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One would think there would be more quality adaptations of Agatha Christie's works. After all, her plots were meticulously constructed, her characters uncomplicated, and she had a delightfully macabre sense of humor.
But no. Most Christie adaptations appropriated one of her two famous characters, Poirot or Marple, a title of a famous Christie book, and invented the story. Naturally--given one of the most elaborate plotters in mystery fiction, who wouldn't dump her stories and let a hack do the work?
Sigh.
There is only one Christie adaptation worthy of the Dame, and it doesn't involve Marple or Poirot. Made by a Frenchman, which must have shocked Agatha, given her cheerful xenophobia, Rene Clair's And Then There Were None (1945), is a marvellous, funny mystery based on one of Christie's best works. It has just the proper amount of supercilious Brit distaste for all things "foreign" (said with the lip curled just so). Clair's screenplay also captures the mordant humor of the Christie original, and it is delivered by ten actors who were at the top of their respective forms. Richard Haydn, as the gloomily droll butler, and Judith Anderson, as the upright spinster whose every word is dipped in vinegar and propriety, are the standouts, and they had a great deal of competition.
The story, should you really need to know, involves ten people who are brought to an island to be murdered for their sins. "And Then There Were None" refers to the last line of the nursery rhyme, "Ten Little Indians". Recite the verse and you'll get the general idea.
It's fine for kids over the age of 10; no gruesome death scenes and they'll get a great deal of the humor. Rent it and watch with a nice pot of Earl Grey.
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