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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

And Then There Were None (1945)

Starring Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, June Duprez
Directed by Rene Clair
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

Ten strangers are invited to an island for a weekend, only to discover their host is planning to murder each of them one by one.

Director Rene Clair delivers an entertaining murder mystery with a light touch, with no blood and the violence kept off camera, in this adaptation of Agatha Christie's classic whodunit, and one of my favorites of the genre.  The film's biggest assets are the witty screenplay by Dudley Nichols and the excellent cast, as Fitzgerald and Huston lead a talented ensemble who add splendid characterizations to the mixture.  If you haven't read Christie's novel, you may well be surprised by who survives to the climax.