SUMMARY: Running Time: 52 Min. (Black & White)
Directed by Paul Bogart, this 1959 NBC mystery presents its own take on the stage play Agatha Christie adapted from her suspense novel, “And Then There Were None.” In part, due to a short running time, sections of the play and its dialogue have been altered.
Case in point: the novel’s youngest characters, Vera Claythorne and Anthony Marston (he’s renamed Frederick Marston here), are re-imagined as forty-somethings to accommodate this particular cast. Oddly enough, some ridiculous character-building scenes are also inserted into the script that Christie’s story never implied.
Transported by boat, six strangers arrive on a foggy Friday night at a manor home on secluded Indian Island off England’s Devon coast, seemingly for a weekend house party. They are greeted by their unseen host’s secretary, Vera Claythorne, and by amiable Philip Lombard — another guest who arrived early. Briefly entertaining themselves, the houseguests and a married servant couple are mortified by accusations of ghastly homicides from the ominous voice of their enigmatic host, ‘U.N. Owen.’
Adhering to the “Ten Little Indians” nursery rhyme decorating the mansion’s lounge, the ten captives are rapidly executed, one by one. Alliances are made, but can anyone escape this unseen predator’s wrath?
Note: This production scores some points, if only for keeping virtually intact the novel/play’s character names. An exception, of course, is substituting in ‘General Mackenzie’ for ‘General MacArthur,’ though changing Marston’s first name from ‘Anthony’ to ‘Frederick’ makes zero sense. Up until the recent BBC mini-series, none of the other filmed adaptations retained the character names exactly as Christie had devised them.
Vera Claythorne: Nina Foch Frederick Marston: Chandler Cowles
William Henry Blore: James Berwick Dr. Edward Armstrong: Romney Brent
Emily Brent: Victoria French Justice Lawrence Wargrave: Barry Jones
Thomas Rogers: George Turner General John Gordon Mackenzie Peter Bathurst
Ethel Rogers: Caroline Brenner Narrator / U.N. Owen’s Voice: Uncredited
Philip Lombard: Kenneth Haigh Boatman: Jeremiah Morris
REVIEW:
Unsurprisingly, this low-budget NBC effort is obscure for several reasons. It doesn’t help that its charming 1945 big-screen predecessor, “And Then There Were None,” which adapts the same Christie stage play, actually comes off as more contemporary by comparison. Populated by such a bland stock theater-style cast, only headliner Nina Foch makes a faint impression here … because of her character’s repetitive hysterics.
Crass efforts by NBC to spice up Christie’s play fail miserably. In one instance, a boorish Marston suggests to the younger Lombard that they play swinging singles ‘trading off’ on the two female guests. Indulging her condescending spinster persona, Emily Brent, meanwhile, disparages Vera Claythorne’s demure black dress as being somehow offensively provocative. Instead of adding some intended depth, such eye-rolling scenes only contribute to reducing Christie’s enigmatic cast of scoundrels to mere caricatures.
However, there’s a curious surprise early on. During the spooky U.N. Owen monologue, NBC stays mostly faithful to the novel. Why the era’s broadcast censors didn’t object to mention of such cold-blooded crimes is anyone’s guess. Conversely, despite its initial creepiness, this film’s ‘suspenseful’ climax is laughably awful by any generation’s standards.
Worsening this experience is the primitive cinematography, which looks more reminiscent of hazy 1940’s TV standards than any technological refinements available in 1959. Best left a historical curiosity, this “Ten Little Indians” is a sub-par TV experiment translating one of Christie’s darkest tales for mass viewing.
BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING: 3 Stars
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