Agatha Christie Story: And Then There Were None

This 1945 mystery film is based upon a book published in 1939 by Agatha Christie, which is one of the best selling books in history, with over 100 million copies sold. The movie is based more directly upon the stage play, also written by Christie, but which has some differences with the book, especially in the ending.

Cast:

Walter Huston...... Dr. Edward Armstrong 

Barry Fitzgerald ... Judge Francis Quinncannon

Louis Hayward .... Philip Lombard (Charles Morley)

C. Aubrey Smith ... General Sir John Mandrake

June Duprez ... Vera Claythorne

Roland Young ... William Henry Blore

Mischa Auer ..... Prince Nikita Starloff 

Richard Haydn ... Thomas Rogers

Judith Anderson ... Emily Brent 

Queenie Leonard ... Ethel Rogers

Harry Thurston ... Fred Narracott (the boatman)

Eight people go by shuttle boat to a small island off the English coast, some at the invite of, and others in the employ of, "Mr. Owen," and his wife. When they reach the island, they meet Thomas and Ethel Rogers, two servants just hired prior to this occasion. Among the dinner table settings is a piece with ten (American) Indian figurines. With a piano in the room, Prince Nikita Starloff sits down and plays and sings the song about "Ten Little Indians," and the eventual demise of each. Thomas Rogers, following instructions he's been given in a letter, plays a record which has the voice of a man claiming to be Mr. Owen. The title on the record is, "Swan Song." Mr. Owen levels charges of crimes against all those present, including the husband and wife servants, and those crimes all have to do with the deaths of people known to those named: General Mandrake for deliberately sending his wife's lover to his death; Emily Brent for causing the death of her young nephew; Dr. Armstrong for uncontrolled drunkenness which brought about the death of a woman; Prince Starloff for the murder of two people; Vera Claythorne for murdering her sister's fiance; Judge Quinncannon for responsibility for the hanging of a man (while not stated, "presumably" the man was innocent); Philip Lombard for the deaths of 21 East African tribesmen; William Blore for perjury which brought about the death of a man; Thomas and Ethel Rogers for the death of their invalid employer. Ethel Rogers faints when she hears the accusation against her and her husband, and she is put to bed and given a sedative by Dr. Armstrong. The group finds they cannot leave the house for the mainland for a few days, as the shuttle boat will not return until then. So here they are, ten accused killers all on a "presumably" deserted island. And you thought the castaways of Gilligan's Island had it bad! As the group talks about the situation, it comes out that no one has ever seen Mr. or Mrs. Owen, nor does anyone even know who they are. They all discuss and tell how they came to be on the island. One of the invitations and the letter giving instructions to Rogers are signed, "U.N. Owen," which they take to mean, "unknown." One of the guests, Judge Quinncannon, says that "Mr. Unknown ... has taken a great deal of trouble to find out a great deal about us all."

Prince Starloff confirms what had been said about him in the recording earlier, as he had been speeding one night and killed two people, saying it was, "beastly bad luck." A few moments later, Starloff takes a drink of his cocktail, chokes and collapses. He's pronounced dead by Dr. Armstrong. When Thomas Rogers passes the table, he sees that one of the Indian figures is now broken. The group retires for the night, but next morning it is found that Mrs. Rogers has died during the night, and one of the Indian figures is missing, bringing the number down to 8 from the original 10. Dr. Armstrong, Judge Quinncannon and two of the other men, Philip Lombard and William Blore, who is a detective, agree that Mr. Owen is the culprit behind the two deaths and that he is hiding on island. They go off to find him, but they have no luck. As the group prepares to eat, General Mandrake is missing. Mandrake is an older unstable man who often talks about, or even talks to, his dead wife. The old general is found with a knife in his back and Rogers reports that another Indian figure is gone. Judge Quinncannon tells the survivors that Mr. Owen has apparently appointed himself to gather them all together to mete out the justice that has thus far eluded them, and that since there is no sign of Mr. Owen, Owen must actually be one of them. The group holds a secret vote for who they think is Mr. Owen and Rogers receives the most votes, leaving him to sleep in the woodshed, away from the others. The next morning Rogers is found dead, his head split open by an ax. Another Indian figure is missing, even though the room had been locked, but the key had been given to Rogers, and it had been found on his body. Quinncannon theorizes how Mr. Owen killed Rogers, took the key, unlocked the room to remove an Indian figure, then locked the room and put the key back on Rogers' body.

