And Then There Were None (1945)
Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion, where a recorded voice accuses each of having caused a death and escaped punishment for it. As the guests begin dying one by one in the order of a sinister nursery rhyme, the survivors realize the killer must be one of them.
Adapted from Agatha Christie’s own stage version of her novel, which softened the book’s bleaker ending, And Then There Were None is the best-known of French director René Clair’s English-language films and is still regarded by many Christie devotees as the finest screen treatment of her most famous plot.
Background
And Then There Were None adapts Agatha Christie’s own stage version of her novel of the same underlying story, which gives the film a somewhat less bleak ending than the book’s original conclusion. French director René Clair, who had already spent a decade making English-language films in Britain and Hollywood, made it the best-known of them. The plot gathers ten strangers on an isolated island, each secretly guilty of a death they escaped punishment for, and has them murdered one by one according to the pattern of a sinister nursery rhyme.
What to watch for
Watch for how the film balances genuine suspense with a fairly light comic touch in places, an approach many Christie devotees still regard as one of the most satisfying screen treatments of her work. Because it draws on the play rather than the novel directly, it is worth comparing the ending here with the darker version in the book if you already know Christie’s original story; the two resolve the mystery in noticeably different ways.
