Just Don't Tell How It Ends ...


And Then There Were None (1945) Is Murder As Parlor Frolic

Light soufflé of a murder mystery directed by Rene Clair, recognized early on as a devilishly clever conceit to baffle readers (Agatha Christie wrote it), playgoers (adapted for Broadway), and finally movies, desire to film the yarn being immediate. There had been mysteries, plenty if not an excess of routine ones, but Christie's was a puzzle sure to fascinate viewers who'd not be as patient with Charlie Chan or Boston Blackie's latest case. It was this specialness that lured top names to casting: Walter Huston, Barry Fitzgerald, Judith Anderson ... each to be offed until a last one standing would be revealed as the killer, that the expected pattern but for Christie having thrown her curve to separate And Then There Were None from whodunits that went before. Producing was Harry Popkin, one-time theatre man, who took over the project from Samuel Bronston --- this was a project many hands dipped in, possibly in recognition that a half-competent result would galvanize patronage as the property had in/on print/stage. Then as now, it all came down to story, and hopefully, a stinger that folks would remember and talk about ... a Please Don't Tell Your Friends The Ending sort of buzz.




Code strictures meant that grimmer elements, particularly as regards the final act, would have to be changed, and maybe that disappointed more in 1945, but today the piece plays well, our having forgot, or caring less, about Christie's original intent. Same gymnastics affected Billy Wilder's later go at Christie, Witness For The Prosecution; in that case, the director's own brilliant rewrite of the stage property made Witness a far better screen bet than if Christie had been adapted to the letter. And Then There Were None has a body count higher than norm, there being ten little Indians after all, so director Clair underplays the carnage and sidesteps gore. Enough comedy is sprinkled to offset menace, but not so much as to dilute danger afoot. The Blu-Ray from VCI gets by, elements a mite rough, the pic having been got from Popkin's estate, and who knows what was left to work with? 20th Fox distributed in '45, realizing $1.2 million in domestic rentals and $903K foreign, certainly better money than boilerplate mysteries could be expected to earn, but they had not the pedigree of And Then There Were None.

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