And Then There Were None (1945)

Movie Info

As the Indians fall, who will be left standing?

“Ten Little Indians Boys Went Out to Dine…”  A poem strikes terror for ten strange visitors to an island resort for a weekend.  Though none of them know each other or their host, they all have a connection in murder.  General Sir John Mandrake (C. Aubrey Smith), Emily Brent (Judith Anderson), Dr. Edward G. Armstrong (Walter Huston), Prince Nikita Starloff (Mischa Auer), Vera Claythorne (June Duprez), Judge Francis J. Quinncannon (Barry Fitzgerald), Philip Lombard (Louis Hayward), William H. Blore (Roland Young), and servants Thomas (Richard Haydn) and Ethel Rogers (Queenie Leonard) have all have dark pasts that they are trying to forget…but the mysterious U.N. Owen seems to know all their secrets.  Now, all the guests are dying one-by-one and the survivors must discover the identity of U.N. Owen before it is too late!

We’re going to die on this frickin’ island…aren’t we?

Directed by René Clair, And Then There Were None adapts the classic 1939 Agatha Christie novel (also called Ten Little Indians).  The movie closer adheres to the 1943 stage adaptation by altering the ending of the story.  The film was fairly well received and now is available due to public domain.

Agatha Christie is a classic writer.  She however wasn’t always the best writer.  Many of her mysteries are cheesy and follow all of the mystery clichés you’d suspect today (in her defense, she invented some of the clichés).  And Then There Were None however is one of her better works and a classic…simply because of the format.

The storyline for And Then There Were None has been used multiple times.  A killer stalks an isolated group of people (generally guilty of a crime) and no one knows who it is.  The killer is always one of the guests and generally is a victim.  It is such a great format and how the story unfolds is always fun.  And Then There Were None pioneered this type of story and still is one of the better examples of it.

When faced with a person with a gun…don’t point and lecture

The cast is good.  Most of the cast were character actors and many came from the stage which was appropriate for the movie.  It is rather typical of a ’40s film in both acting style and characters, but with the classic story, almost anyone could fit the cast.

The movie has that great noir style.  It is dark and atmospheric blending the noir with a gothic style.  Due to censorship and movie rules at the time, it is very “family friendly”.  The ending of the film and some of the backstories of the characters were also altered to make it more acceptable for audiences (and the changes have generally stuck over time).

And Then There Were None is hard to screw up since it is strongly written.  It is fun to see different incarnations of this story from other versions of this general script to movies that use the format like the horror film April Fool’s Day (1986).  And Then There Were None is a classic and this is a classic version of it…but see it, read it, or catch it someway if you want a great whodunit.