were not the only
seminal aspects

of the Mysterious
Affair At Styles.

There was one other
groundbreaking element

that like the book itself
almost didn't happen.

It was actually suggested
by the publishers.

Madames et Monsieurs,
good evening.

Originally Christie
had written the ending

of Mysterious Affair At Styles

to take place in a courtroom.

At the suggestion
of her publisher,

she went back and rewrote
it to be more of a,

what we would think of as
a drawing room conclusion.

Agatha Christie
invented this summing up

where Poirot gathers
people together at the end

and you know that the
criminal is in the room.

Poirot goes around and says,
it could have been you,

it could have been you,
it could have been you,

it could have been you,

and you keep on waiting
for the blow to fall.

And yet, Madame
Inglethorpe ordered a fire

to be lighted in her room.

Why?

Because she wanted
to burn something.

Precisement, Inspector Japp.

It's not something

that a Scotland Yard
detective would do,

but he had to put up with it

'cause that was his
way of doing things.

That became obviously
a staple of the genre

and obviously of her own work.

Agatha's
drawing room conclusion

was impressively inventive.

Not only was it adopted
by numerous crime writers,

but it's also in
the vast majority

of murderous television
dramas from Death In Paradise

Following the success
of her first novel,

over the next couple of years,

Agatha Christie wrote
four more books.

By 1922, she was considered
a successful novelist.

She and her husband, Archie,
moved into a brand new house

in Sunningdale, Berkshire

that they had called Styles,

and they had a
daughter, Rosalind.

It was the publication
of her next novel

that established Agatha as
not only a popular author,

but also one who could
redefine the genre.

It tells the tale of
another scandalous murder

in a sleepy English village,

but this one is a
murder with a twist.

The Murder Of Roger
Ackroyd is significant

because it's Christie's
most daring crime mystery

and its twist
fundamentally changed

detective fiction forever.

It does something really
audacious and unexpected.

It is still one of the
most extraordinary twists

in detective fiction.

That was the book that
really set her up,

that was the book
that made her name.

I cannot say what it is

about The Murder
Of Roger Ackroyd

that makes this book unique,
that is the problem here.

The story is set

in the quintessential English
village of Kings Abbott.

You've got the two
big country houses,

one is Roger Ackroyd's,

one belongs to a lady
called Mrs. Ferrars,

and they've been having
a bit of a thing.

And then it turns out that Mrs.
Ferrars has killed herself.

And then it turns out Mrs.
Ferras has killed herself

because someone was
blackmailing her.

I will kill you.

Another
resident of Kings Abbott

turns out to be none other
than the famous detective,

Hercule Poirot,

retired and without
his sidekick, Hastings.

I think Christie
realised pretty soon

that actually she was quite
incumbered by Hastings.

So as she was quite
happy to marry him off

and sent him to the Argentine.

The Murder
Of Roger Ackroyd

is narrated in the first person

by Poirot's neighbour,
Dr. Sheppard.

House Sheppard.

Dr. Sheppard, in the book,
plays the Hastings role.

He accompanies Poirot,

he knows a certain amount
of what Poirot is thinking.

The friendship between
Poirot and Dr. Sheppard,

who is so desperate to
help him solve the crime,

is a really interesting one,

particularly in light
of what happens.

And you've also got
Sheppard's sister, Caroline.

I saw something quite
peculiar just now.

She knows everything that's
going on in this village.

He was talking to a girl.

And if she doesn't know it,

she's jolly well gonna find out.

Now a few people
disturbed this room, but -

The incredible
twist at the end of the book

was suggested to Agatha by
two very different people,

her sister Madge's husband

and a member of the
Royal family, no less.

The Murder
Of Roger Ackroyd

has been a very decided success,

partly because of having
fun and original twist

for a detective story plot.

This, which I must say,

I owe mostly to my brother
in law's chance remark.

As a matter of fact, same idea,
though in a different form,

was suggested to
me, by no less than

Lord Louis Mountbatten.

The secret of Roger Ackroyd

is in pretty much every
sentence of the book,

and I read it a second time

simply to see if there
was a single sentence

that was fake or
which lied to me,

and I can tell you there isn't.

I think it's a
brilliant book to reread

because to see how she
has placed those clues,

it's just exquisite.

Adapting the
book for television.

Are you all right,
Chief Inspector?

Was not a challenge
for the faint hearted.

I've adapted many,
many Agatha Christie

short stories and novels,

and they each had
different challenges.

Actually, when you
deconstructed them,

trying to reconstruct them again

and nail them to the
screen, as it were,

was often quite difficult.

With this book,

it was impossible
to tell the story

the way Agatha had intended.

The TV adaptation
with David Suchet

famously really didn't
use the plot twist

and kind of actually operated

in a more traditional
linear manner.

The murder
of Roger Ackroyd

was published by Collins
in 1926 to great acclaim.

But the book's central twist

was to be mirrored by an
equally sensational twist

in the life of Agatha Christie.

In 1926, Agatha
Christie published

The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd.

