Bill Slocum Ten people come together at a mountain mansion, guests of a mysterious U. N. Owen who keeps them waiting, and waiting..."I find a singular lapse of manners a house party and the host the last to arrive," huffs Judge Cannon (Wilfred Hyde-White).For Judge Cannon and the other nine, a lapse of manners is just an appetizer for what follows: Accusation, isolation, and eventually, a menu full of murder."Ten Little Indians" is a delightful jaunt of swinging-'60s ambiance that plays a bit with the conventions of a classic Agatha Christie mystery while still delivering the goods. A Mancini-ish jazz score and a cast that features Fabian, Bond girls Shirley Eaton and Daliah Lavi, and slumming luminaries like Hyde-White and Dennis Price keep fun in the foreground.I love Elsa Grohmann (Marianne Hoppe)'s one-word review of Lavi's actress character, Ilona Bergen; and how Fabian's singer character Mike Raven gets on everyone's nerves singing about their "strictly nurseryville" situation. Butler Grohmann (Mario Adorf) even asks, after the guests begin dropping like flies: "How many do you think there will be at dinner tonight?"At the same time, the film works hard building up the classic Christie structure of constant mortal danger, and in places even refining it a little. For example, you wonder how the actress and the general know each other, and if the "dab hand" of detective Blore (Sterling Holloway) has something to do with a sudden power cut. Why does Hugh Lombard (Hugh O'Brian) carry luggage with the initials "C. M."? Why would Ann Clyde (Eaton) take a job as secretary to a man she never met? Yes, it's done with yuks, especially watched a second time when you see the red herrings clearly and the crafty culprit right in front of you, but amid all the frosting there's a wickedly fine cake, dark and deadly and cold as hell.Director George Pollock and producer-writer Harry Alan Towers (writing here as Peter Welbeck) previously developed several successful if slightly irreverent film adaptations of Christie's Miss Marple stories. Here they work that same comic touch into the darker material of "Ten Little Indians." They even pause the action for what they call a "Whodunit break."Of course this shouldn't work, especially with a cast that seems to strain at the self-conscious celebrity of a "Fantasy Island" episode a decade or so later, yet the pieces come together. There's an especially well-delivered twist at the end, as scott-palmer2 points out in his August 2009 review unique to this particular adaptation, which is ironically set up by that most clichéd film convention, a sudden romance involving our sexy leads.One sequence near the end, involving a staircase and a revolver, is played too cute and feels forced. Also, there are some minor contrivances, like when two characters have a fight for no other reason than to give one of them an excuse to make an abrupt exit from the story. You may not like the characters, but empathy is not the object here, no more than it was with Christie's novel. Here, suspense is alleviated by comedy, and while no substitute for reading the disturbing book, what you get is high-class entertainment with a game cast and a crafty script.

TheLittleSongbird And Then There Were None is and has been since I was 12 one of my favourite books of all time. If there is a contender for Agatha Christie's- of whose books I'm a fan of- best book, And Then There Were None would definitely be more than worthy. When you love a book as imaginative, suspenseful, beautifully characterised and sometimes scary(Emily Brent's death for instance) as And Then There Were None, no matter how you try to judge a film on its own terms, you do hope that the book is done justice to.In terms of film adaptations though, it's been a very mixed bag. The 1945 film for me is by far the best, witty, suspenseful, splendidly cast(Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston and Judith Anderson being the standouts) and faithful to the book's spirit in general. The 1974 film is heavily flawed, namely that it does get turgid and illogical in places and Charles Aznavour is awful but it looks wonderful, has a good score, has the extra bonus of having Orson Welles as the voice of Mr Owen and has good performances from Richard Attenborough, Herbert Lom and Oliver Reed make it a film better than its reputation.Strictly speaking, it's the 1989 version that is really quite poor, with only the locations, the lions and the performances of Donald Pleasance, Sarah Maur Thorp and Herbert Lom working somewhat. I found myself very impressed generally by this version, it's second only to the 1945 film and easily the best of the remakes.The film is not perfect however. Although it is in this version where the perpetrator is the most malevolent, the ending- changed from the I think unfilmable ending of the book(someone also raised the point that Vera Claythorne's death is too much by chance in the book and I can definitely see where they're coming from)- seemed dramatically under-baked for me. The music score is too jazzy and I think lightweight, jarring with the film's tone and diluting the suspense and claustrophobia. The Ten Little Indians song is good however, though I prefer the ominously Roccoco style of the one in the 1945 adaptation.Daliah Lavi and especially Fabian give the only two performances that I'd consider bad, in Fabian's case embarrassingly bad. Lavi is a little better than Brenda Vaccarro in the 1989 film, but she like Vaccarro does very little with a character that wasn't as written as well as she could've been and the melodrama(and there is a lot considering the profession her role has) is so overcooked that it becomes painful to watch and listen to. Fabian makes an obnoxious character even more so(what the remakes have in common actually is how annoyingly the role is written and performed actually), so much so you want him dead fast.On the other side of things, this version has beautiful locations, not as claustrophobic-looking as the 1945 film but for me it didn't have the sense that it was going to present any kind of logic problems like the later versions did. The photography compliments it very well, and the same goes for George Pollock's quite studied but professional direction that does little to spoil the tension. The murders are both inventive and at times eerie, while the script is literate with a touch of drollness, the characters generally maintain interest and don't have back stories and such that feel too underdeveloped or distorted(something that the 1989 version did to truly bad effect) and the story had me gripped, and while the identity didn't come as a surprise to me as I know the story so well it is easy to see why others would feel that, when I read the book was exactly that of complete surprise.Lavi and Fabian aside, I thought the cast were very good. Taking top honours has to go to Wilfred Hyde-White, whose Judge- one of the book's most interesting characters to me and well-performed in all four versions- is incisive and quick-witted, quite possibly one of his best performances. Dennis Price's Armstrong, almost as good as Walter Huston, is an ideal match, smart, intelligent and playful(only the 1989 film has this role played badly), while Leo Genn in a commanding and touching performance is this close to topping Herbert Lom in the 1989 film(the only asset of that that is the best of anything to do with this story and its adaptations) as the General and Stanley Holloway who is very authoritative with touches of humour is the best of the actors playing Blore.Hugh O'Brian and Shirley Eaton have been much criticised for being wooden. I actually didn't have a problem with them and found them quite appealing. O'Brian is handsome and smooth and Eaton smolders on screen and at least shows a sense of her character's predicaments. We even have the luxury of having an unbilled Christopher Lee as the voice of Mr Owen. Like Orson Welles-largely responsible for why the scene in the 1974 version in question was done so well, possibly the best done of the versions- his distinctive voice is not what you call inhuman, but there is a dignified and menacing quality to it that is enough to evoke some chills at least. The butler character is also the most interesting in this version.Overall, while flawed I liked it very much and consider it the second best version of a literary masterpiece. 8/10 Bethany Cox

