Too much of everything

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I like a bit of Christie, and love a lot of old dark house mysteries, and body count films are okay too. Should'nt really be able to go wrong here! Most criticism seems to be about the change of setting to an African Safari, and I agree, this really does lose some of the creepy atmosphere, just as the 74 version did with its proximity to a desert near Istanbul (was it??? Please feel free to put me right on that.) However, Harry Alan Towers produced 3 separate versions of this tale and, whilst I agree that the 1945 Rene Clair directed version is the best hands down, for setting, for staying true to the source material, for direction, at the same time, the others can also boast some great performances from actors you have just got to love. My first experience of the story was with the 1974 version starring Ollie Reed, Richard Attenborough, Herbert Lom, Gert Frobe. I was in my teens and it had me gripped. Last year I bought it on DVD and could see the weaknesses. However, I still love it. Still great actors and I love Peter Collinson's directorial work. The 65 version that Towers produced also took liberties with setting ( a ski lodge ) but at least, in black and white? maintained the big old house creepiness. This final version was the one I failed to track down until now... Acting-wise, you've got Donald Pleasence (sublime), Herbert Lom (brilliant but underused), Frank Stallone (not great but solid enough), Brenda Vaccarro (dependable) and Paul L Smith (crazy over actor, but always entertaining). The actors unknown to me were either great or acceptable. The new setting maintained the sense of isolation, the general story remained the same and, best of all...the director Alan Birkinshaw, managed to avoid what he did with Killer's Moon (1979) and Don't Open Till Christmas (1984) - which is to say, he didn't show off the directorial aplomb of a gorilla with a super 8 camera and a machete. Is it the best version - no! Is it fun - yes! Die-hard anoraks can weep and wail and gnash their teeth but I'd sooner have three reasonable film versions than none at all and, like a fellow poster, I think that giving Pleasence a crack at this one is always going to be worth it!

This is the first "grown-up" mystery I ever read, and it remains my absolute favorite to this day--which is why whenever I encounter a new film adaptation, I keep hoping it would do the book justice--but none of them ever do, and this particular version is the worst of the lot.The story should be familiar to everyone: ten people are assembled in an isolated location, are accused of murder by their unseen host, and are executed one by one, with the methods of their deaths corresponding to a child's nursery rhyme. And one thing this version does have going for it is that it avoids tampering with the rhyme as the 1965 and 1974 versions do. Likewise, the crimes each of Mr. Owen's guests have committed also remain largely unchanged from the novel (the sole exceptions being Blore's and Marion Marshall's).But what makes this version so thoroughly unwatchable is how badly the plot is served by the locale, and how badly one has to stretch credulity to believe that something like this could happen as the script writers tell us it does. For example, in her first scene, Mrs. Rodgers complains about "lions and tigers" all around the camp, and later, during the search for Mr. Owen, several characters see one--and yet, immediately afterward, one of the characters is willing to spend the night on an isolated hilltop, without any fear of becoming a lion's midnight snack. In fact, we never see or hear the lions at all after the search; once they've served their purpose of creating tension during the scene in question, they apparently vanish into thin air.Another reviewer has pointed out that too much is out of Mr. Owen's control, and that's 100% accurate; there's simply no way Mr. Owen could have arranged for all of this, especially so far from his home country. The character has no contacts nearby, no agents, nobody to set up the safari, no way to get the natives to isolate the doomed party, no way of making sure everyone meets the end s/he deserves. Moreover, Owen is strangely passive throughout the story; he doesn't set in motion the chain of events that lead to the fifth, sixth, and seventh murders, but relies entirely on chance and opportunism, and it's simply impossible for him to commit the second.Lombard is finally the soldier of fortune he is supposed to be, rather than the engineer of previous adaptations--but it completely strains credulity to the breaking point to think that he would not have had his own supply of ammunition, rather than having to filch Marston's. And when Lombard finally succeeds in radioing for help, and is told that a rescue plane would be launched "in the morning," it doesn't occur to him to tell whoever's sending it that four people have already died and they need that plane NOW. He takes the delay far too passively for a man of his temperament--or at least, for a man of what his temperament should be.The acting is uneven among all the actors, with the sole exceptions of Neil McCarthy, Sarah Maur Thorpe, and Yehuda Efroni--and in Efroni's case, it's because he's uniformly bad from start to finish. His caricature of a performance starts out as distracting and ends up being just painful to watch.Finally, the international cast of characters - three English, five American, one Romanian, one German - is a problem that plagues all four English-language adaptations and especially this one, because how would Owen even have heard about all of them in the first place? The whole point is that no one knows that these people have committed murder; all of the deaths in their pasts have been put down either to accident, natural causes, or the normal course of war or the legal system, but Owen, owing to his position *in his own society,* is able to find people to tell him what really happened. How would Owen have discovered the "truth" about the deaths of both Beatrice Taylor and Heinrich Domeratsky - deaths that take place 6500 miles and 15 years apart?