The book was hailed as a triumph

and propelled her
to superstardom,

but her personal life
started to fall apart.

It's always seemed odd to me

that The Murder Of
Roger Ackroyd comes out

this great triumph in 1926,

because that was
the year her life

went so spectacularly wrong.

Just after the
publication of Roger Ackroyd,

Agatha's mother died.

She absolutely worshipped
her mother, Clara,

this little woman,
but with such a force,

she was a perfect
mother, really.

While Agatha was
clearing the family house

of her mother's belongings,

her husband Archie turned
up with devastating news.

He wanted a divorce.

The sense of betrayal

was like a scene from
one of her own novels.

Archie met someone
else and things just,

you know, fell to pieces.

Must've been desperately alone,

and so, I mean, Archie couldn't
have chosen a worse moment.

This
was the beginning

of an extraordinary series of
events in her personal life

that would develop into
one of the most enduring

real life mystery stories
of the 20th century.

On the 3rd of December, 1926,

the then 36 year old Agatha
left her home in Sunningdale

said goodbye to her
sleeping daughter

and then drove off
into the night.

The next morning, the
vehicle was found abandoned

on a hillside close to the
silent pool in Shere, Surrey.

Inside was a fur coat
and a driving licence.

Of Agatha Christie,
there was no sign.

I mean, the media reaction
to this was extraordinary.

In some ways, this catapulted
her to another level of fame.

It was a massive story.

Thousands of people
went round the country

searching for her,
lakes were dredged,

all those kinds of things.

After 11 days,

Agatha turned up at
a hotel in Harrogate.

She refused to speak
about the incident

and was put off doing publicity
for the rest of her life.

Now exactly what happened
between her leaving Sunningdale

and turning up in
Harrogate, no one knows.

It's actually a bigger
mystery than any of her books.

Throughout my life,
I've always hoped

that there is an envelope
that will be passed down

through the family and
that one day I will get it.

I suspect there isn't,

but I guess my father
may have it still

and I may get it one time
or my sisters may get it,

I don't know.

The Murder
Of Roger Ackroyd

is widely held to be the
greatest crime novel of all time.

But Agatha was tiring of Poirot.

She began to look for a new hero

and was inspired by
one of the characters

she had created
in Roger Ackroyd.

Why, Hercule.

Madame Sheppard.

Isn't it terrible
about poor Parker.

The character
of Caroline Sheppard

is one of the inspirations

behind Agatha's new
literary detective

and she first appeared
in our next novel.

It's one of Agatha's
most well known stories

and tells a tale
of murder most foul

in another quiet
English village.

One thing I love
about the novel,

her enjoyment of the
story she's telling

leaps off every page.

Agatha
Christie's new detective

was none other than an
elderly spinster, Miss Marple.

Nosy.

Suspicious.

Sceptical.

Inquisitive.

Self-effacing.

Just granny like.

Fluffy on the outside.

Machiavellian.

This brilliant, brilliant
concept of the little old lady

who's got a better brain than
the head of Scotland Yard.

I just had the idea,

little spinster lady
living in a village.

The sort of old lady
who would have been

rather like some of my
grandmother's cronies.

After her life had gone
so spectacularly wrong,

I think possibly
it was a comfort

to recreate the women
of her childhood.

But she had this in
common with my grandmother,

but although a
completely chirpal folk,

she always expected the worst
of anyone and everything.

And thus with almost
frightening accuracy,

usually proved right.

Nothing goes past you,
Miss Marple, does it?

Hardly ever.

She obviously was slightly nosy,

perhaps a little like Agatha,

you know, she noticed
what went on around her.

She's constantly popping
up from pruning her roses

to notice whoever
it is walking past.

She has no life experience,
she's never been married,

she's never had children,

she's never experienced
intense emotions

of the kind that lead
wanted to commit murder,

but she can recognise them.

The book is set
in the quaint English village

of St. Mary Mead.

She never lived in
a village, Agatha,

not like St. Mary Mead,
but she knew that life,

the details are very, very good.

There is one
resident the villagers despise,

Colonel Protheroe.

I expect to see a full
set of parish accounts

or I'm going to take
this matter further.

Is that quite clear?

Everybody knows him,

he's making enemies
left, right and centre

so he's kind of got
an arrow saying victim

pointing to his head and then,
oh, hello in the village,

there's this kind of glamorous
young man painting everybody.

I forgot you were coming.

The usual stuff going on there.

Is he doing Mrs. Protheroe too?

You've also got this beautiful
kind of chorus transposed

to the English home
counties of the old ladies.

Miss Hartnell, Mrs. Price-Ridley,
Miss. Weatherby, whatever,

they were completely in charge.

The Vicar's terrified of them.

The Colonel is
discovered in his study

shot in the head.

There were some really
obvious suspects.

In fact, couple of people
who step forward and say,

actually I did this.

Very bold piece of
misdirection as to the culprit,

but it comes down to a
beautiful simplicity in the end.