acidburn-10 After recently reading the actual book "And Then There Were None", a book which I read in less than 2 days, and is already one of my all time favourite books, and after seeing the 1945 version of the movie, which is by far the best adaptation, I was really keen to see the three other remakes, with this one being the second and a very decent adaptation.Well I must say that this version is a very good, fun and slightly campy movie. This version does differ in several ways however, like the back stories on some of the characters and names, and the Emily Brent character taken out completely and replaced by a younger Hollywood actress, probably in order to spice things up I suppose and she was an interesting aspect of the movie.In this version the setting is an isolated ski lodge/mansion, and only accessible by cable car, which does retain some of the tension the original book/film had and we also get a cheesy camp jazz opening as the film starts which introduces the cast, and what I liked as well as the murders are done on-screen unlike the other versions, which I loved as it made this version stand out from the others, and I still love the idea of ten people getting murdered to the words of a nursery rhyme "Ten Little Indians" which in this is probably the last time that it centres and revolves around the entire movie, the further adaptations don't seem to use the nursery rhyme nearly enough. And another cheesy aspect which I loved is the 60 second whodunit break, which I have never seen before and loved me only wished it was used in the actual film instead of being an extra feature on the DVD release.All of the guests seem guilty of something and all of them act suspiciously, so everybody is a suspect. It makes for a perfect whodunit. More important, thanks to Ms. Christie's deft hand, we get to know each of the suspects as a distinct personality; they aren't the kind of interchangeable characters we so often encounter in shoddy imitations.The cast in this version may not be as strong as the original 1945 version, but here they are pretty decent and interesting. Hugh O' Brian, who plays the male lead Lombard, plays it cool calm and straight with his rugged good looks and all the makings of a classic Hollywood hero. Shirley Eaton whose probably best known for James Bond movie "Gold finger" gives a respectable performance as Ann Clyde and is well and truly beautiful and has great chemistry with Lombard and definitely a character to root for. The other actors also hold up well, we have Fabian playing a drunken pop star Mike Raven, who seemed really interesting but is dispatched way too early. Wilfred Hyde White playing the judge Arthur Cannon gave a stern and slightly lighthearted performance and progresses as the movie carries on. Stanley Holloway as detective Blore gave a sense of authority to his role. Daliah Lavi who plays the Hollywood actress Ilona Bergan was an interesting addition to the movie and plus she was beautiful despite the horrible sixties hairdo, Character actors Leo Genn and Dennis Price play General Sir John Mandrake and Dr. Edward Armstrong, respectively and the latter has interesting conversations with the Judge and were both a decent double act. And lastly Marianne Hoppe who plays the maid was decent but wasn't used nearly enough and Mario Adorf who plays the butler gave a memorable performance as the hot headed butler.All in all "Ten Little Indians" is a very decent adaptation of a brilliant book with decent production and a decent cast definitely a version worth watching.

Lechuguilla Based on what is probably the most ingenious whodunit premise ever created, this film animates the classic Christie story, and does so at least as well as its forerunner, "And Then There Were None" (1945).Set in a remote castle at the top of a mountain on a cold, snowy weekend, "Ten Little Indians" tells the story of ten guests invited to this place of isolation by their unknown host, Mr. Owen. As one person dies, and then another, and with no chance of escape, the remaining guests get caught up in a game of suspicion and paranoia, as they attempt to solve the basic riddle and save their own lives. At dinner, one character asks frantically: "Are we going to sit around trying to guess who is Mr. Owen while we're murdered one by one?"Pacing is perfect. Dialogue is mesmerizing. In one scene, two characters face each other in big wing chairs in a dark room with shadows, enhanced by a fire in the fireplace. One character blurts out: "Cold." The second character responds: "Yes cold, quite cold." The first character then adds: "Lonely." The second agrees: "And lonely; quite, quite lonely." The exchange thus continues: "It might not be Grohmann." "It might not be." "Then who?" "Tell me doctor, do you lock your door at night?" "Invariably; do you?" "I think I will tonight."The ensemble cast is quite good. Overall acting is memorable, if not quite award worthy. The film's score enhances the cold, snowy setting. Stark, B&W lighting, combined with a pronounced echo in the large rooms, contribute to a tone that could best be described as ... creepy.One can nit-pick this film all day. But no amount of nitpicking can deny the brilliance of Christies's underlying story premise, borrowed by innumerable films and television series through the years, including the TV reality show "The Mole". For viewers who appreciate whodunit films, "Ten Little Indians" is hard to beat.