Beyond the perspective of Hoffman’s personal situation, the wrangling over script re-writes and requests for reshoots created instability within the film’s financial infrastructure. Despite being largely American this was dependent on a completion bond provided by the British company Film Finances.21 Film Finances worked as a form of insurance for film productions. In return for a percentage of the budget, Film Finances guaranteed to the lenders that the contracted film would be delivered to the distributor and undertook to meet any overspend. But it would only issue a bond once it was satisfied that the independent producer was able to meet a set of stringent conditions relating to the production of the film. In the very few cases where a guaranteed production got into serious difficulties, Film Finances had the right to take over and finish the film. With Agatha it seems that in the end, and in spite of their attempts to halt the accumulating overspend, they gave up, withdrawing the bond and returning £60,000 in settlement. The production companies ended up financing the project’s overspend. The collapse of one of the film’s major sources of external regulation created difficulties for the producers who largely blamed Hoffman for pushing for re-shoots at a time when money was running out. Disgruntled at being unable to complete the film quite as he desired, Hoffman sued First Artists. Hoffman was in dispute primarily with Phil Feldman of First Artists, claiming that his contract was the root of all of the difficulties; he was only taking it to its logical conclusion and to do so he needed the full support of First Artists. What the case demonstrated was the impracticality of actors taking executive control over a production that involved several professional producers already as well as a financial infrastructure that required accountability at all stages.
The production’s troubled development led to another key figure’s disgruntlement. Co-producer David Puttnam pulled out once principal photography had commenced, and as the demands for re-shoots started to be made. At the time he was becoming immersed in finishing Midnight Express (1978), but he felt that that Agatha was becoming too complicated. His feelings of frustration escalated in October when he wrote to producer Jarvis Astaire that the production was out of control:
My own prognosis of the current situation is that the creative elements have (wrongly) lost confidence in the script. This, as any hardened filmmaker can tell you always happens immediately prior to shooting, and the temptation to “improve the piece to death” becomes irresistible unless someone stops it. The script is always the target for attack because it can’t argue its own case and relies on an element of “faith” to keep it intact; this “faith” being a commodity in short supply in an atmosphere in which a multiplicity of egos and ambitions are under considerable pressure.22
Puttnam felt his cautions against alterations to the script and additional shooting at the end of the schedule were not being heeded and that his professionalism was being undermined. He was also concerned about the vulnerable financial position regarding the guarantee bond from Film Finances, a warning that turned out to be true. Puttnam’s reference to “a multiplicity of egos and ambitions” is certainly pertinent to clashes between the production’s personnel, including himself, but it seems that most of the resentment was directed at Hoffman. While some of this may have been exaggerated, and inspired by the fact that Hoffman was an assertive American film star with unusual interests in production, as we have seen, he certainly made a decisive mark on the finished film.
The Christie Estate
Problems with Agatha were not only located within the film production team. Rosalind Hicks, Agatha Christie’s daughter, tried to stop the film being made. Grounds for this were based on a U. S. court ruling on “right to publicity” regarding the heirs and successors of famous deceased persons. The view was conveyed by her lawyer: “Mrs. Hicks and the other living relatives of Agatha Christie are most distressed and are in fact shocked that responsible producers and production companies would so blatantly trade upon the name of a recently deceased individual of the stature of Agatha Christie.”23 They did not succeed in stopping the film but correspondence shows that concern over Rosalind Hicks’s reaction meant that in the film Christie’s daughter does not appear whereas she is mentioned in the book. At one point David Puttnam wanted to include a nursery scene but was advised against this by lawyers. The producers received legal opinion on treading very carefully in this respect. Kathleen Tynan also feared for her book and the possibility that she too was in danger of being sued by the Christie Estate. But the grounds concerning the “right to publicity” were less easily targeted at the film when the Daily Mail serialized Christie’s autobiography in October 1977 and at the same time published a “reconstruction” of what might have happened when she disappeared. This was quite close to the version suggested by the book and film, so it was hardly the case that only the filmmakers were interested in the incident. In the event all was well for the production but the Christie Estate’s reaction did not help the increasingly complex issues regarding the script and Hoffman’s case for greater involvement.
Losey was sensitive to the need to respect Christie’s reputation throughout the production; his attitude was extremely reverential towards the novelist. He argued, for example, that great care should to be taken that the audience should not think Agatha was trying to pin a murder on Nancy Neele. As his notes cautioned:
We may be and are playing a fictional Agatha Christie but we cannot break the rules. The selling power of the film is the fact that it is about “the mystery of Agatha Christie herself,” to use the words of the Daily News at the time. The script drew on what is known, I have drawn on what is known and although we all of us would truthfully say along with everyone else, this is fiction, the power of the fiction will be, amongst other things, that it is drawn out of her world and her rules as she, the “real” Agatha Christie, saw and expressed them.24
This awareness of the impact of fictional representations of public figures was astute since the film’s success to a great extent depended on the portrayal of Christie as being both believable and sensitive. Vanessa Redgrave did not look like Agatha Christie but her performance was appropriate for depicting the uncharacteristic nature of the disappearance. Her ethereality, other-worldliness and physical grace communicated an essence of the troubled novelist very well. The lack of physical resemblance arguably helped the film because it went well with its general fictional latitude and reliance on an audience’s continuing curiosity about the mysterious affair at Harrogate.