In spite of being one of the famous stories ever written, there aren't *that* many movie versions of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians". I know of about eight film versions, but none of them are famous classics or widely acclaimed titles. This late 80's version is only the second adaptation that I've watched and, just like that other one from the early 70's (listed here as "Ein Unbekannter rechnet ab") it wasn't much more than an amusing but unmemorable whodunit flick. The difference between this version and the original novel is that the isolated setting isn't a creepy mansion on an island, but the dry African Savannah. Ten completely unrelated people are lured to Africa through various tricks, like having won a safari or being offered a job as tour guide, by the mysterious Mr. Owen. On the first evening, after diner, they listen to a recording of a voice accusing each and every one of them of having committed a murder in the past without being trialled for it. From that moment onwards, one guest after the other dies in mysterious circumstances and the 'accidents' are always similar to the lyrics of the nursery rhyme "Ten Little Indians". It looks as if their host Mr. Owen is playing a game with them. Or maybe Mr. Owen doesn't exist at all and the killer is someone within the group. As stated above, this version of "Ten Little Indians" isn't the least bit spectacular or fantastic, but it's definitely compelling while it lasts and there are a handful of worthwhile moments of suspense. Some of the death sequences are quite eerie, like the victim whose found with an axe stuck in the back of his skull. Director Alan Birkinshaw apparently likes re-adapting classic stories, since he also directed versions of Edgar Allan Poe's "The House of Usher" and "The Masque of the Red Death". I haven't seen those, but I've seen a film of his called "Horror Safari" and that one was really poor. For "Ten Little Indians", he could count on a fairly terrific cast including the always reliable Donald Pleasance, Paul L. Smith, Brenda Vaccora and Herbert Lom (who coincidentally also starred in the 70's version). Heck, even Frank Stallone was decent and luckily enough he didn't sing.

