Agatha Christie’s most well-known book (possibly together with Murder on the Orient Express) was published in 1939 as Ten Little Niggers. That title, of course, cannot be used today for reasons of political correctness, and even back then was an impossibility for the American market. Hence, movie adaptations and various editions of the book have had other titles, such as Ten Little Indians and Ten Little Soldiers.
Film and TV adaptations are numerous (Wikipedia lists over twenty). Even though I have only seen a couple, I feel fairly certain that the very first one is also one of the best. Fortunately, it is available at the Internet Archive, under the nowadays most common title: And Then There Were None.
Christie’s story is very well though-out. I sometimes find Christie’s whodunnits to be easily outguessed, but in this case it is almost impossible to be clever and guess the solution to the mystery. Clair’s adaptation also features a good bit of humour, and the ten actors playing servants and guests invited to an isolated island (the only actors you will see during most of the film) are all excellent.
This film is best enjoyed if you are unfamiliar with the ending. Some people have complained that said ending is different from the book, but in fact the movie’s ending is just a slight variant of the ending of the stage play Ten Little Niggers (later changed to Ten Little Indians), written by Christie herlself.
And Then There Were None
Download link
Year: 1945
Running time: 1 h 37 min
Director: René Clair
Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward
Image quality: Good
Resolution: Medium (800×608)
Sound quality: Good
Best file format: DivX (700 M)
Silver in a Haystack 