Agatha Christie's novel-turned-play becomes slick, stagy, hammy film, an illogical murder-mystery set amongst ten strangers in a large estate on "Indian Island", a secluded British isle shaped like an Indian's head. Each has been invited there, they soon learn, due to being directly or indirectly involved in past crimes which resulted in an innocent person's demise--and each is picked off one by one in conjunction with the "Ten Little Indians" nursery rhyme. The characters talk a lot but don't think things through, and the denouement leaves more questions unanswered than solved. Some of the pacing is sprightly, and there's an eerie undercurrent due to the macabre subject matter. However, once the set-up is understood, we have nothing to look forward to but more deaths (all off-screen) and the eventual unmasking of our host (which is staged very well). Of the performances, Richard Hadyn's drunken butler, played to the rafters, is the most offensive; Barry Fitzgerald as a steely-eyed judge comes off best. **1/2 from ****
Review of And Then There Were None
