With a long and fertile history of adaptation, top-tier Agatha Christie titles are no longer simply remade, but must be re-imagined. Or so film producers think. (YOUNG POIROT in the pipeline.) WITNESS, which started as an early short story before Christie turned it into a play in 1953; Billy Wilder a film in 1957*; along with multiple outings on tv and radio, here gets refreshed right from title, gaining an article: THE. On the whole, it does better than most Christie rethinks, but errs fatally in putting too much dramatic weight on her construct. Christie can support murder, but not tragedy. The basic story’s there, handsome drifter charged with killing a rich older woman for her fortune is screwed in court by his common-law wife’s testimony, only to see the outcome go topsy-turvy. Wilder’s version famously added an extra twist-and-a-half to the fun. And fun is exactly what this latest version lacks. Trying for real tragedy with two different twists of fate that overplay their hand. Christie believed in evil (it’s what made Miss Marple so insightful), but tragedy not in her range. As the accused, Billy Howle makes the most of things, with a restrained/anything goes sexual vibe not seen since Michael York’s heyday. Everyone else gets their points across: Toby Jones’ coughing solicitor (not TB, just bronchitis), Kim Cattrall’s wanton lover; Andrea Riseborough’s cunning vixen. But like the choking, yellow-filtered atmosphere of 1920s London, it’s laid on too thick. The Christie narrative DNA still works its magic, but cutting thru the fog is more work than need be.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Wilder, at his most impersonal, sticks to the play and let’s Christie’s clever narrative mechanics do the heavy lifting. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/09/witness-for-prosecution-1957.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Not 100% sure, but I think this is the only version that has the solicitor (here Jones) rather than the barrister (Charles Laughton for Wilder) as lead.
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