Aftermath
Many people wanted to forget the disappearance, film and book. Agatha Christie herself preferred the eleven days to be unrecorded, as part of life that was unhappy before she met archaeologist Max Mallowan to whom she was happily married for the rest of her life. Yet as this case shows, the past cannot be erased and the meaning of earlier events is never fixed. The eleven days were clearly significant for Agatha Christie, marking a moment when she took action that influenced the subsequent divorce. Maybe it was necessary for her to come to terms with the present, to “disappear” for a short time, even if it was marked by amnesia or even a breakdown. In a Freudian sense such life markers are important, even if their significance is not fully understood at the time, as a palimpsest of the unconscious when meaning can be repressed and subject to endless “re-writing” of the same event. In many respects this is what happened concerning this contested incident as Christie’s biographers came up with many theories about what might have happened in Harrogate.25 Christie’s silence about her disappearance gave others the incentive to “write” their own versions. Andrew Norman’s 2006 biography, for example, claimed to have solved the mystery by using medical case studies to show that Christie was suffering from a “fugue state,” or period of “out-of-body amnesia” induced by stress and which put her into a trance.26
Tynan’s script similarly became the subject of contested meaning as other voices sought to change its inflections as the production became increasingly complicated. Losey’s vision was for the disappe
arance to be all about Archie—“a distress signal…. She hopes her husband will be distressed and that he will be shocked into realizing that he does love her…. She also wants to hurt him, not with the aim of revenge—but to get him back.”27 While the drive to extend Wally’s role and heighten the film’s romantic elements is in part explained by the reduction of the character Evelyn’s significance, Hoffman’s First Artists’ contract and status as a major film star, the impact on the production’s budget was profound. It also complicated the focus on Agatha, the depths of her personal despair and experience of grief and rejection. The contestations over the film’s creative direction also reflect broader anxieties over celebrity and the need to take care with Christie’s national and international image. The enduring fascination with the case itself is testament to Christie’s fame extending beyond her reputation as a writer of popular fiction. The significance placed on the incident and the various creative and journalistic responses to it sheds light on Agatha Christie as an author whose celebrity exceeded her writing even if she was reluctant to accept this status.
As Agatha demonstrates, the Christie Estate could not control “the right to publicity” since it proved impossible to regulate comments about a figure with such a popular profile. By trying to base the film on “her world and her rules” that Losey felt Tynan had come close to conveying in her book, Agatha was nevertheless pulled towards deviation, bordering on the unacceptable as Hoffman’s role was in danger of distorting this core premise. It was the production’s financial base and the views of key professionals such as editor Jim Clark that ensured the production did not go even more out of control. Compromises were reached all-round, from the perspectives of Hoffman, Losey, the Christie Estate and Tynan. As released in 1979, Agatha was marked by the series of interconnected machinations which this chapter has sought to unravel.
Trying to write those “lost” days has been compelling for other producers; one of the most fanciful interpretations was in an episode of Doctor Who in 2008 entitled “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” in which Christie’s amnesia is explained by her role in helping the Doctor defeat a deadly alien in the form of a giant wasp at the Silent Pool. But perhaps Christie herself should have the last word. In 1934 she published a novel, Unfinished Portrait, under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.28 The character Celia is undergoing a divorce, she has also lost her mother and is suicidal. She comes to terms with her past when she confides in an artist while travelling. While one must take care not to read too much autobiography into this, it was perhaps another way for Christie to address the unhappiness that had beset her in 1926, to turn to writing something of her experience via a fictional character. As the character Celia experiences healing, Christie too went on to achieve personal happiness and even greater fame as a writer. The celebrated moment of la belle indifférence in Harrogate clearly served a purpose of transition, of stepping outside of herself as a celebrity and wife, in order to move forward. The eleven days indeed remain an enigma, continuing to fascinate with their apparently endless possibilities for re-writing ever more fantastic “imaginary solutions” to an “authentic mystery.”
Notes
1. Agatha Christie, An Autobiography (London: Collins, 1977).
2. Kathleen Tynan, Agatha: The Agatha Christie Mystery (London: Star, W. H. Allen, 1978).
3. Christie, An Autobiography, p. 353.
4. Ibid., p. 352.
5. For an overview of the disappearance and the various theories about what happened see James Hobbs’s website Hercule Poirot Central, accessed October 16, 2014, www.poirot.us.
6. Tynan, Agatha, p. 179.
7. The files were donated by Gavrik Losey to the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum.
8. Tynan, Agatha, p. 33.
9. Gavrik Losey, “Notes on How Plot Is Developed,” n.d., Bill Douglas Center, Exeter (thereafter BDC), BDC 6/1/1/8.
10. Kathleen Tynan to Michael Apted, 20 November 1977, BDC 6/1/1/3.
11. The book however adds that four years later in 1930 Agatha Christie married Max Mallowan and lived happily ever after.
