Black Coffee (play) - Publication and Further Adaptations

Publication and Further Adaptations

The play was first published by Alfred Ashley and Son during November 1934. It was republished with minor revisions by Samuel French Ltd on July 1, 1952. This followed a successful revival in repertory.

Like The Unexpected Guest (1999) and Spider's Web, the script of the play was turned into a novel by Charles Osborne. The novelisation was copyrighted in 1997 and published in 1998.

Black Coffee's resurrection as a novel was not its first significant reworking, however. It had been adapted into a motion picture, also entitled Black Coffee, way back in 1931. Running to 78 minutes, the motion picture was produced by Julius S. Hagan and released on August 19, 1931 by Twickenham Film Studios. Austin Trevor played the role of Poirot in the motion picture. A few months earlier, he had played the same character in a screen version of the Alibi, made by the same film studio. (Alibi was an adaptation of Christie's classic whodunnit, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.)

In 1932, the play was filmed again, this time by Les Établissements Jacques Haïk in France. Opening in cinemas as Le Coffret de laque on July 15, 1932, it was the first non-English language treatment of a Christie work. It was released internationally as The Lackered Box.