Check Out These Classic Agatha Christie Movies After Watching Kenneth Branagh’s ‘A Haunting in Venice’

Star director Kenneth Branagh returns to the role of Hercule Poirot — the brilliant Belgian detective with a meter-wide mustache and a bizarre accent that suggests hard-boiled eggs (shells included), spinning in a Cuisinart — for his third Agatha Christie adaptation. Haunting in Venice is a typically lavish Branagh production, with a randomly all-star supporting cast that includes Michelle Yeoh and Tina Fey. For haunted, however, Branagh has come up with a new twist to the already convoluted plot of Queen of Crime. It adds a supernatural embellishment that includes a ghost with empty hair that could have come out of A ring movie. This ploy, which gives Branagh plenty of opportunities to shake the audience, ultimately backfires: since Poirot is unfailingly, unfailingly logical, you know the ghost will have to be grounded in everyday reality, however sinister. This makes it easier to spot the killer before Poirot pulls it all together for the big, deductive reveal. But Haunted is still a well-upholstered diversion and proof that Christie’s old-fashioned mysteries remain eminently adaptable.

WITH Haunting in Venice now playing in theaters, here are some of the best Christie films available to rent/buy.

Where was ‘A Haunting in Venice’ filmed? All About the Creepy Background to Agatha Christie’s New Film (Exclusive)

Margaret Rutherford, left, as the tireless Miss Marple.

The Everett Collection

Murder at a gallop (1963)

Margaret Rutherford, the gorgeous British actress known for her strange, quivering comedic gusto – she shakes like a jello salad bitten by a serving spoon – played country detective Miss Jane Marple in a series of four popular films. Gallop is very much a comedy, with all the suspects gathered in a posh hotel that caters to equestrians (Miss Marple saddled herself — apparently she won a few riding ribbons in the days before the First World War). As in any good episode Murder, she wrote or Law and order, the culprit is most likely to be found among the most famous members of the supporting cast. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), Flora Robson, Robert Morley and Finlay Currie probably mean very little to modern viewers. But the film is really just a madhouse for the eccentric, extraordinary Rutherford.

Albert Finney (right) as the eagle-eyed Poirot. Michael Ochs/Getty Archive

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Directed by Sidney Lumet, this was the first of Christie’s all-star, big-budget mysteries — to the point of oversaturated swamp, at times, but with a classic reveal at the end. Oscar nominee Albert Finney looks like a slimmer version of the explosive Mr. Creosote from Monty Python The Meaning of Life, is Poirot, and the ensemble includes Ingrid Bergman (who won an Oscar for supporting actress), Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave and Jacqueline Bisset. Branagh’s equally A-list 2017 remake featured Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp and Daisy Ridley. (There is also 1978 SCTV parody, Death has no holiday, in which the killer turns out to be a train. It’s on YouTube.)

Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith.

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Evil under the sun (1982)

Peter Ustinov is probably the most pleasant in Poirots – round-bellied, moving slowly, as if filled with helium. The actor had hits with this film and its predecessor from 1978 Death on the Nile (remade by Branagh in 2022). Sun, however, it has the irresistible campy appeal of Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith as former rivals who come face-to-face at a posh island resort. Rigg sings “You’re the Top” like her lungs are bellows (the film’s icing is based on Cole Porter songs), and Smith has to exclaim, “This place is like morgue,” drawing out the last word like a snot – wow!

Vanessa Redgrave (with Dustin Hoffman) as Christie.

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Agatha (1979)

An unusual film, this is a speculative take on a famous real-life mystery centered around Christie herself as the victim, but not her body. In 1926, the celebrated writer left her home and, abandoning her car after crashing it, disappeared for 11 days. This caused a huge chase and created a sensation in the tabloids. She was finally found in a posh sanatorium, registered as “Theresa Neele” – which (a favorite clue) was the name of her husband Archibald’s mistress. Most likely, Christie experienced an emotional collapse due to a troubled marriage. That, in any case, is the point Agatha, in which Vanessa Redgrave plays the fragile, tender Christie. Dustin Hoffman is a persistent American reporter who finds her, perhaps losing his heart in the process. We won’t go into the many, many adaptations of Christie for television except to mention that 1) David Suchet’s long-running interpretation of Poirot in Agatha Christie: Poirot generally considered the best, and 2) Joan Hickson’s performance as the main character in Miss Marple for the BBC, mostly in the 1980s, she is at her most dramatically compelling and persuasive – her Marple is a fragile, ruthless and sometimes dark dynamo of intelligence and observation.

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Source: HIS Education