12. Kathleen Tynan to Michael Apted, 20 November 1977, BDC 6/1/1/3.
13. Gavrik Losey interviewed by Paul Newland, 18 May 2007, BDC.
14. Tynan to Apted, 20 November 1977, BDC 6/1/1/3.
15. The paperback edition with this cover image was published by Ballantine, New York, 1978. This is the only book cover I have located that used the film actors. Other editions featured a silhouette of Agatha Christie or a drawing of her abandoned car.
16. Tynan to Apted, 20 November 1977, BDC 6/1/1/3.
17. Variety, 26 January 1979 in BDC 6/1/1/20.
18. Jim Clark to Phil Feldman, 9 September 1977, BDC 6/1/1/18. All subsequent quotations in this paragraph refer to the same document.
19. Variety, 26 January 1979 in BDC 6/1/1/20.
20. Figures for U.S. box office to date are $7.5 million, www.the-numbers.com.
21. The information on Film Finances was obtained from their files, Conduit Street, London, July 2013.
22. David Puttnam to Jarvis Astaire, 29 October 1977, BDC 6/1/1/14.
23. Greenbaum, Wolff and Ernst, solicitors to Puttnam and production companies of Agatha, 21 October 1977. BDC 6/1/1/21.
24. Losey, “Notes on How Plot Is Developed.”
25. See Jared Cade, Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, rev. ed. (London: Peter Owen, 2011).
26. Andrew Norman, The Finished Portrait (Stroud: The History Press, 2006).
27. Losey, “Notes on How Plot Is Developed.”
28. Mary Westmacott, Unfinished Portrait (London: Collins, 1934).
Bibliography
Archival materials housed in the Bill Douglas Centre, University of Exeter.
Apted, Michael (dir.). Agatha. Warner Bros., 1979.
Christie, Agatha. An Autobiography. London: Collins, 1977.
Cade, Jared. Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, rev. ed. London: Peter Owen, 2011.
Hobbs, James. Hercule Poirot Central. Website (2004). www.poirot.us
Norman, Andrew. The Finished Portrait. Stroud: The History Press, 2006.
Tynan, Kathleen. Agatha: The Agatha Christie Mystery. London: Star, W. H. Allen, 1978.
Westmacott, Mary. Unfinished Portrait. London: Collins, 1934.
Editorial
Fans Have the Final Word
J. C. Bernthal
In August 2015, the international press got hold of some research I had produced with Queens University Belfast’s Dominique Jeannerod and data analyst Brett Jacob. We had produced a “formula” for readers to solve Agatha Christie puzzles. The whole thing, commissioned by a cable television network, was, we assured people, “a bit of fun,” and an indication that more is going on in Christie than meets the eye. Some journalists were unforgiving: Britain’s Daily Mail called the formula “daunting,” a BBC World Service interviewer asked if we were “sapping the fun” from reading, and Quill and Quire’s Steven Beattie accused us of murdering the books’ appeal.1
None of this was unexpected but what surprised me was the overwhelmingly positive responses from fan communities the world over. Christie’s admirers—there are millions, and I am one—enjoyed our research for what it was: a tribute. There are a lot of stereotypes surrounding Agatha Christie enthusiasts, who have been maligned by journalists and ignored by scholars. Just as the final word in this book’s introduction went to Christie herself, the final word in this seminal volume should go to her diverse and loyal fans.
The Agatha Christie fan community is a multigenerational and international affair. Most fans started reading Christie at a very young age and they always remember their first encounter. Robert, from Lancashire, England, started at the age of eight, “as a result of travel sickness.” To take his mind off things, his mother recommended Five Little Pigs (Murder in Retrospect). “I soon forgot the sickness and was enthralled,” he says. “I spent all my pocket money” investing in Christie, and she still hasn’t lost her readabi
lity. “Christie is the perfect companion for a lazy summer afternoon relaxing in the garden.” Robert has been welcomed into the online Christie fan community, through Facebook, which came at just the right time:
It has started a new chapter in my life that is the most enjoyable time, I have met some of [my online friends] and they are as nice in person as they are on the faceless Facebook. They are wonderful friends and I have Agatha Christie to thank for it.
Another member of the online fan community, Linda, 60, lives on the island of Anguilla, part of the British West Indies. After outgrowing Nancy Drew at the age of twelve, she wandered to the local library looking for a challenge, and the librarian recommended The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. “I was delighted by the surprise ending,” says Linda, “and I was hooked. I thank that librarian as this one book started my life-long love of Agatha Christie and her books and she is still my favorite author to this day.” For Linda, Agatha Christie has struck that rare balance between reflecting the atrocity of murder and lightening the blow with a “subtle sense of humor woven throughout.” “Murders are serious matters. Her sense of humor lightens the seriousness of the murder but doesn’t disrespect it.”
The Ageless Agatha Christie Page 26