Now if you're wondering who the heck is Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, well you may know her better by her nom de plume Agatha Christie, a prolific writer of acclaimed mystery novels.
The famous novelist was the center of a mystery of her own when in 1926, Agatha went missing for 11 days.
Well, we know the story behind that one. At a posh English estate, Agatha Christie was called upon to investigate a series of ghastly murders that were being committed by a giant alien wasp and the events of the terrible time left her so traumatized that she...
OK, OK, that's the plot behind "The Unicorn and the Wasp", a 2008 episode of Doctor Who.
Or perhaps a less fantastic perspective on Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance, we can turn to the film Agatha, a 1979 British drama directed by Michael Apted and written by Kathleen Tynan.
Things are not going well at the Christie household. Agatha's husband Archie regards his mystery writing wife with utter disdain as he demands a divorce, saying he loves his secretary Nancy Neele, wah, wah, wah. Archie's a whiny bitch!
Agatha drives from the house late at night and gets into an accident.
The next morning, the police find her wrecked car.
But no Agatha Christie.
The press swarm on to this potentially salacious story, among them American reporter Wally Stanton (Dustin Hoffman).
Various members of the police and the press as well as other volunteers are combing the countryside, looking for any sign of Agatha Christie.
The one place nobody looks is the Harrogate Hydropathic Hotel which is where Agatha Christie is, checked in under the name Theresa Neele from Cape Town.
While Agatha is receiving treatments at the Harrogate's Royal Baths, newspapers are publishing front-page stories about Agatha's disappearance.
The police wonder why Archie is not helping with the search for his wife but the heartless prick's busy canoodling with his girlfriend Nancy who is on her way for some spa treatments at the (you guessed it!) Harrogate Hydropathic Hotel.
Also arriving at the Harrogate: Wally Stanton. It seems Agatha's secretary received a coded message through a newspaper advertisement.
Over a game of billiards at the Harrogate, Stanton introduces himself as Curtis Shacks Jr., an American seeking treatment for constipation. Agatha is still keeping up the pretense of being Theresa Neele.
Agatha researches the spa treatments available at Harrogate including the Bergonic chair.
Damn! I gotta do research.
A Bergonic chair is a device "for giving general electric treatment for psychological effect, in psycho-neurotic cases"
In other words, electroshock therapy.
So Agatha is poking around, asking questions, reading manuals and so on about how the Bergonic chair works and what happens when things go wrong and the steps to take to make sure things do not go wrong.
Wally Stanton susses out what Agatha is up to.
She's going to turn the Bergonic chair into a weapon for a homicide.
Or a suicide?
Turns out it's the latter and Agatha's attempt nearly succeeds but Stanton arrives in time to save her.
Archie has to pretend to be the dutiful husband to bring Agatha home from Harrogate. A press release is issued that Agatha's disappearance was due to amnesia.
Meanwhile, Wally Stanton hands Agatha Christie a copy of the story he wrote, telling her he has no intention of filing that story with his newspaper and that he loves Agatha.
Stanton watches Agatha leave from the railway station as a closing credits tells us Agatha does divorce Archie (well, fuck him and good riddance, I say!) who goes off to marry Nancy.
One thing that stands out is that Vanessa Redgrave who plays Agatha Christie is half foot taller than Dustin Hoffman who portrays Wally Stanton. A lot of American male actors are shorter than you think (ex: Tom Cruise) and will go to extraordinary lengths to not be shorter than the female lead. So it's a bit outside the norm to see a height disparity where the female lead is taller than the male lead.
The estate of Agatha Christie did not like this movie and tried to stop it in the courts but these suits were dismissed and the film was released. In 1979, the reviews were at best mixed but the movie has gained a more positive reputation for the work of director Michael Apted, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and the intriguing chemistry between Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman.
I also think time has made us more empathetic to the mental health issues that Agatha Christie is going through during this trying point in her life.
Agatha is an interesting and compelling tale of the vanishing of Agatha Christie and her subsequent mysterious reappearance at the Harrogate Hotel.
Although I think the version of her fighting the giant alien wasp is still my favorite.
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