Ten Little WHATs? (And Then There Were None (DVD))

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	And Then There Were None (DVD)
Date:	17/07/09 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The story

Disadvantages: The acting, the comedy

Ten people are gathered on a remote island, including a butler and his wife, for the weekend. None of them claim to know their host who invited them and one by one they start being killed off just after their host Mr U N Owen lets them all know that he is accusing each of them of having killed someone else.

Are they all guilty of the crimes they're accused of? Who is Mr Owen? Does anyone make it off the island alive at the end of the weekend?


And Then There Were None was adapted from a 1939 Agatha Christie novel into this 1945 film with a cast including Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, June Duprez and C Aubrey Smith. Not really knowing any of the main cast of this film I can't really compare their acting here to other films they've appeared in before or since this film.

First up, I'll say that this has to be my least favourite Agatha Christie film I've seen to date. I found it very difficult to watch this through to the end and was quite relieved when the film ended. Being a huge Christie fan of books and plays and films, I was very surprised to find I did not really enjoy this version of the story. I found the acting to be rather dull and found myself disliking all of the characters bar none! I can't tell you which of the characters were supposed to come across as being amicable as that might give away part of the plot but suffice to say I was not rooting for any of the characters to make it off the remote island alive.

If you've read the book from which this film is adapted you'll be surprised as the ending is very noticeably different. The original novel was called Ten Little Niggers but obviously this was not an acceptable name. It was also published under the name of Ten Little Indians. Ten Little Indians is a song in the film which is played by one of the guests (funnily enough the first one to be killed off) and to give this part of the story a bit more mystery are ten little figurines on the dining table - each time a member of the household is killed off another figurine somehow gets smashed and/or removed.

I understand Christie wrote this story in a play version with a different ending to the book which is actually closest to the plotline of this version of the story. Again I'm unable to tell you anymore about the change to the story as it would be too much of a spoiler.

The film only runs for 97 minutes so there really wasn't much time to develop any of the characters enough to make much of an impression on the viewer. There is a romance in the film between two of the characters which I did not find convincingly acted out, although having previously seen a version of this film made in the 1970s I have to say that I enjoyed that version far more than this one.

I felt the slapstick humour used in parts of the film was inappropriate and unsuited to the storyline. It didn't impress in the least and would be more suited to a Laurel & Hardy type story than what was supposed to be a tense thriller. There is a scene where four members of the household are spying on each other through doorways and keyholes which I assume was meant to be amusing but I found it just rather stupid. Several scenes in the film were comical and it just didn't suit the nature of the story - not for me personally anyway.

I purchased my DVD from Amazon.com - this version was released in 2001 and I felt somewhat better after watching this rather disappointing version of the film due to the fact that there was a short film (17 minutes in duration) included in the DVD which I found rather amusing starring Leon Errol in a dual role. The extras aside from the short film were nothing very exciting - just biographies about the cast members. The overall quality of the film was acceptable for me to view but other viewers might find it somewhat dated and grainy.


I would give the film an overall 2 out of 5 and add that I generally do enjoy black and white films from the 40s but found very little in this film to enjoy. As I mentioned above, I found it a struggle to watch this to the end. BUT I may watch this again sometime in the future to see if it grows on me! I understand the film won an award for Best Film at the 1946 Locarno International Film Festival which might lead people to want to give the film more of a chance than I did.


TECHNICAL DETAILS

Film duration: 97 minutes (+ short film of 17 minutes duration)
Certification: U (Universal)
Director: Rene Clair
Writer: Agatha Christie
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols
DVD release date: 2001

Summary: I, a diehard Christie fan, was pretty disappointed with this!