1945
BEFORE THE FILM
Types of mysteries
(1) We don’t know who done it
(2) We do know who done it
(3) We don’t care who done it or what they did
Early mysteries kept information from people so at the end of the story some new piece of information was revealed to the audience (readers) that had not been known before, only to the detective.
Early “Who Done Its” include Edgar Allen Poe (Murders in the Rue Morgue) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Holmes)
Later, for those stories that were true “Who Done Its” this changed and the same information is known to the audience that is known to the detective so there is a chance for the audience to work out the solution before the detective does. “I got it!”
This is the “standard” now for most detective stories although there are some other rules. (The detective of police officer(s) investigating the case should not have done it, the narrator should not have done it. Etc.)
The film is based on a novel by the famous Mystery writer Agatha Christie
AGATHA CHRISTIE
Famous writer: Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple
Among her many stories are Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile
Fairly early in her career, in 1926, Christie came under fire for writing an “unfair” mystery novel. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the killer turns out to be the narrator, and many readers and critics felt that this was too deceptive a plot twist. Christie was unapologetic, however, and today The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is considered a masterpiece of the detective genre.
In all, Christie produced eighty novels and short-story collections, most of them featuring either Poirot or her other famous sleuth, the elderly spinster Miss Marple. She also wrote four works of nonfiction and fourteen plays, including The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history. Eventually, Christie married an archaeologist named Sir Max Mallowan, whose trips to the Middle East provided the setting for a number of her novels. In 1971, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Christie the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire. Christie died in Oxfordshire, England, on January 12, 1976.
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
The Book
Originally titled Ten Little Niggers in a time when, at least in Britain where the story was written, the term was not so offensive as it is now. It later became And Then There Were None as a nod at the last line of a nursery rhyme, and finally took the name of the nursery rhyme itself..Ten Little Indians..
Considered by many scholars to the one of the classic murder mysteries of all times.
Christie adapted the novel for the stage and it is often still performed today – a testament to its popularity and the talent of its author. It has been made into a film three times:
And Then There Were None (1945)
Ten Little Indians (1965)
And Then There Were None (1974)
More recently traces of it can be seen in Mindhunters (2004)
The version we see today is the 1945 version which is generally considered the best. It is.
The Film
The story has ebjoyed wide popularity. The film is an early “big star” murder mystery like Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and so on.
The film stars:
Louis Hayward (Man in the Iron Mask)
June Duprez (Thief of Bagdad)
Agnes Morehead (Rebecca)
Roland Young (Topper)
Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way)
C. Aubrey Smith (Rebecca)
Walter Houston (Treasure of Sierra Madre)
Mischa Auer (You Can’t Take it with You)
Largely famous as French director of sophisticated comedy – witty satires, whimsical fantasies and surreal romps.
The Ghost Goes West (1935) (director, writer)
Forever and a Day ("1897" segment)(1943) (producer, director)
I Married a Witch (1942) (producer, director, writer) (bases for the T.V. series Bewitched)
It Happened Tomorrow (1944) (director, writer)
The Flame of New Orleans (1941)(producer, director, writer)
À nous la liberté (director, writer) (which was said to have influenced Chaplin’s Modern Times)
Producer, director, writer
An early exponent of French film comedy who took a stab at Hollywood filmmaking with passably good results, Clair is fondly remembered today for his stylishly witty and charming satires, whimsical fantasies, and surrealistic romps. He worked as a journalist for a short time before acting in the films of Louis Feuillade, from whose works he learned the art of cinematic storytelling. Abandoning the life of a performer, he studied filmmaking technique under director Jacques de Barnocelli and made his directing debut with Paris qui dort (The Crazy Ray 1924), a sprightly comic fantasy laced with socially conscious satire. With his second film, Entr'acte Clair established himself as a talent that would bear watching.
