And Then There Were None (1945) - film review

Eight men and women, all unknown to each other, accept a mysterious invitation to an island estate.  They are welcomed by two domestic servants, Mr and Mrs Rogers, who appear to be as ignorant of the reason for the meeting as the guests are.   When they are all assembled together, they hear a strange message from their unknown host on a gramophone record.  Each one of them is accused of a murder, and each one of them is destined to be punished.  The first victim is Prince Nikita, poisoned.  The next morning, it is found that Mrs Rogers has died in her sleep.  The murders appear to be following the pattern of a children’s nursery rhyme, The Ten Little Indians.  One by one, the guests will be eliminated – until there are none…

French filmmaker René Clair rounded off his productive and generally successful period in Hollywood with this inspired, and very popular, adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel.  The delicious combination of black comedy and suspense thriller calls to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s early black and white thrillers, and the film feels far more like Hitchcock than Clair.

The plot may have undergone innumerable re-workings since this film was made, but somehow the film (arguably the best adaptation of an Agatha Christie whodunnit) still manages to feel fresh and enjoyable.  It’s far from obvious who the killer is – the audience is kept guessing right up until the denouement. (A propos, the ending is not that of Christie’s original novel but rather that of her more upbeat 1943 stage stage adaptation.)

Whilst the film is not typical of René Clair, the director’s distinctive style is noticeable in the ingenious camera work, which sustains an unrelenting sense of lurking menace (and is actually rather redolent of film noir).  Clair also makes good use of his fiendish sense of comic irony, injecting some very effective shots of humour just when the narrative needs it, without in the slightest diminishing the web of suspense and intrigue that he manages to weave so perfectly.

© James Travers 2007

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