Miss Marple
first appeared on the screen

32 years after Murder At The
Vicarage was first published.

She was played by
Margaret Rutherford

and Angela Lansbury
on the big screen.

Then in 1984, the BBC adapted

all the original
Miss. Marple stories,

starring Joan Hickson.

Joan Hickson, who I
thought was wonderful.

Joan wasn't a big enough
name to be in the films,

but she did have a letter
from Agatha Christie

saying you are my
perfect idea of Marple.

Oh, you look very
shocked, Vicar.

Sit down.

I remember watching
Joan Hickson,

thinking she is so good.

in the 21st century, ITV
brought back Miss. Marple.

First of all, with
Geraldine McEwan

and then with Julia McKenzie.

Geraldine McEwan's
is much more broad.

Julia McKenzie goes back to
that sort of original idea

that actually she sits
away in the background

and really observes and doesn't
draw attention to herself.

Miss. Marple
was an instant hit

with the public,

both in the adaptations
and in the original novel.

The post world war one public

were comforted by this
unconventional matriarchal detective.

By 1928, Agatha and Archie's
divorce was finalised.

She was allowed to
keep his surname,

but after the scandal
of a disappearance,

she was constantly
hounded by the press.

Agatha left England and
headed East to Baghdad.

She heard about that
part of the world

and decided that she'd
like to go there.

I think this sums up her
kind of adventurous spirit.

It's hard to imagine now,
but I think, you know,

I think you should is, is that
how brave she must've been

at a time when when a woman
travelling that far on her own

would have been very rare.

In Iraq,

Agatha discovered a
love of archaeology.

She returned to Iraq
for a second time

and that's when she met a
dashing young archaeologist

called Max Mallowan.

They fell in love,

and as soon as they got back
to England, they were married.

Throughout her travels,
Agatha continued to write.

One book in particular
was influenced

by her trips to Baghdad.

It was full of
grammar and intrigue

and it would go on to inspire

two blockbuster
Hollywood movies,

because instead of
travelling by steamship,

Agatha decided to
take the train.

Agatha Christie's
most celebrated work

was published in 1934.

It's set on the
exotic Orient Express,

the train that Agatha took
that connects East to West.

It is the summit of her
genius in many respects.

The again, so hard to discuss it

without mentioning the solution.

It has a claim to being
Christie's masterpiece.

The solution is one
of the cleverest,

if not the cleverest in the
whole of mystery fiction.

Hercule Poirot is called
back from Istanbul to England

and has to take a train.

He manages to get a
second class ticket

on board the famous
Orient Express.

The Calais
coach on the train

is full of an eclectic
bunch of characters

from princesses to
travelling salesmen.

Where he meets an American
called Mr. Ratchett,

who asks him for his protection.

He's been getting death threats

and Poirot turns him down,

he says, I don't like your face.

And then Ratchett's
murdered, stabbed.

Multiple, multiple stab wounds.

The plot is based
on a true story.

In 1932, famous aviator,
Charles Lindbergh's son

was kidnapped and then murdered.

Tragic story that Agatha
Christie had most certainly read.

And there was also the
case that she found herself

on a train that due
to rain, not snow,

was caused to stop for
a great deal of time

so she put those two together
to create this masterpiece.

The weather has stopped the
train, no one can escape.

There's very much a sense
of that claustrophobia.

In the book,
Agatha cleverly traps

her cast of characters in
the enclosed environment

of a train carriage.

The detective, Hercule Poirot,

believes that the murderer is
still on the train with us.

It becomes apparent that no
single one of the passengers

can possibly have done it

because everyone is alibied
by at least one other person.

Throughout the story,

the reader is teased by the
terrible kidnap and murder

that happened a couple
of years before.

This is a complex case

that actually is not
as straight forward

as somebody killing just
for perhaps financial gain.

And then Poirot unveils
this amazing solution

that is the only one that
makes it all possible,

and yet we just did not see it

and never would have seen
it in a million years.

The
solution sees Poirot

facing an interesting dilemma

as the recently
murdered, Mr. Rachett

was a very unpleasant man.

He deserved to be
executed for what he did.

Everyone knows

-it was a travesty,
-No, no.

That you ask not.

How far do human
beings have the right

to bring about justice

if legal justice
has let them down?

Which is a really,
really big question.

And the whole book
turns on that idea.

He puts forward two possible
solutions to the crime.

One is an anonymous killer who
comes and goes in the night

and the other is
the real killer,

and he allows the
police officer to decide

which version he
is going to use,

so that real killer
actually goes free.

Murder On
The Orient Express

has been made into two
big budget feature films.

Most recently in 2015, we
can see actor director,

Kenneth Branagh's portrayal
made Poirot more debonair

with more hair, both on
his head and on his face.

It was nice to talk.

Bonne nuit.

From the minute I saw
Kenneth Branagh being Poirot,

I believed in him as Poirot.

But back in
1974, director, Sidney Lumet

dramatically propelled
Christie's novel

into the Hollywood mainstream.

