A Comparative Analysis: Witness for the Prosecution Film Adaptation

This essay provides a detailed analysis of the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's 'Witness for the Prosecution', comparing it to the original short story. The essay explores the changes made to the characters, plot, and themes during the adaptation process. It discusses how the film version of the story differs from the novel, focusing on character modifications, plot adjustments, and the overall impact of these changes on the narrative. The author examines the critical reception of the film, referencing various scholarly sources to support their arguments. The essay also highlights the adaptations made in the BBC version of the story and the extent to which the film maintains the essence of the original work, including the ending. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the film's ability to captivate audiences while making the story more appealing and feasible for a broader audience.

Running head: ADAPTATION OF THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION
ADAPTATION OF THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION
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Introduction
The literary texts are often adapted into the films, in order to make them more appealing
to the public and the audience. The director often tries to adapt a particular text into the silver
screen because he wants to make a classic story new for the contemporary audience. The thesis
statement of the essay is that the novel “The Witness for Prosecution” by Agatha Christie has
been adapted into the films and there have been several changes away from the literary text. The
following essay aims to discuss the adaptation of the film in detail.
Discussion
It has often been seen that the characters of the story and that of the film are different
from one another. The characters and the plot of a novel often seem to undergo transformation,
while they are adapted from the pages to the screen. In the film version of “The Witness for
Prosecution”, Romanie's character had experienced very unusual modifications when the story
was converted to film. As per the discussion of Marie, there was a realization on Mayhew's part
in the short story because of Romanie and the role she plays by making a movement from
outside. The film version provides Mayhew with a bigger place for which Romnie's portrayal is
largely different. In comparison, Romanie's relaxed and less methodical nature is altered in the
modified version of the story. Marie had also stated that the film portrays her as a cold natured
person and gives the viewer an illusion that she is more focused on surviving.
Chapman discusses clearly that recent adaptations of the stories have a tendency to throw
about with the context, the setting as well as the characters, so that the fiction gains a greater
reception and appreciation from the public. Because movies belong to the public domain, the

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filmmaker has the legal right to make necessary adjustments for the audience (Rolls). The most
likely explanation is that if the protagonist had been traditional or conventional, it could have
been that the viewers would not be interested in watching the film. Therefore as per the argument
of Hesse, a shift is made, and the key meaning of the play is elevated. As per the discussion of
Rolls, there is no doubt that the BBC’s new version of Agatha Christie is a brilliant attempt at
portraying the play to the audiences, through a visual medium. It had been believed that the story
line of the novel had been extremely strong and had a very brilliant structure, which could
always have been crafted into a photogenic story. Gale says that although the earlier versions of
the films, the classical ones of 1957 had deviated from the original story, the BBC production of
The Witness of the Prosecution did stick to the originality, deriving inspiration from it (Robson).
The adaptation very efficiently captures the short story’s theme, the characterization as well as
the tone. However, there had been a change in the plot structure slightly because , it is often not
possible for a director to bring out the entire narrative word to word in the film. The story had
been written ages ago, with a classical and a traditional background. There needed to be a change
in the background in today’s time (Marie).
Alridge also says that the adaptation was both a loose as well as a straight interpretation
of the story. The ending that Agatha Christie had created in her short story had been exactly
captured by the screenwriter and the director in the TV series of 2016. According to Hesse, the
ending had been the representation and the depiction of love which included the love of Emily
French for Leonard Vole, the unrequited love of Mayhew for his wife and also Janet’s love for
Emily. There had been no change in the plot of the protagonist, the love between Vole and
romaine, and the point of view of the author had remained the same in spite of its modern
adaptation. However according to the discussion of Alridge, there had been a strict following of

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Agatha Christie’s story indeed but the screenwriter had added few parts of the story to it as well.
There had been the presence of the common theme of moral turpitude as well as greed. However
there had been an additional theme contemporary resonance in the adaptation. Sarkar very
efficiently argues that the entire story had been carved out visually into deeper themes. The
acting of the characters and the actors successfully added an atmosphere of complexity in the
film which glued the audiences to the screen for a longer period of time. Moreover, as per the
statement of Chapman, there had been a layer of ambiguity underlying the plot as well as humor
to keep the audiences involved. Gale has agreed to the fact that the film had very effectively
brought back the original story into life again, with the suspense, the mystery and the underlying
immense thrill, which had been the forte of all the stories of Agatha Christie. The characters had
successfully made the entire story into one of its own kind, keeping everything together till the
end (Robson).
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that the film adaptations are often
done to make the story more feasible and appealing to the audiences because many of the people
prefer a visual form of the story rather than the textual form. Thus the BBC version of the story
had been much praised by the critics as well as enjoyed by the audience because the story had a
very straight adaptation of the original plot, keeping the characterization and the tone same, but
adding more to it. The film has been made more complex and also has a bit of ambiguity
underlying. However the entire ending of the original story remained the same and there had
been no alteration made in it.

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Works Cited:
Aldridge, Mark. "Christie with a Twist." Agatha Christie on Screen. Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 2016. 313-331.
Chapman, Llewella. "Agatha Christie on Screen." (2018): 201-204.
Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's" Witness for the Prosecution".
Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016.
Hesse, Beatrix. "Stage Adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Detective Stories." The English Crime
Play in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015. 197-217.
Marie, Caroline. "When Page Won’t Go to Stage: Adaptation-Resistant Embryos of Theatricality
in Agatha Christie’s ‘Three Blind Mice’and ‘Witness for the
Prosecution’." Adaptation 7.1 (2014): 47-61.
Robson, Peter. "Theatre and the law in the twenty-first century." Cultural Legal Studies.
Routledge, 2015. 131-150.
Rolls, Alistair. "Adapting to Loiterly Reading: Agatha Christie’s Original Adaptation of “The
Witness for the Prosecution”." M/C Journal 22.4 (2019).
Sarkar, Sucharita. "The Gentle Art of On-Screen Murder: Investigating the Screen Adaptations
of Agatha Christie's Detective Fiction."