Shocking waste of time and talent

I must just add that it has one of the worst music scores ever. Don't misunderstand me, I like Dave Brubeck's music a lot, only it's totally inadequate for the already poor film. An awful production. What a waste!

Films should be judged on their own qualities, not fidelity to source material and this particular film did recieve some modest praise upon original release for it's presentation of the dreary landscape and buttoned-up hypocrisy of post-war Britain. Beyond providing some inventive plot twists in her earlier years, Agatha Christie wasn't a particularly distinguised writer and most of her work does require major reworking to give it even a chance of success on screen and saying that she only wrote a finite number of books is a strange observation; all things are finite but Christie was a hugely prolific author over a long career, penned more novels than many writers do and judging by the quality of her output in later years probably should have retired long before she did.

Ordeal by Innocence sets out to be a British Film Noir, rather than an authentic Christie adaptation and when viewed in this context works perfectly well (as does the soundtrack).