clanciai This is one of Agatha Christie's most clever intrigues, and it has been filmed any number of times in very different versions. René Clair's version, however, is certainly one of the most outstanding.A party of prominent guests are invited out to an island to pass the weekend in a lush and peaceful environment, but none of them has ever met their host, whose identity grows constantly more suspect and mysterious as the intrigue develops and one after the other gets killed including the kitchen personnel. Roland Young is one of the party and an astute detective, but gradually he appears as the dumbest of them all, as they all keep spying on each other and suspecting each other. There is some diabolical humour in all this, René Clair never denies his wit and innovative qualities, but it isn't exactly funny like "The Ghost Goes West". Nevertheleess, it keeps you fettered to the last surprising moment, and no matter how impossible and improbable the intrigue may seem, it's all logical and ultimately makes sense . Of course, someone had to survive to be able to tell the tale.

zardoz-13 Agatha Christie ranked at the top of the heap when it came to writing whodunits. "And Then There Were None," the most famous of all her novels dealt with a group of unsavory people ushered out to an island where they enjoy all the amenities of food, drink, comfort, and living arrangements. None of these colorful characters have a clue about what they have gotten themselves into until the butler plays a vinyl recording as part of his instructions and all but one of the participants has their shady past revealed. One by one, each of them is knocked off by a mysterious assailant, and their deaths occur according to the 'Ten Little Indians' nursery rhyme and nothing they can do seems to prevent their inevitable demise. Of course, filmmakers plant clues throughout the 97-minute narrative that serve to exonerate certain individuals, but if you aren't paying close attention, you might miss those pointers. Nobody dies the same way, and director René Clair and "Stagecoach" scenarist Dudley Nichols don't depict the manner of death in graphic detail. Typically, we see what was used to kill them, but these unfortunate victims are never shown actually dying. Primarily, the film shows these vastly different individuals either confessing their crimes and perishing or revealing that they aren't who they seem to be and surviving. At least two cinematic remakes ensued and later a television mini-series. Suspense is the card that Clair and Nichols play to keep us glued to the action. Age seems that the only way to distinguish who dies. The most youthful cast members survive the ultimate cut. Although the remakes follow the formula, they often change the settings. The only problem is that some of the characters seem rather dull and the chief criticism is why these suspicious types allowed themselves to be led so easily into this predicament. Of course, it is classic now for such an undertaking that these characters are isolated from the rest of humanity and have no way to turn until the last murder is enacted.Judge Francis J. Quincannon (Barry Fitzgerald), Dr. Edward G. Armstrong (Walter Huston), Philip Lombard (Lewis Hayward), Vera Claythorne (June Duprez), General Sir John Mandrake (Sir C. Aubrey Smith), Emily Brent (Judith Anderson), William H. Blore (Roland Young) and Prince Nikita Starloff (Mischa Auer) endure a choppy boat ride to the island, and the filmmakers use these few moments to introduce each. Modern filmgoers may criticize the obvious use of back projection to simulate the presence of rough seas. Happily, Clair doesn't deploy such obvious photography trickery in the remainder of the story. Afterward, the action is confined to remote mansion with the characters either perishing in the house itself or in the surrounding countryside. The characters in the boat, except for the older seafaring gent who munches on a sandwich throughout the voyage, aren't only ones. When they arrive at the mansion, they are greeted by the housekeepers, Rogers (Richard Haydn) and his wife (Queenie Leonard), who also have skeletons in their respective closets. Clair stages one amusing scene when several participants are caught eavesdropping on each other. One favorite technique that these curious individuals use to conceal themselves is to run the faucets in their adjoining bathrooms and then crouch down to peer through key holes. Naturally, inclement weather follows to build atmosphere into the proceedings. One of the drawbacks of this otherwise superior saga is the death of one of the individuals is faked in such a way as could never happen. Meaning, under the Production Code, violent death could never been portrayed, so we are lead to believe that a death has occurred when the person who is supposed to be death could never have survived some a death. None of the suspects are frightfully nasty types. Indeed, Judith Anderson's Emily seems haughty, but she doesn't behave like a murderer. Sir C. Aubrey Smith's elderly soldier seems more tragic than the others because his crime was sending his wife's illicit lover to his death in combat. Prince Nikita Starloff qualifies as the most obnoxious one of the bunch. At the same time, he seems to be more idiotic than deliberately homicidal. He ran over two people in a hit and run and wasn't prosecuted for his crime. The bumbler of the bunch is the retired detective William Blore. The only obvious plant occurs early in the action when one of the characters explains why the initials on his luggage doesn't correspond to his own name. The murderer keeps track of the deaths by breaking the figures in a ceramic sculpture of the aforementioned ten little Indians and this keeps the characters on edge about who is destined to die next.Clever, suspenseful, but ultimately shallow, "And Then There Were None" is still fun not only as a cinematic artifact but also as a whodunit.

atlasmb A small boat chugs tirelessly through choppy seas, delivering its cargo of eight souls to a very remote island. In silence they suffer till they reach their destination. Upon arriving, they introduce themselves and find that their host, a Mr. Owen, is absent. However, a married butler and cook are present to attend to their needs.This is the setting for Agatha Christie's quintessential murder mystery. Soon the guests are advised of Mr. Owen's intentions, and the games begin. Try to figure out who the murderer is before the truth is revealed. The guests, including a judge played by Barry Fitzgerald and a doctor played by Walter Huston, devise strategies to uncover the perpetrator, but he/she is a devious devil.The real star of the film is the story, Christie's ingenious invention that still thrills, though it had more impact when it was first written, before others had purloined her plot (aka "Ten Little Indians").The version I watched on TCM was somewhat murky and the musical notes of the score seemed to bleed into one another, but it was sufficient to appreciate this classic whodunit.

jarrodmcdonald-1 Sometimes a viewer can tell if a film has been heavily edited due to the production code. This is especially noticeable with some endings. It looks like the story should conclude one way, then it abruptly goes in another direction at the last minute, so that we have a more morally- correct resolution.This seems acceptable if there is something 'good' about it. But there are times when one wishes the ending to be morally incorrect, because the story should function as a realistic depiction of what happens when people do go bad and life does go wrong. These can be powerful films that teach powerful lessons.Another problem is that after the end of the production code, producers who remake these films with flawed endings often do not seem to fix them correctly. But occasionally, there is a remake that comes along that does return to the original source and lets the story play out the way the writer intended.And Then There Were None, with its remake called Ten Little Indians, is one such example. The updated version was made before the Hollywood production code was abolished, in 1965 in Europe. The cast may seem a bit inferior to the group of actors in the original, but the story is filmed the way Agatha Christie wrote it. A couple of killers are allowed to live happily ever after…and a mass murderer is allowed to commit suicide to evade justice.