And Then There Were None (1974)

And then they were gone – again!

Ten Little Indians (AKA: And Then There Were None) is directed by Peter Collinson and adapted to screenplay by Peter Wellbeck (AKA: Harry Alan Towers) from the Agatha Christie novel. It stars Charles Aznavour, Stephane Audran, Elke Sommer, Gert Frobe, Herbert Lom, Oliver Reed and Richard Attenborough. Music is by Bruno Nicolai and cinematography by Fernando Arribas.

Agatha Christie’s famous novel gets another make-over, this time the action is located at a near empty hotel in the Iranian desert. Premise is exactly the same as the 1965 version, 10 people gather at the location on the request of the mysterious U.N. Owen (here voiced by Orson Welles), who via a tape recorded message calls them out for dastardly deeds committed in their respective lives. When they start being killed off one by one it becomes apparent that the price they have to pay for said crimes is death. But who is doing the killing?

Well it’s the first version in colour and it has what can only be described as a pretty formidable cast, yet it’s as bland as bland can be. Especially if you have seen the superior 45 and 65 versions. The murders lack vitality, the cast go through the motions, seemingly just happy to be on location in Iran, while suspense is in very short supply. The only mystery is who is doing the killings? And once revealed at pic’s finale it just isn’t enough to warrant having sat through over an hour and half of mundane scripting and zero chills. 4/10

Despite Peter Collinson having assembled a pretty stellar cast for this adaption of the legendary Agatha Christie's story, the sum of the parts doesn't quite add up. All invited to spend the weekend at a remote island mansion, a group of ostensibly upright citizens are told that by their ethereal host (Orson Welles) that they are unlikely to survive the evening. Oliver Reed, and the triumvirate of off-form Elke Summer, Richard Attenborough and Gert Fröbe all try their best to keep it moving but the dialogue is poor and the pace of the film doesn't ever really work well enough to allow us to invest in the characters enough to care if, or why, they are going get bumped off. Herbert Lom, perhaps, raises the bar a bit but for the most part this is a mediocre remake that nobody really needed. It's fun - in a tacky sort of sense, though, and offers a bit of 1970s cinema nostalgia for big collars, vivid colours and a reminder of what we wanted back then.