And as this clip shows, he
revolutionised the genre

by persuading some of the
world's greatest actors

to join the cast.

I think Sidney Lumet
did us a huge favour

with Murder On The
Orient Express.

He kind of set up that genre

of the all star murder mystery.

I was yearning with
young what's his name?

McQueen, in his compartment.

And as soon as he
got Sean Connery,

then everybody else kind
of said yes and came.

Albert
Finney's one and only

portrayal of Poirot was
thought to be closest

to Agatha's version, clever,
egotistical, and vain.

I was helping someone out,

only myself would say that.

As we can
see from this clip,

his fake nose and padding
helped him to embody

the famous detective.

I came to various conclusions,

the clumsy cliche
of the smashed -

I think Albert Finney's Poirot

was more sort of robust.

He was bigger, he was louder.

This was the
only big screen adaptation

Agatha Christie saw,

when she made one of her
last public appearances

at the premier in 1974.

She did indicate that
she was generally happy

with Albert Finney.

But Agatha
was far from finished

with either her hero
or exotic locations

and her next novel, as
celebrated as The Orient Express,

also took Hollywood by storm.

Despite her huge success
as a crime novelist,

Agatha Christie continued
to travel the world.

It was even claimed she
became the first Western woman

to stand up on a surfboard.

Back on dry land, Agatha
was a regular feature

on her second husband, Max
Mallowan's, archaeological digs.

Archaeology is something that
pops up time and time again,

she felt particularly happy
on archaeological digs.

It was
on a trip to Egypt

that she was to write
another Poirot story.

It was a tale of obsession
and crimes of passion

set against the
stunning backdrop

of the land of the Pharaohs.

Death On The Nile is one
of Agatha's shortest books,

but the exotic setting
and well drawn characters

make it one of her most famous.

Death On The Nile was
probably the first

Agatha Christie I ever read.

I love Death On The Nile

because I grew up with
Death On The Nile.

This is as good as it gets in
terms of detective fiction.

Death On
The Nile tells a story

of wealthy American
socialite, Linnet Doyle,

who steals and marries
her best friend's lover.

They then go on
honeymoon to Egypt.

But they are joined
by the young man's ex,

who is obsessed with him.

Linnet?

What a simply devine surprise.

We just can't stop bumping
into each other, can we?

Hello, Simon.

But there's something really

the beating heart of that story.

The love triangle,
that story of betrayal

and what you'll do for
love is really powerful.

This is another
of Agatha's closed mysteries.

This time she traps
her characters

on a seemingly tranquil
cruise down the Nile.

In the course of this cruise,
there is an altercation.

Mr. Bellefort!

Shoot you like a dog, like
the dirty dog you are.

She shoots him in the leg

and while everybody
is crowding round

and a fuss is being
made about this event...

Linnet cops it.

Fortunately, one
of the fellow passengers

is none other than
Hercule Poirot.

There are a lot of people
who've got motives for Linnet

so it's a classic in that way,

but the solution does something
different and inventive.

Death On The
Nile was first adapted

for the big screen in 1978.

Peter Ustinov portrayed
a more lighthearted

and bumbling Poirot.

I love the Peter Ustinov Poirot.

It's maybe a bit left field,

but I absolutely
adore him as Poirot.

I would like to see everybody
please, in the saloon,

when all will be revealed.

This
extravagant production

attracted an all star cast

as can be seen during one of
the last scenes of the film.

It's cast on the hill,

oh, we'll get Maggie
Smith, we'll throw her in.

We'll get Bette Davies.

It's past your bedtime.

Very well, where's my shawl?

So you again, got that
very stellar quality

to the whole thing.

In 2020
Kenneth Branagh

has reprised his role as Poirot.

As we can see from
the glossy trailer,

the look and feel
of the new film

is very different to
previous adaptations.

I don't feel safe here,

I don't feel safe
with any of them.

This lavish film

presents a glamorous
Hollywood twist

on an 80 year old story.

We're incredibly excited

about the new
feature film version

of Death On The Nile.

So we worked closely
with Michael Green,

who adapted the book,

and also wrote Murder
On The Orient Express.

And Michael is fantastic
at taking the story,

actually not
changing it very much

but making it feel
really relevant to today.

We have an extraordinary cast,

and obviously you have Kevin
Branagh as Poirot himself,

but then you've got Gal Gadot,
you've got Armie Hammer.

You've got Emma Mackey,
you've got all sorts of stars,

You've got Annette Bening,
and the cast is younger

and that leads to a
different atmosphere.

I have
investigated many crimes.

This
elaborate trailer

is stylized and cut with
pace for dramatic effect,

with Kenneth Branagh
playing a more suave

and sophisticated Poirot.

I am detective
Hercule Poirot

and I will deliver your killer.

I think fans will
enjoy it a lot.

As the
1930s drew to a close,

war clouds were once again
building over Europe.

Agatha, Max and
Rosalind were living

in fashionable
Kensington, London.

Agatha continued to write.

