Atmosphere yes, Actors - some of the best.
Humor, Suspense, and even a little Romance. There is not a member of
this cast that I feel isn't a finely honed artist. Here is one of those movies that being in black and white does add to the effects, yes, some of the shadows are a little deep, but you see if you think they are too deep. Even the cat is right on cue and does what it is supposed to do. One dead, two dead, hmm . . . who is doing this? The young man has checked out the young girl many times, and is clearly interested. The good Doctor, in my opinion, takes a few too many nips from his flask. What did it say on the phonograph record? The view of the beach is very nice until -. Rent or buy, it will keep you guessing, but worth the price.. 
Sometimes overrated--but in a good way
Being a fan of the game and book, I knew right away I had to see a
movie adaptation of the novel, so I checked out this adaptation--and I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the parts, and yet I was also unpleasantly surprised by most of the liberties taken. I might as well get the good parts out of the way first: The cast gives excellent performances (well, Mischa Auer tends to go over the top, but aside from that). June Duprez is just lovely as the vulnerable Vera Claythorne, playing her as someone who's all smiles on the surface, but harbouring a dark secret at the core. Queenie Leonard's Mrs. Rogers is every bit as frightened of her own shadow as in the book. Barry Fitzgerald brings a sense of charisma and charm to Judge Warg--ah, Quincannon, thus making it hard to believe this character could actually be capable of murder. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. And then there's the relationship between Lombard and Vera. Ah yes, Lombard and Vera...the pairing that is so wrong, yet so right. After all, it wasn't in the book, but it was in the play and here it is in this adaptation. You could do an adaptation without the romantic relationship between them, but if you choose to include it, their relationship needs to maintain a balance; you can't have too much of it or else you'll turn it into a love story which would upset the purists more-so than the ending, but it needs to be obvious from the start that there's something between them or else if you suddenly have them flirting with each other, the audience will be like, "Wait, they like each other?!?" This adaptation is able to find that balance: The movie doesn't entirely revolve around their relationship, but rather, treats it as a subplot that slowly rises to the surface as the movie progresses. Not only that, but Louis Hayward and June Duprez have amazing on-screen chemistry together, therefore making this pairing believable. Finally, the most impressive feature of the movie is the directing. Renee Clair is able to come up with plenty of clever angles and shots to capture the mood of the situation. For example: The movie begins with breath-taking shots of Indian Island before slowly panning over to the boat and showing each guest in a situation somewhat reminiscent of a Charlie Chaplin movie. I think you get the picture. ;-) As good as this movie is, however, it also has its flaws. For starters, the book had a frightening, almost claustrophobic, vibe to it, which is what's lacking in this movie. Although the movie is suspenseful, there are very rare moments where it's actually frightening. 'And Then There Were None' is one of the few Agatha Christie novels that really has you chilled to the bone, one that makes you jump at every noise and shadow, mainly because the book has you seeing things from each character's point of view, making you feel as though you were actually there with them. What Rene Clair could've done in order to capture that feeling is by doing a few shots from the characters' point of view, the musical score could've been tensed up, and Dudley Nichols could've thrown in more tense moments. Another one of my major complaints is the fact that Miss Brent and Vera's past crimes are changed and watered down, all because their original crimes in the book were too 'harsh' to include in a movie adaptation, even though Agatha Christie didn't think they were too harsh to put in her own stage adaptation. In the book, Miss Brent drove her maid to suicide after kicking her out of the house when she became pregnant out of wedlock; in the movie, Miss Brent drove her nephew to suicide by sending him to a reformatory for having 'bad blood' from his father's side. Although I'm annoyed by this, Miss Brent still drove someone to suicide and either crime shows how truly harsh she can be, so this is somewhat pardoned. Vera's crime change, however, is not. In the book, Vera allowed her lover's nephew to swim out to sea and drown so her lover would inherit the money and be able to marry her but was cleared by a coroner's inquest; in the movie, Vera supposedly murdered her sister's fianc. |
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