Christie’s novel came out in 1939 — under a very politically incorrect title (even then)—and was an immediate hit, and this despite the fact that it wasn’t exactly original. The 1930 novel The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning is a virtual template for Christie’s novel, with its story of eight people confined to a booby-trapped penthouse by a murderous madman out for revenge. (This was itself filmed in 1934 as The Ninth Guest and incorporated into the Boris Karloff horror picture The Man They Could Not Hang in 1939.) However, Christie’s is more compelling story — not in the least because the characters are much more engaging, something that only the 1945 version gets just right.
Part of the trick, of course, lies in the film’s shrewd casting. Though not household names today, the film’s major stars — Barry Fitzgerald and Walter Huston — were immensely popular at the time, especially Fitzgerald, hot off his Oscar win for Going My Way (1944), and here cast very much against type. But every single actor is brilliantly suited to their role. No one but Mischa Auer, for example, could have pulled off the self-involved professional house guest, Prince Nikita Starloff, for whom having run over a couple of innocent people means nothing except that it resulted in having his driver’s license taken away. Similarly, Roland Young is perfect as the low-rent Cockney private investigator, and no one could better Richard Haydn’s drunken butler. Sir C. Aubrey Smith and Dame Judith Anderson are also fine. It might be argued, on the other hand, that Louis Hayward and June Duprez are a little out of their depth as the romantic leads, but they’re good enough in what are admittedly the least interesting roles.
In the end, however, it’s really a director’s film. There’s no doubt that René Clair was having the time of his life coming up with endlessly creative ways of presenting the material. There aren’t many movies where the best jokes are delivered by camera placement, but And Then There Were None is just such a film — even though some of the jokes are of a surprisingly dark nature. It’s all great fun, nicely suspenseful, atmospheric and built around one the best mystery plots ever. Pure entertainment is rarely better than this.
The Asheville Film Society will screen And Then There Were None on Tuesday, June 14, at 7:30 p.m. at The Grail Moviehouse and will be hosted by Xpress movie critic Ken Hanke.
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