Whenever she could, she would
escape to her childhood home

of Ashfield in Torquay, Devon.

It was a place that
held fond memories.

And much of her childhood
was spent, you know,

sort of like around Anstey's
Cove and Meadfoot Beach,

doing all the things that
children do enjoy doing.

Her childhood was probably
the happiest time of her life.

Agatha's siblings
were much older than her

so she spent most of her early
life alone with her mother.

Mother had quite strong
Christian science beliefs

for a while.

And one of her very
strong instructions

was that Agatha must
not be taught to read.

She lived in her imagination

and she created worlds
and games for herself.

She also famously
didn't attend school

and her mother didn't
want her to read

until she was seven or eight,

but she secretly
taught herself to read.

And then I think spent most
of her time self-educating.

I never
had any education,

apart from being taught
a little arithmetic,

I'd had no lessons
to speak of at all.

I found myself making up stories

and acting the different parts.

Her
childhood in Ashfield

had laid the foundations for
her career as a novelist.

As an adult, Devon continued
to spark her imagination,

particularly a hotel that
she would often visit

further along the coast.

It's in reality is actually
accessible at low tide.

You can walk across the beach,

but then at high tide
it gets shut off.

This is Burgh Island

and it was to be the inspiration

for the most successful
mystery story of all time.

It's a dark psychological
thriller set on an island

from which there's no escape.

I mean, if I was
going to put my list

of three greatest murder
mysteries ever written,

I think it would almost
certainly be on it.

It's a absolutely kind
of irresistible formula.

It doesn't feature Poirot, it
doesn't feature Miss. Marple,

but it came out of her mind.

I wrote the book but it was
so enormously difficult to do.

The idea fascinating.

And it is a very difficult
technical accomplishment.

I wrote books and I was
pleased with what I had made.

It was clear, straightforward,
quite baffling

yet had a perfectly sound
and reasonable explanation.

And Then
There Were None

is another Christie
closed mystery.

It's 1939 and Europe
teeters on the brink of war.

10 strangers are invited
to Soldier Island,

an isolated rock
on the Devon coast.

A group of people who
do not know each other

have all been invited for
a sort of a weekend party

by a man called U N Owen.

You are charged

with the following indictments.

And on the first
night, a phonograph is played.

Edward
George Armstrong,

you murdered Louisa -

Who is this voice?

And a voice accuses them all
of having committed a murder.

They've all killed somebody.

So this is payback.

One by one, the
guests are murdered.

With no Poirot
and no Marple to help them,

the guests try to work
out who the killer is.

He's dead.

It's this brilliant,
brilliant unravelling.

What does seem to be clear

is that there's no
one else on the island

so surely the murderer must
be one of these 10 people.

There is no getting away,

There is no little boat,
that's mysteriously disappeared

so they can't make a
getaway to the mainland.

They're killed off one by one,

according to the nursery rhyme

that's hung on the wall
of all the bedrooms

of these poor souls.

This was
another first for Agatha.

The use of childish innocence
in a dark and sinister way.

This is a trope that's been used

in countless
Hollywood blockbusters

from the Shining
to the Exorcist.

It's like a doll in a
horror film or something.

Takes the absolute innocence,

the childlike innocence
of the nursery rhyme

and utterly subverts it
to the cause of murder.

Say you get one,
two, buckle my shoe,

five little pigs, the mouse trap

and And Then There Were None.

Seven little soldiers
chopping up sticks.

One chopped himself in
half, then there were six.

Then There Were None

has been adapted more than
any other Christie story.

In 2015, Mammoth Screen and
the Agatha Christie estate

teamed up to produce a
huge scale production

for the BBC to celebrate
the 125th anniversary

of Agatha's birth.

It was an amazing
project to start with.

It's been so influential
as so many slasher films

have been, you know,

you wouldn't have any number
of Nightmare on Elm street,

Halloween, I think without
And Then There Were None.

It's her bleakest book,
kind of brilliantly bleak,

it doesn't pull any punches.

And it's just a
real tour de force.

Agatha Christie was
this kind of unassuming

as you see her
middle-class lady.

She knew about,
extensively about murder,

and you have to
wonder how and why.

I think she was a dark horse.

By 1938,
Agatha Christie

was a hugely successful author.

She sold her childhood
home of Ashfield

and bought a new property
in Devon called Greenway.

And she looked at it
from the river one day

and really did declare it the
loveliest place in the world.

It's somewhere where
she could very much

be Mrs. Mallowan, and as
well as Agatha Christie

so without being known
as that famous author.

I mean, it's just magical,
magical, an enchanted place.

But it was also a place
where she could just withdraw

from the world.

But her
idyllic life at Greenway

was about to come
to a jarring halt.

The second world war began

and the house was requisitioned
by the American Navy.

Agatha braved the
bombing out in London.

No part of London was
untouched by bombs.

You must've felt the fear,

it must have been a
very strange existence.

Despite the
constant air raids,

Agatha continued to write.

I never
found any difficulty

writing during the war.