Mr. Blore feels that Emily Brent is a prime suspect, and when he and the others go to question her in her room, they find her dead, with a needle nearby, a small mark on her neck and a bee buzzing in the window. The bee fits with the lyrics of the song, and the murderer keeps to the general idea of those lyrics. Earlier Mr. Blore had peeped through a keyhole and had seen Philip Lombard with a pistol, so the others now want Lombard's gun, but it is missing. As Quinncannon and Armstrong shoot pool, the lights flicker and eventually go out. Blore goes to the woodshed to see if he can fix the problem,  but the lights remain off. With the Judge and the Doctor together alone, they decide to make common cause, as each seemingly convinces the other that he's not the murderer. We see them talking, but we cannot hear what is said.

As the five survivors sit in candlelight and discuss the truth of the accusations made against them on the record, Vera Claythorne takes a set of candles and goes upstairs to her room to get her coat, as she's cold, and Judge Quinncannon points out that otherwise they would have to build a fire for warmth, and that would require going to the woodshed, which could prove to be deadly. After she goes to her room, she screams and the others charge up the stairs with the remaining candles. A shot is heard, but first it is determined that Miss Claythorne had been frightened when a breeze through her open window blew out the candles and she walked into some cold clammy seaweed strung up in her room. The seaweed had been brought into the house by the now deceased Emily Brent. The group discovers that Quinncannon is missing and they find him seated downstairs with a mark on his forehead, and Dr. Armstrong declares him to be shot through the head. Nearby is Lombard's missing gun, and another Indian figurine is gone. Only four left. During the course of the story so far, all of the participants have confessed, more or less, to the crimes of which they were accused by the voice on the recording; well, all except Vera Claythorne. The three men go to her, as Dr. Armstrong suspects her of the killings. She denies the charge on the recording and goes into her room. Philip Lombard takes her side. Armstrong tells the other two men that the Judge confided some of his thoughts about the killings, and that the idea was that Mr. Owen had the 10 people assembled on the island so that he/she could administer justice to them for their crimes, which had so far gone unpunished. Of course, his theory was that of the ten, there was one who was not guilty of any such crime, and that person was the killer, as the others had admitted guilt, so they wouldn't be interested in punishment for crime (if you follow the "logic"). Since Vera denied the crime stated on the recording, she must therefore be the murderer. Dr. Armstrong locks Vera's door from the outside, leaves the key on a hallway table, and the three men go to their own rooms. A little later, Vera sees Philip smoking a cigarette outside her window. He hands her his gun and she allows him to enter. He tells her he is expecting Armstrong or Blore to come into her room to kill her at any time. She tells Philip that she didn't kill her sister's fiance, but that her sister killed him. They hear one of room doors open, followed by the sound of some footsteps going down the stairs (hm, maybe Armstrong or Blore want a midnight snack?). With Vera's door locked from the outside, Philip goes out the window to investigate. As he leaves he tells Vera he is NOT Philip Lombard. He goes to his room and gets a small flashlight he has. He then goes and retrieves the key to Vera's door from the hallway table. He unlocks her door and the two find that Armstrong is not in his room, but Blore is. Does this mean Dr. Armstrong is the "Mr. Owen" they've been seeking? As they look around, Philip sees that there are now only three Indian figurines left. They hear someone whistling the tune to the "Ten Little Indians" song.

