9/19/2023 0 Comments And then there were none movie![]() At a stroke, many of the objections to Christie’s story vanished – we did not have to question the credibility of the story anymore because it was no longer necessary to take it seriously. Clair recognised the only way to treat a storyline that is both ingenious and absurd – he turned it into a black comedy. Nonetheless, faced with such a preposterous plot, how does Clair manage to make such a brilliant movie? René Clair incorporates all these elements in his film version, although he wisely omits a further point in Christie’s books, which is that the killer is eliminating the guests in ascending order of the gravity of their crime. The idea that someone could successfully persuade ten people to come to an island (with no refusals), and then murder them all in line with the words in a nursery rhyme, and somehow do so without being caught is pushing the boundaries of believability too far. Secondly the story is utterly absurd when considered realistically. Firstly it is ingenious, and it is easy to see why such a remarkable story would appeal to film studios. As there are no hiding places on the island, the guests come to the conclusion that Mr Owen is one of them, and they have to work out in order to avoid being murdered before the boat arrives at the end of the weekend.Īs we can see, the plot has two notable qualities. Every time one of them is killed, another figurine is smashed. Soon the guests start being murdered, each one in a method that tallies with a line in the nursery rhyme. All of the guests have been responsible for the death of others in their past, but in such a way that their crime was beyond the reach of the law. The guests’ surprise turns to consternation when they hear a gramophone record with Mr Owen’s voice on it, which accuses them of having committed murder. Christie’s casual racism is now mostly expunged from copies of her work, thankfully.) (In the original book, they were not Indian boys, but ‘n*gg*rs’ – I cannot bring myself to spell the word out. The guests are bemused by this remote location where their hosts are absent, and by the presence of ten figurines that appear to match those in an old nursery rhyme about ten Indian boys who die mysterious deaths. It soon becomes clear that nobody has met the Owens, and the initials of their name spell U. A few have been offered employment by them, or invited in a professional capacity. Most are invited as guests of the mysterious hosts, the Owens. Ten people are invited to the island under a series of pretexts. Clearly such a story could not be easily moved to a contemporary setting without some adjustments. In an age of limited technology it is more conceivable to understand how ten people could be trapped for three days with no means of being able to contact the mainland. The action takes place on a remote island off the coast of Cornwall. I will leave out telling you who the murderer is, as that would take out some of the fun of reading it, or watching Clair’s movie. I may as well begin with a quick synopsis of Christie’s original story, as simply telling the story will partly answer those two questions. What is it that makes And Then There Were None such a popular choice for adaptation? And why do so many moviemakers get it so wrong? To understand this, we need to look at Christie’s original book, and René Clair’s 1945 movie, perhaps the only one version that somehow got it right. Naturally this raises questions about Christie’s book. I must also add that almost every version of it has been mediocre at best, while many were downright awful. Of all Agatha Christie’s novels, And Then There Were None is the one that has been filmed the most.
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