I had written two books
during the first years.

This was in anticipation of
my being killed in the raids.

It seemed to be, in the
highest degree, likely.

Then in 1942,

she published an
Hercule Poirot novel

that was very different
and ingeniously clever.

The murder itself happened
in the distant past.

Of all Agatha Christie's books,

I think it is fair to
say that Five Little Pigs

has by far the most
memorable murder.

Very few Christie novels have
that kind of tunnel vision

focused constrained
structure so that,

you know, even aside from
everything else it does,

that makes it a quite
unique Christie novel.

Although
Five Little Pigs

was her 25th Poirot story,

it was not a
conventional Christie.

The murder took place
16 years earlier.

So how would the famous
detective find his clues?

The murder in question was
that of artist Amyas Crale,

whose wife, Caroline Crale
was convicted of his murder.

She protested her innocence,
but then died in prison.

The daughter, Carla, goes
to Hercule Poirot and says,

I don't think my mother did it.

And my mother was

-Caroline.
-Caroline Crale.

The plot is
cleverly constructed

from a series of five interviews

with the prime
suspects in the case,

dubbed the five little pigs.

And of course they
all have something

slightly different to say, five
very well drawn characters.

When
she wrote the book,

Agatha was again doing war work

at the pharmacy at
University College Hospital.

Elsa, you should have a sniff.

So her
choice on murder weapon,

the poison, conine,
is no coincidence.

I've never heard of this.

It's distilled from the
flowers of the spotted hemlock.

Agatha was
writing about what she knew,

not only professionally,
but also personally.

The location of the
story is unmistakable.

She has a murder at the,
what they call the battery,

and that's where he dies.

And she describes,

you know it from the surround,

the way she describes the river
and all that kind of thing.

The setting was
her own home, Greenway.

Christie peppers the story
with red herrings and clues.

Amyas Crale,
always his last words are,

as he drinks his beer,

everything tastes
foul today, he says.

Everything tastes foul today.

And we assume that he's
talking about one thing,

but actually he's
talking about another

and that's one of the
tricks in the book

that make it such a pleasure.

Bloody rude.

When the bell sounded for lunch

and Meredith came to fetch me.

So we left him to die alone.

It is a brilliant
piece of construction.

The way the five different
versions of events come together

and Poirot works out from what
was said and what was seen,

and particularly
what was on the look

on the artist's face
just before he died.

Five Little
Pigs was published in 1942.

Two years later, and
Europe was at peace again,

but the England
of the late 1940s

was a very different place.

Values were changing,
and this was reflected

in the Miss. Marple
story published in 1950.

It's a slightly comical
look at a changing country

and it tells the story of an
incredibly audacious murder.

The Murder Is Announced
is a Miss. Marple story,

but this time it's not
based in St. Mary Mead.

This novel is based in the
village of Chipping Cleghorn.

So what I love about
The Murder Is Announced

is that it's set in a
sleepy post-war village

with all these very kind
of charming village type.

So A Murder Is Announced

starts with an advert
in the local paper

saying there will be
a murder in this house

at this time in this village.

There's going to be a murder.

What time?

Seven o'clock this evening.

Short notice.

So the reader immediately
sees all these villagers

reading the local paper
and going, oh, look,

it says there's going to be
a murder at Little Paddocks.

Listen to this, in the Gazette.

A murder is announced
and will take place

on Friday, October the fifth
at Little Paddocks at 7:00 PM.

Then it cuts to the
owner of Little Paddocks

who reacts in much the
same way, oh, look,

it says there's going to be
a murder here at my house.

Guess I better go and see

if there's any
sherry in the house.

Everybody is terribly
interested by this

and so finds any excuse
that they can to turn up

to see what's going
to actually happen.

Is there going to be a game?

Well, good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Evening, good evening.

Good evening.

This is jolly nice, isn't it?

Here we are.

Indeed, we are.

I just popped in to see
whether you might be interested

in a kitten.

A kitten?

To pretend they've got
another reason to turn up,

How are your hens laying?
How's this, how's that?

And then somebody
turns up and says,

oh, am I too late
for the murder?

Hello, Miss. Black.

I'm not too late am I?

When does the murder begin?

It's nicely done.

It's amusingly done,

'cause that is actually
just what would happen.

And it starts like a game,
like murder in the dark.

At the appointed time,
the lights go out.

And someone is found murdered

but not necessarily the
person you would expect.

Good god.

What is it?

The man's dead.

You have to start to wonder

who has manipulated
this scenario.

And surely somebody
who turned up

to Little Paddocks that
evening must be our killer.

Conveniently,
Miss. Marple

happens to be staying
at the local hotel

and she joins the investigation.

She knows these people,
she knows the setup.

You know, Inspector, some
of the best murderers

are women.

Especially in an
English village.

You turn over a stone,

you have no idea
what will crawl out.

The
story weaves its way

through amaze of double identity

and trademark
Christie red herrings.

It's a great detective story.