When daylight comes, Blore goes outside and then calls for the other two, who are in their rooms. He says he might know where Armstrong is, and the two prepare to go downstairs to meet Blore, who goes inside to get some binoculars. He goes back outside and peers through the binoculars while standing just below an open window. We see a section of the brickwork next to the window tumble down and Blore is killed. When Vera and Philip come out of their rooms, they both note that they had heard footsteps in the upstairs hallway and also the sound of a door closing. When they get outside, they find Blore with the brickwork on him and the binoculars lying by his side. Philip surmises that Blore had been looking through the binoculars when he was killed. He looks through the binoculars himself and he then takes Vera with him down to the beach, where they find Armstrong's body. With no footprints on the beach, Armstrong has been dead since the tide came in hours before; so, he can't be the one who killed Blore. The two now suspect each other. Philip tells Vera he's is really Charles Morley, a friend of the real Philip Lombard, who had committed suicide, and that he suspected "Mr. Owen's" letter to Philip had something to do with Lombard killing himself, and that's why he came to the island posing as Philip, to see if he could find out the truth. The two finally decide that neither is "Mr. Owen," and Philip... ah, Charles, has Vera fire the gun, but miss him. He falls to the ground, making it appear that Vera has shot and killed him. Someone is watching from a window of the house. There is now only one Indian figurine left.

Vera goes into the house where she finds a noose dangling from a beam on the ceiling. She hears the whistling of the Indian song tune, as well as the sound of someone shooting pool. It's Judge Quinncannon, who tells Vera the noose is for her to hang herself, as in the rhyme. He says that "Mr. Owen" is just an imaginary person that he used in his quest for the ideal of "perfect justice." He continues that she can see that he has accomplished perfect justice, as the others are all dead. He tells her how the whole situation developed, as he was able to recruit Dr. Armstrong as an unwitting accomplice, because Armstrong believed the Judge to be trying to trap the killer, and Dr. Armstrong dutifully performed his role when he declared the Judge to be "shot through the head," a declaration not likely to be challenged by the others, and an event that obliterated any suspicion of Judge Quinncannon to be the murderer, leaving him free to pursue the completion of his scheme. He then tells her he killed Armstrong down at the beach. Quinncannon tells her the boatman will arrive to find 10 dead bodies. When she asks, "10?" The Judge tells her he is very sick and he has chosen to take his own life rather than die in pain from his incurable disorder. He has already put poison into his drink. Vera pulls out the gun, but the Judge tells her it is no use, because any survivor found on the island with 9 bodies will be hanged for their murder. Judge Quinncannon drinks the poisoned concoction and begins to slip into death, only to take a last look at Vera, who is now accompanied by the man he knows as Philip Lombard. As his head nods for a last time, he says, "Never trust a woman." The arrival of the boatman startles the two at first, but they then dash for the boat.   


Photo is of the 2001 Madacy Records Hollywood Classics Collection 

WORD HISTORY:
Rope-The ultimate origin of this word is unclear, although it "seems" to go back to the Indo European root "rei," which had the notion, "tear, cut, carve," and which then produced the extended form "reip," with the notion of, "to cut off to form an edge or a border;" as well as a noun, "border, edge, strip of something (such as land)." This gave Old Germanic "raipaz," meaning, "strip (of something), border, rope, ring," which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "rap" (long "a"), meaning, "rope, strong cord," which then became "rape" (pronounced with a long "a" and the ending "e" pronounced as "ah/eh;" apparently not related to the word of the same spelling, and meaning, "sexual assault," although that word has an unclear history). This then became modern "rope." Forms in other Germanic languages: German has "Reif" ("ring, bracelet"), ^ Low German has "Reep" ("rope"), Dutch has "reep," meaning, "strip, binding," East Frisian "roop" ("rope"), Icelandic has "reipi" ("rope"), Danish has "reb" ("rope"), Norwegian (dialect?) "rep" ("rope"), Swedish "rep" ("rope"). 

^ It once also meant "rope" in German, but German uses "Seil" as the word for "rope." English once had "sal" (long "a"), with the same meaning. English also had the verb "sælan," and German still has "seilen," both meaning, "to tie with rope." "Reif" underwent a sound shift in some of the high dialects in which the "p" sound changed to "f," and which prevailed as the form that became standard German.