Clair's subsequent films received exposure in American art houses, and by the time he came to Hollywood in 1941, his charming and ingenious comic films The Italian Straw Hat (1927), the early talkie Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Le Million (1931), À nous la liberté (1932, which was said to have influenced Chaplin's Modern Times), the Britishmade The Ghost Goes West (1935), and Break the News (1938) had acquired solid reputations. His American films, including The Flame of New Orleans (1941), I Married a Witch (1942), It Happened Tomorrow (1944), and And Then There Were None (1945), were somewhat more conventional in treatment than his early triumphs, but were successful on their own terms, especially the latter, one of the most visually stylish Agatha Christie thrillers ever filmed.
AFTER THE FILM
Traditional form: isolated group of people
Unusual for its time in that there is no detective,
And Then There Were None, written in 1939, breaks more rules of the mystery genre. No detective solves the case, the murderer escapes from the law’s grasp, and the plot construction makes guessing the killer’s identity nearly impossible. Despite this rule-breaking, or perhaps because of it, And Then There Were None ranks as one of Christie’s most popular and critically acclaimed novels.
The Administration of Justice
Most murder mysteries examine justice—its violation, through the act of murder, and its restoration, through the work of a detective who solves the crime and ensures that the murderer pays for his or her deed. And Then There Were None examines justice, but it bends the formula by making the victims of murder people who committed murder themselves. Thus, the killings on Indian Island are arguably acts of justice. Judge Wargrave does the work of detective and murderer by picking out those who are guilty and punishing them.
Appearance vs. Reality
No one is whom they seem. Much deception. Final is based on trust and truth with each other.
In 1939 mystery lovers eagerly awaited the publication of Agatha Christie’s new novel, Ten Little Indians. They were not disappointed. The novel soon became a best-seller, gaining critical success along with its popularity. First published in England as Ten Little Niggers, the book was renamed And Then There Were None, from the closing line of the nursery rhyme, for publication in the United States. The original title was deemed too offensive for the American public. Later, the title would be changed to Ten Little Indians.
The novel focuses on a group of people invited by a mysterious Mr. Owen to enjoy a holiday on Indian Island. After the guests start turning up dead, the mystery deepens. Tension mounts as the remaining guests attempt to discover the murderer’s identity before they are all killed. After Christie adapted the novel for the stage, it enjoyed successful runs in both England and America and was twice adapted for film. It has also been translated into several different languages. Critics praise the novel’s intricate plotting and innovative technique, noting that in it, Christie adds new twists to the mystery genre. Most scholars, along with her devoted fans, consider Ten Little Indians to be one of the best mystery novels ever written.
There is a focus on appearance versus reality throughout. It reflects the idea of deceptiont which is an underlying theme of the story. All the characters deceive others and sometimes themselves about their true natures. All profess to be good, but in reality are filled with evil in the form of moral corruption caused by intolerance, jealousy, greed, and desire. Deception is apparent from the first when the judge invites nine people to the island under false pretenses. The deception continues after the voice on the recording accuses each of a crime.
The is a British Film and class conciousness is throught the film. One of the problems in the film is that you Can’t rely on class distinction.
Whether we accept the justice of the events on Indian Island depends on both whether we accept Quinncannon’s belief that all the murder victims deserve their deaths and whether we accept that Quinncannon has the moral authority to pronounce and carry out the sentences. At least some of the murders are unjust if we do not consider all of Quinncannon’s victims murderers. Emily Brent, for example, did not actually kill her servant, Beatrice Taylor. Thus, one could argue that she deserves a lesser punishment for her sin.
Christie explores the line that divides those who act unjustly from those who seek to restore justice. She suggests that unjust behavior does not necessarily make someone bad and enforcing justice does not necessarily make someone good . Quinncannon’s victims, although they have violated the rules of moral behavior in the past, are, for the most part, far more likable and decent human beings than Quinncannon. Although Quinncannon serves justice in a technical sense, he is a cruel and unsympathetic man, and likely insane.
The Effects of Guilt on One’s Conscience
The story looks at the way different people responsed to their guilt. As soon as the recorded voice reveals the guests’ crimes, each character takes a different approach to dealing with his or her guilt.
The characters who publicly and self-righteously deny their crimes are tormented by guilt in private. General Mandrake, for instance, brusquely dismisses the claim that he killed his wife’s lover. By the following day, however, guilt so overwhelms him that he resignedly waits to die. Dr. Armstrong is equally dismissive of the charges against him, but he soon starts dreaming about the woman who died on his operating table.