I think it's one of the
great detective stories

in terms of the plotting.

Every single crucial clue

is absolutely there for you
to see, and you do see it

but you don't work it out.

As with most
of Agatha's novels,

the setting of A
Murder Is Announced

is a reflection of British life

at the time she was writing.

It is a really
interesting portrayal

of post second
world war Britain,

some of the hardships, the
rationing that was going on

and people who maybe
before the war had

a certain style and
standard of living

and suddenly things
aren't aren't as easy.

It's a world of
rationing and coupons

and immigrants from Europe.

All the old hierarchies are
sort of falling apart a bit.

It's they know a way of life

and they're desperately
trying to keep it up

and it's getting more
and more difficult.

They're all after the
same one cleaning woman.

In 1985, the
BBC adapted the novel

as part of their first season
of Miss. Marple stories.

This was Joan Hickson's
third appearance

as the amateur detective.

Miss. Marple?

I think we called
her Miss. Hickson,

I don't think we
called her Joan.

And, or maybe you called
her Joan after a while,

but not 'til you were invited.

And I'd come here,
pretend to be Julia

and keep peace in the camp.

No, it was completely awesome.

I mean the whole
thing was awesome.

My parents split up three
years after they were married.

They split us up too.

For an English actor, it's
a sort of Rite of passage

to be in an Agatha Christie.

I feel very honoured to have
been in them three times

and she just writes such
glorious characters.

But a new
era was approaching.

As the 1960s began, a 70
year old Agatha Christie

found the world changing
rapidly around her.

And those changes were a huge
influence on her next novel,

a supernatural thriller
populated by witches and poison.

The dawn of the swinging
sixties saw the publication

of a very different type
of Agatha Christie novel.

This was a dark thriller

set against a backdrop of
witchcraft in an English village

and in fashionable London.

I think the Pale Horse
has a different tone.

The setting and the locations
in the book are different.

It's set in London and
it's set in 1960s London,

and it's got a real
feeling of modernity.

It's not a classic
detective novel.

And for a lot of her life,

Christie had an interest
in supernatural.

And this is the book
where the supernatural

meets murder mystery.

The Pale
Horse is a Christie novel

with no Marple and no Poirot.

Instead it tells us
the story of historian,

Mark Easterbrook, who gets
drawn into a supernatural world

in the strange village
of Much Deeping.

Do you want your fortune told?

It starts out feeling
like, you know,

the sort of atmosphere is so
kind of spooky and ghostly,

and there's all this, you know,

magic and supernatural
illusions.

The village is
full of unusual goings on

that Mark has to unravel.

His name is on a list of people,

most of whom have
already been killed.

Do you know of
anyone on this list?

Ormerord Sandford,

Hesketh Dubois, sure.

Tuckton, Ardingly.

Mark becomes embroiled
in trying to figure out

what this list means,
who these people are,

what the connection is
between these people.

The names on the
list lead Mark Easterbrook

to three witches.

They are somehow
connected to this list,

but we're not quite sure how.

What do you want?

I want you to set me free.

I played Theresa Grey and she
is one of the three witches.

She's very good at
sort of mind reading.

All we do is read
cards and tea leaves.

What if that's all we can do?

The main kind of
suspects are the witches

because of their, their
links to the supernatural

and that is something that
naturally brings about

a sense of fear in people.

The Pale Horse
was first adapted for TV

in 1996, and again, in 2010.

This second adaptation was
markedly different from the novel

as it added Miss. Marple,
played by Julia McKenzie,

to the story.

Then in 2019,
screenwriter, Sarah Phelps

adapted the novel into
a two part series.

This adaptation also changed

much of Christie's
original plot.

I think it says something
about the strength

of Agatha Christie's
novels that, you know,

something like Pale Horse
has been adapted three times.

Those adaptations are all very
different from each other.

Sarah was actually,
she took some liberties

and made some changes.

And I think it's kind
of a fantastic example

of how Christie
stories can be adapted

and work for in different
ways at different times.

But not all of
Christie's fans agreed.

There's definitely
a mixed response.

And there's always going to
be with things like this.

That upsets a lot of people

because that's what
they've come to know,

you know, and that's what
they've come to love.

But there's also going
to be a group of people

who are huge fans,
who are excited to see

what else can be pulled
out of these classics.

I think there is an
argument to be had

that by taking her
original stories

and making them more
pertinent to a modern audience

is a good thing.

London at the
dawn of the swinging sixties

features strongly in the novel.

It was a world that Agatha

was gradually coming
to terms with.

And you can see the times
that she's writing in,

but you can also see
how she's, you know,

how she's ageing
and you can see her

tutting in the background

as young women are walking
down the Kings Road

in short skirts and
behaving in ways

that I think she probably
thought were pretty scandalous.

And I think that's a nice side
of her that comes through.

Goodbye, Mark.

Don't ever come here again.

By 1975,
Agatha Christie

had been a published
author for 55 years.

Hercule Poirot was still her
most popular creation by far,

but during the second world
war Agatha was convinced

that she wouldn't
survive the bombing.

