Witness for the Prosecution. Poster of the 1957 movie and cover of the 1948 book, The Witness for the Prosecution
VS3
The Witness for the Prosecution
Agatha Christie, 1948
movie vs book
Billy Wilder, 1957

Sir Wilfrid Robarts, a master barrister in ill health, takes on Leonard Vole as a client, despite the objections of his private nurse, Miss Plimsoll, who says the doctor warns him against taking on any criminal cases. During the trial in the Old Bailey, Sir Wilfrid is contacted by a mysterious woman who, for a fee, provides him with letters written by Christine herself to a mysterious lover named Max.


Nightmare Alley. Poster of the 1947 movie and cover of the 1946 book
VS3
Nightmare Alley
William Lindsay Gresham, 1946
movie vs book
Edmund Goulding, 1947

In the gritty, surrealistic world of traveling carnivals, where eccentric people of all possible varieties interact on a daily basis, Tyrone Power plays a morally questionable circus apprentice determined to climb the carnival ladder no matter what the price.


Marie Antoinette. Poster of the 1938 movie and cover of the 1932 book, Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman
VS3
Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman
Stefan Zweig, 1932
movie vs book
W.S. Van Dyke, Julien Duvivier, 1938

In 1769 Vienna, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria tells her daughter Maria Antonia she is to marry the Dauphin Louis-Auguste. On her second wedding anniversary, Madame du Barry, King Louis XV’s mistress, gifts Marie with an empty cradle and a poem critical of her inability to produce an heir.