Chapter 10: New Approaches

Abstract

This chapter looks at the movies made for American television during the 1980s, as well as the handful of standalone English-language theatrical films from both the 1980s and 1990s that do not comfortably sit within the categories explored in previous chapters. These films are reflective of attempts to make adaptations of Christie’s work find a new permanent place on the big or small screen—either through updated thrillers for television, or artistically driven adaptations for the cinema that do not adopt the by now traditional approach of a star-studded murder mystery that had been popularised by the John Brabourne pictures since 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express. Some of these approaches bore fruit and were returned to, while others were dead-ends in terms of critical or commercial impact, but almost all demonstrate an attempt to reinvigorate and refresh the idea of what an Agatha Christie adaptation could be like.