And Then There Were None is a 1945 mystery thriller about ten people who are invited for the weekend on a remote island by Mr U.N. Owen. Unfortunately, they discover that their mysterious host has planned to kill them, one by one.
Produced and directed by René Clair [as Rene Clair] (I Married a Witch; The Ghost Goes West; The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge) from a screenplay by Dudley Nichols, based on Agatha Christie’s best-selling novel, the Popular Pictures production stars Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward and Roland Young.
The excellent soundtrack score was composed by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (I Love a Mystery; The Return of the Vampire; Fingers at the Window).
Plot:
Eight people, all total strangers to each other, are invited to a small, isolated island off the coast of Devon, England, by a Mr Owen and Mrs Owen. Ferried over by a sailor called Narracott, they settle in at a mansion tended by two newly-hired servants, Thomas and Ethel Rogers, however, their hosts are absent.
When the guests sit down to dinner, they notice the centrepiece, ten figurines of Indians in a circle. Afterwards, Rogers puts on a gramophone record, from which a voice accuses each one of them of being a murderer…
Choice dialogue:
Judge Quincannon: Don’t forget the old proverb, doctor. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink.”
Thomas Rogers: “At a time like this, I wouldn’t open the door even if it was… Santa Claus.”
Emily Brent: “Very stupid to kill the only servant in the house. Now we don’t even know where to find the marmalade.”
Cast and characters:
- Barry Fitzgerald … Judge Francis J. Quincannon
- Walter Huston … Doctor Edward G. Armstrong
- Louis Hayward … Philip Lombard
- Roland Young … Detective William Henry Blore
- June Duprez … Vera Claythorne
- Mischa Auer … Prince Nikita Starloff
- C. Aubrey Smith … General Sir John Mandrake (as Sir C. Aubrey Smith)
- Judith Anderson … Emily Brent
- Richard Haydn … Thomas Rogers
- Queenie Leonard … Ethel Rogers
- Harry Thurston … Fred Narracott
Filming locations:
Samuel Goldwyn Studios – 7200 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, California
Release:
Though it was distributed by a major studio, 20th Century Fox, the copyright was allowed to lapse and the film is now in the public domain.
Other movie versions:
Ten Little Indians (1965), And Then There Were None aka Ten Little Indians (1974) and Ten Little Indians (1989) were all produced by Harry Alan Towers. Desyat Negrityat is a 1989 Soviet version, There was also a three-part TV mini-series in 2015.
Trailer:
Free to watch online on YouTube [1080p HD]:
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