She was so concerned

that she had written
Poirot's final case,

entitled Curtain, and locked
it away in a bank vault

to only be released
after her death.

What actually happened
in the mid 1970s

was that it became clear
that Agatha Christie,

who was in the
eighties by this point,

was not going to be well enough

to write another
Hercule Poirot novel,

and she wasn't particularly
interested in doing it.

And so her daughter, Rosalind,
actually broached the subject

and said, perhaps we want to
think about publishing Curtain.

And so with her
mother's permission,

they dug out the TypeScript
and it was published

at the end of 1975.

Curtain was to
be Poirot's most surprising

and controversial of cases.

The murder is without a doubt,

the most shocking
of Agatha's career.

It's quite difficult
to talk about Curtain

without giving away the ending.

I mean, it famously is known

that Poirot dies in Curtain.

It is a brilliant novel.

It's not one of my
personal favourites.

I think that is purely
because of Poirot dying.

I'm not going to have
a favourite Poirot

and a film in which Poirot
dies, not on my watch.

Curtain is
set where it all began,

at the country house of Styles.

But it's a Styles that has
changed over the years.

Styles is no longer the
lovely country house,

it's being run as a
kind of boarding house.

It's a very sad place.

Poirot is
convalescing in Styles,

only he's old and frail.

In Curtain, Poirot is very
much reduced as a character.

He's in a wheelchair,
he's shrunken,

he's very, very old seeming.

The very frail Poirot,
who we witness in this,

this final adaptation,

is somebody that, that is
a real sort of gut punch

to those of us who've known him

for nearly 25 years
at this point.

Hastings.

My Hastings, my
dear, dear Hastings.

Poirot, old chap.

Oh, mon ami, mon ami.

What Agatha does is she
brings back Hastings,

which is absolutely
the right thing to do

because Hastings in this book

is a really, really
good character.

And how are you?

Me, I am a wreck, no, a ruin.

Hastings has been in
Argentina with his wife,

comes back from there a widower.

And so you see the
affection between the two

and the respect.

The plot
is loosely based

on Shakespeare's Othello,

where the character of Iago,

has a devilish knack
of manipulating people

to commit a murder.

Agatha Christie uses Shakespeare

a great deal in her work.

She's always referencing
Shakespeare in one way or another.

And this book, without
giving anything away,

references Othello within
an extremely clever way.

Like
Five Little Pigs,

the various murders in Curtain

all took place in
the past, except one.

And this is the most shocking.

It's a highly unusual one.

I mean, it's a really interesting
reason to kill somebody.

You might even say a good
reason to kill someone.

And of course that's
bounding with the identity

of the killer and it comes,

the book ends with a
really extraordinary twist.

You feel that Agatha Christie

has managed to achieve
every single twist

that is possible in the
course of her long career,

but with Curtain,
she finds a new one.

The poison works,
they must be stopped.

Curtin was
also the very last episode

of ITV's Poirot.

It ran for an incredible
13 series and 70 episodes.

It was very moving to be part of

because partly because it was
the end of a very long series,

a very long commitment.

For
actor David Suchet,

this was the last in a
long line of TV dramas.

How are you old chap?

Playing the
Belgian supersleuth.

Not dead yet.

I remember the last
scenes that we played,

where I would be sitting
at his bedside talking

were very moving and quite
difficult to do in actual fact,

because it became
quite emotional.

It was such an amazing
achievement for David

and we were so happy
for him to complete it.

It was a bittersweet thing.

It was sad.

In 1975, just
after Curtain was published,

The New York times ran a front
page obituary for Poirot,

the first one ever for
a fictional character.

On the 12th of January, 1976,

just four months after
Curtain was published,

Dame Agatha Christie
died peacefully at home

in Wallingford, in Oxfordshire.

Her incredible career
spanned 56 years

and so far, she has sold
over 2 billion books.

She is the most successful
novelist of all time.

I think the relationship
between Agatha Christie

and her audience
is second to none.

And it's one of the reasons
why she has survived so well.

In ways of navigating our
way through the 20th century,

I think Agatha Christie is
actually really important.

She chronicles our lives
with wit and murder

in this very, very
accessible way,

but it's a real kind of
Chronicle of Englishness.

Christie's top
priority is telling you

a gripping and
entertaining story.

I think she would
have been amazed

that we're talking about
her a hundred years on.

She's not going to die out

like the other golden
age detective writers,

because she's simply better.

The more I learn about her,
the more I read about her,

actually, the more
admiration I have

and actually then the
more pride I have.

We continue to talk about her,

we continue to make
stuff about her.

We continue to make her books
and I think we will do that.

We will always do that.

Agatha Christine
will continue to inspire

those who read her books

and watch her adaptations
around the world.

Her legacy will live on
in countless versions

of discerning crime fiction.

Her enduring appeal has
been resolute over a century

and undoubtedly
the queen of crime

will challenge and provoke us

for at least another
century to come.