On the other hand, the people who own up to their crimes are less likely to feel pangs of guilt. Lombard willingly admits to leaving tribesmen to die in the African bush, insisting that he did it to save his own life and would willingly do it again. Prince Nikita 'Nikki' Starloff readily owns up to running down the two children, and he displays no sense of having done anything wrong. Neither of the two men gives a moment’s private thought to his crime.
While the ones who do not own up to their crimes feel the guiltiest, no such correlation exists between levels of guilt and likelihood of survival. Conscience has no bearing on who lives the longest, as is illustrated by the contrast between the last two characters left alive, Lombard and Vera. Lombard feels no guilt, and the air of doom that enshrouds the island doesn’t affect him. Vera, on the other hand, is so guilt-ridden that she ends her life by succumbing to the seemingly inevitable conclusion of the “Ten Little Indians” poem and the aura of almost supernatural vengeance that pervades the novel.
The Danger of Reliance on Class Distinctions
And Then There Were None takes place in 1930s Britain, a society stratified into strict social classes. These distinctions play a subtle but important role in the novel. As the situation on the island becomes more and more desperate, social hierarchies continue to dictate behavior, and their persistence ultimately makes it harder for some characters to survive. Rogers continues to perform his butler’s duties even after it becomes clear that a murderer is on the loose, and even after the murderer has killed his wife. Because it is expected of a man of his social class, Rogers washes up after people, remains downstairs to clean up after the others have gone to bed, and rises early in the morning to chop firewood. The separation from the group that his work necessitates makes it easy for the murderer to kill him. Additionally, the class-bound mentality of Dr. Armstrong proves disastrous for himself and others, as he refuses to believe that a respectable professional man like Quinncannon could be the killer.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
The “Ten Little Indians” Poem
The “Ten Little Indians” rhyme guides the progression of the novel. The singsong, childish verses tell the story of the deaths of ten Indian boys and end with the line that gives the novel its title: “and then there were none.” A framed copy of the rhyme hangs in every bedroom, and ten small Indian figures sit on the dining-room table. The murders are carried out to match, as closely as possible, the lines in the poem, and after each murder, one of the figures vanishes from the dining room. The overall effect is one of almost supernatural inevitability; eventually, all the characters realize that the next murder will match the next verse, yet they are unable to escape their fates.
Use of music – 10 Little Indians song
Even with the most suspenseful camera work and atmospheric images, this story would not work without its characters and Rene Clair’s film is extraordinary in that respect. It boasts a remarkable cast of actors who manage to heighten the drama of the story through the portrayal of their individual, quirky personalities. Walter Huston, Barry Fitzgerald, Louis Hayward and June Duprez are giving this story its urgency and its credibility. While a murder mystery story in a huge mansion on a remote island always feels a bit romanticized, their performances make sure the viewer never feels too comfortable with the surroundings. Their portrayal of fear, desperation, agony and desolation is what ultimately drives the story home. They are all cold enough to be the killer and yet they are all human enough to sympathize with, while all the while delivering some incredibly well written lines.
CAMERA WORK
Opens with establishing shot of coast line, then small boat, shots of individual characters, black scarf blows across faces, island with one house. - Nearly 5 minutes without a word of dialog. Film techniques show isolation, that people don't know each other, don't interact and when by chance they move into a frame together they recoil immediately out of it.
The black scarf falls across the faces of two of the people in an almost shroud like way.
Shadows, hidden elements (finally showing of killer not seen = camera moves up – light in the way)
Camera moves away at moments - when bricks fall on Blore; when Vera shoots at Phillip on the beach the camera moves away. The audience doesn't know what is happening. We become aware that someone (the murderer) is in the house, alive and watching.The camera and sound pick up the billiard table, cue stick and billiard balls (all associated wityh the doctor and the judge, but continue to delay revealing just who the murderer is.
Sound
Diagetic and non diagetic music are the same melody
Off screen sounds - screams, shots - audience is unaware as to what is happening
Creation of atmosphere.
Set design - dark forbodding.