The 1989 film has some good points, but, unlike the 1945, 1965, and 1974 versions, it grows less enjoyable with each viewing. Everything about it seems low-budget. The cast and script are undistinguished. The set is drab. The clothes look like cheap costumes. The plot takes too long to get going. Once it does, it unfolds well at first, with the early deaths resembling accidents. And, bettering all prior versions, the ending is dramatic, conveys murderous host Owen's menace and lunacy, and most fully explains Owen's behavior.Overall, however, the storytelling is inept. Too much is out of Owen's control, such as natives cutting down the basket that carries people down from the cliff and Lombard repairing the radio. After the third death, someone abruptly announces without any discussion or reasoning that "Mr. Owen is one of us." Unlike the other versions, the characters engage in no deductive reasoning or survival techniques.The story drags. Only making matters worse are cheap, forced attempts to gin up suspense. These include the camera suddenly coming up short on characters; a character acting "awfully nervous" for no reason; and pratfall-type death scenes, with a body tumbling down from on top of a tent, another toppling out of a closet, mouth gaping, and another slumping forward with an ax in the back of the head.Touches that made earlier versions entertaining are botched in 1989. The other films recite the full nursery rhyme up front, creatively playing it on the piano. But this script dribbles the rhyme out line by line upon each murder. Instead, it chooses to play "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," an annoying, madcap, out-of-place Noel Coward song with no apparent connection to Christie or appropriateness to this adaptation, which has so few British characters. This film makes an embarrassing hash of the scene in which the phonograph record is played accusing each person of a past crime. Repeatedly, the person whose name is unexpectedly about to be called next happens to pipe up with some exaggerated utterance, on cue, right before being named.The 1989 film fails to discuss some past crimes at all (doctor, judge, Lombard). It distorts others (Blore, Marshall), to no good effect. In place of Christie's subtle crime of withheld care, Rodgers merely refers to an old lady in his care who "died of a massive stroke." In the film, Marston refers to a "couple running out in front of his car," without any mention of them being newlyweds or of him driving fast and drunk. The film dumbs down the book's most complex, interesting past crime to a bland reference to a child in Vera's care drowning.All the good lines from other versions are gone in 1989, like "a feeling that some sort of macabre joke is being played on us," "game of the mind." In 1989, other than Owen's line "My own private big game hunt," there are just limp banalities ("The devil is among us"; Our duty, that's all any of us can hope to do"; "I never bet"; "When we get out of here, I'm going to teach you to shoot straight") or lines memorable only for making you cringe (judge, "I left immediately...to relieve myself"; Lombard to Vera, "Feel it, smell it," about gun).In 1989, the casting and acting, strong points in past adaptations, go badly awry. An exception is Herbert Lom's delightfully dotty performance as the general, better than 1945, including a touching scene with Vera explaining his past. But Donald Pleasance is adrift, mostly acting detached and insipid, then suddenly erupting in a panic outburst or frantically pawing in a snuff box. Not until his final moments on screen does he play his character coherently and effectively.Sarah Maur Thorp brings youthful energy and emotion to the role of Vera. But her acting becomes erratic and mechanical as she turns increasingly into a mere screaming hysteric, unlike June Duprez, who keeps a strong, intelligent presence during the 1945 film.Brenda Vaccaro's uninspired, formless performance as actress Marshall consists of sighing, huffing, lounging around, and boozing. It is unbelievable that this plump, pampered lush would go on an African safari. Her only explanation? "I was invited. I received a letter in the post."Blore's character has always been well-defined and well-acted before. But here, played by a bit-part TV character actor, he is just roly-poly, rough, loud, and sulky. His mumbled confession of his past crime is confused and miserably ineffective.Marston, who rushes through a 2-second singing bit, the worst musical performance of any version, is a caricature of a fop. The film fails to place him in the context of a dissolute career or even mention his penchant for liquor and fast sportscars.Paul Smith as Rodgers tries to let his hulking body do his acting for him, as Moira Lister, the wife, does with her shrill voice. He lumbers around scowling and bellowing laconically. She overacts as a loud, whiny motormouth. Their characters and relationship are not remotely believable.Apparently, Frank Stallone's only qualification for Lombard was being a "hunk." His weak, vacant expressions and flat delivery are evident from his very first line. His acting is exemplified by the scene in which he shoves a pistol in Vera's face and cocks the trigger, oblivious that he has already started mouthing the line, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Stallone's constant, supposedly sly, cocky grins destroy any sense of suspense. His only explanation for being there: "Owen had already paid [a friend's] way out, so I came instead."Worst of all, Yehuda Efroni ruins the important character of the doctor. His bizarre, introverted, bug-eyed portrayal lacks any air of authority, intellect, charm, or even social skills. Through a heavy accent, he either stammers or, like a snapping turtle, spits out snippets of inarticulate dialogue. At one point, he cackles, at another acts befuddled, for no reason at all. Unlike any prior version, the doctor has no rapport with any other character.