{"id":90160,"date":"2019-09-15T11:30:33","date_gmt":"2019-09-15T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/?p=90160"},"modified":"2021-06-02T09:27:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T03:57:34","slug":"indian-films-based-on-agatha-christie-whodunits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/movies\/indian-films-based-on-agatha-christie-whodunits","title":{"rendered":"Indian Films Based on Agatha Christie’s Whodunits"},"content":{"rendered":"

From songs, actions, posters to resorting Hollywood stars, Indian films have time and again took inspiration from non-natives. And not only the extrinsic elements including aesthetics, but it has made films which are based on masterpieces by some prolific writers.<\/p>\n

There are several litterateur\u2019s work which have been adopted and made it into a films. To name a few Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ was made into ‘Aisha’, Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ and ‘Hamlet’ have been taken for ‘Omkara’ and ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Macbeth’ were adapted for ‘Maqbool. Some more adaptations are Ruskin Bond’s ‘Susanna’s seven husbands’ as ‘7 Khoon Maaf’, O Henry’s ‘The Last Leaf’ for ‘Lootera’, F. Dostoyevsky’s ‘White Nights’ for ‘Saawariya’ and the list is endless.<\/p>\n

One such literary prowess is Agatha Christie; whose murder mysteries are a box of treasures which only few filmmakers have brought into play.<\/p>\n

On her 129th birth anniversary, let’s rewind some of the successful Indian films which are an adaptation of Christie’s \u201cwhodunits<\/em>\u201d.<\/h2>\n

(please click Next to know the names of movies)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. Chupi Chupi Aashey (1960)<\/h2>\n
\"Chupi<\/a>
Bengali Film Chupi Chupi Aashey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘Chupi Chupi Aashey’ is a 1960 murder mystery is based on Christie’s longest running stage play in the history ‘The Mousetrap’ and radio play and short story ‘Three Blind Mice’.<\/p>\n

Workers of Kalyaeshwari guest house find a handbill, which fell from a pocket of a murderer. To stop any further murders in the city of Kolkata, the detectives goes to the guest house in search of a clue. Turns out, all the guests residing at that guest house have something in common. Will they be able to identify the murderer? What is the connection of the murder with the guest house? The story is woven with full of mystery, curiosity and the English touch on it reflects Christie’s story telling. Anyhow, the makers have forgotten to mention Christie on their credits as it reads Premendra Mitra as the story writer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2. Gumnaam (1965)<\/h2>\n
\"Gumnaam\"<\/a>
Bollywood Movie – Gumnaam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘Gumnaam’ or anonymous is a 1965 crime thriller film by Raja Nawathe which is adapted from Christie’s ‘Ten Little Niggers’ which was published by Collins Crime Club in United Kingdom on November 6, 1939. The United States edition was released a year after in 1940 with the title ‘And Then There Were None’. This story is a typical murder mystery where wealthy man, hires an assassin to kill his rival. But as the name suggest, there is a lot of unknown mystery and puzzle which awaits to unfold in the narrative gradually. One of the songs of the film \u201cGumnaam hain koi\u201d became quite popular and was almost synonymous to an uncanny situation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3. Dhund (1973)<\/h2>\n
\"<\/a>
Bollywood Movie – Dhund<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘Dhund’ or mist is a 1973 Hindi film by one of the most popular director B.R Chopra. The plot of ‘Dhund’ has been begot from Agatha Christie’s 1958 stage play ‘The Unexpected Guest’ which was first opened in the West End at the Duchess Theatre.<\/p>\n

Chandrashekhar played by Navin Nischol mets with an accident. To seek help, he knocks at a nearby house but when nobody answers, he crashes into the door and finds a man dead on a wheelchair. The film opens with such an oddity that it compels you to be hooked by the virtue of inquisitiveness. The film stars all the popular actors of the yesteryear such as Zeenat Aman, Sanjay Khan, Danny Denzongpa, Deven Verma, Ashok Kumar and Madan Puri. Later it became a Bollywood blockbusters.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4. Shubho Mahurat (2003)<\/h2>\n
\"Shubho<\/a>
Bengali Film Shubho Mahurat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Based on Agatha’s Miss Marple detective story ‘The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side’, ‘Shubho Mahurat’ (auspicious time) is a Bengali adaptation by Rituparno Ghosh.<\/p>\n

A diasporic filmmaker comes to India to invest in a film and casts a retired actor for a prominent role in her film. But after mysterious circumstances, the retired-drug addict Kakoli dies. Often, aboriginal adaptations into Indian films willingly-unwillingly cast back elements of its origin. Here we need to bow down to Ghosh’s proficiency for the complete justice he did to the story by emphasizing on the psychological treatment more than other aspects of a detective narrative which is a prominent aspect of Agatha Christie novel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

5. Grandmaster (2012)<\/h2>\n
\"Grandmaster\"<\/a>
Malayalam Film Grandmaster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grandmaster, a Malayalam thriller is the first Malayali film to be released on Netflix. This film is based on Agatha Christie’s another murder mystery ‘The A.B.C. Murders’, featuring one of her most popular characters Hercule Poirot. The book was originally released in 1936 by Collins Crime Club. Chandrashekhar rescues three girls which Jerome kidnapped, but Deepthi, his ex-wife takes him to a mental asylum rather than a prison. It turns out the three girls made Jerome kidnap them. The loyal whodunit readers have praised the film to be a satisfactory watch.<\/p>\n

Agatha Christie’s work has been widely used by the Hollywood, but why is Indian cinema lagging? At one hand where we produce nearly 2,000 films a year, why do we only have a few hand counted films based on Christie? Its time Indian filmmakers contemplate!<\/p>\n

Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bollywood Movies That are Based on Books<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Top 10 Bollywood Movies Based on Real Life Events<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From songs, actions, posters to resorting Hollywood stars, Indian films have time and again took inspiration from non-natives. And not only the extrinsic elements including aesthetics, but it has made films which are based on masterpieces by some prolific writers. There are several litterateur\u2019s work which have been adopted and made it into a films. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19872,"featured_media":90173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11364,8682,29,9135],"class_list":{"0":"post-90160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-agatha-christie","9":"tag-bollywood-movies","10":"tag-indian-cinema","11":"tag-writer"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19872"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90160"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90166,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90160\/revisions\/90166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}