Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

And Then There Were None Blu-ray Movie Review

Countdown.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 5, 2013

Dame Agatha Christie was responsible for some of the most iconic mysteries in the entire history of the genre, as well as a number of legendary characters like the fastidious Hercule Poirot or the seemingly addle-pated Miss Jane Marple. For all of her incredible successes and scores of famous novels and short stories, it may surprise some to hear that her all time bestselling tome is Ten Little Indians (this review will refrain from using the original title, which many will know and will therefore hopefully understand why it’s not being utilized here). Many mystery writers have exploited the so- called “locked room” murder trope, but Christie did something quite remarkable with this same basic premise, positing a group of disparate characters on what might be called a “locked island”, an isolated spot from which there was no escape and no obvious way for an intruder to arrive unseen and commit the killings. What that implies, obviously, is that one of the people already on the island is the culprit, and that in turn creates one of the great whodunits in the history of fiction. Ten Little Indians has been adapted into several media, including a stage version written by Christie herself, but it’s probably this 1945 film version directed by René Clair which is the best known and for many the best loved. Though this was a rather popular Fox release in its day, like many films, it fell into the public domain and its home video history has been a rather spotty one, with many substandard releases in a variety of formats culled from pretty horrid looking prints. Image released a rather nice looking DVD a few years ago that was arguably the best available version, outshining other efforts by both VCI and Madacy. VCI is now back with what they’re trumpeting as a “newly restored” version on a new Blu-ray. VCI has had some issues with its Blu-ray releases, including some that seem to have been authored badly (Romeo and Juliet), but their releases have improved markedly over time ( Gorgo), and now this small label has recently signed a distribution deal with Gaiam Vivendi and seems poised to try to take its efforts into more of a mainstream presence.

Dudley Nichols is a name that may not ring many bells, especially with younger film lovers, but he was one of the most successful and (at times at least) acclaimed screenwriters of his era. Nichols’ oeuvre is hugely diverse and contains some of the most beloved films of all time, including Bringing Up Baby, Stagecoach, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. While it probably can’t be effectively argued that it isn't Christie’s genius which informs much of And Then There Were None, Nichols does add some interesting little tidbits, including a great opening scene where we meet our future victims as they wend their way to the isolated island aboard a rather small skiff. In brief tableaux which almost perfectly introduce each character, we are given our initial glimpses of people to whom we’ll be “formally” introduced later (with each character actually speaking directly to the camera, a patently theatrical but quite effective device).

The decidedly unusual suspects include the seemingly avuncular Judge Quinncannon (Barry Fitzgerald), the hard drinking Doctor Armstrong (Walter Huston), Russian émigré Prince Starloff (Mischa Auer), uptight spinster Emily Brent (Judith Anderson), by the book General Mandrake (C. Aubrey Smith), a taciturn private detective named Blore (Roland Young), and a youngish couple who under any other circumstances would seem to be made for each other, Vera Claythorne (June Duprez) and Philip Lombard (Louis Hayward). Also along for the mayhem are the mansion’s two servants, Rogers (Richard Haydn) and his wife (Queenie Leonard). What begins in mystery, as the guests arrive and wonder why they’ve been summoned to this remote location, soon turns dangerous when a recording featuring their missing host is played and the group all is accused of literally having gotten away with murder at some point in their lives. It turns out they are on the island to have justice meted out to them, one by one.

What follows is one of Christie’s most brilliantly plotted games of cat and mouse—or in this case, mice, as one after another of the guests meets his or her fate and a diminishing group is beset with increasing paranoia. As with most Christie pieces, a wealth of little character tidbits is dropped into the mix, with just enough back story provided to make any of the survivors a likely killer. While each of the guests’ supposed “crimes” have been outed by the recording, it takes a while for everyone to end up more or less confessing to them, though in some cases the tie between the death and the supposed perpetrator is rather slim, and one character may in fact not even be who he or she is pretending to be. It’s a wonderfully constructed puzzle that constantly refracts new illuminating light on various people as a shifting set of alliances forms and usually just as quickly dissolves, sometimes because one of the collaborators is found dead.

Many people have commented through the years that René Clair is a rather unlikely suspect himself to have directed such a smashing mystery. Clair tended to dabble in fantasy and whimsy a lot of the time, whereas And Then There Were None, while melodramatic and more than a bit hyperbolic at times, is grounded in a certain realism, though one suffused with an almost dreamlike state some of the time. Clair makes beautiful use of some second unit footage which gives the impression of people stranded on an inhospitable island, and the shadowy interiors of the island’s huge mansion create an extremely evocative, spooky ambience.

Aside from the intricate plot, the film is probably best remembered for its extremely colorful performances. While Hayward and Duprez are frankly just a tad bland as the ostensible romantic leads, the supporting cast is wonderfully visceral and at times quite funny. Anderson does her patented “no nonsense” disdain to a tee, and Huston just has a field day as an inebriated physician. Young is appropriately duplicitous as an investigator who himself is probably deserving of an investigation or two, and Fitzgerald has one of the nicest roles in his career, giving a beautifully nuanced performance that offers one of the best lines in the film (those who know this version will probably instantly understand what this references; for those who haven’t yet seen the film, it will become clear after you’ve watched).

And Then There Were None Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

And Then There Were None is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VCI with an MPEG-2 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.39:1. This transfer is a mixed bag, and that starts right off the bat with VCI's perhaps surprising decision to use an older compression regimen when at least some of their recent Blu-rays have used newer protocols like VC-1. Whether or not better compression could have improved the image quality in any substantial way is debatable, for what seems to ail this presentation the most, even more than the still very visible damage like scratches, is variable contrast and a really dark overall ambience, much darker than on the Image DVD. While I have absolutely no evidence to support this, my hunch is this may have been a deliberate decision to try to mask some of the damage these elements show. On the plus side, those who dislike DNR have nothing to fear about this release—it is overflowing with grain, some of which is pretty overwhelming in some of the optical shots. Sharpness is middling at best, with a lot of midrange shots appearing downright fuzzy, though with close-ups at least approaching more of an acceptable high definition appearance. Another kind of odd thing is the unusual aspect ratio, though as students of this technical side of filmmaking know, aspect ratios have hardly been the hard and fast rule that many seem to think they've been, as evidenced by so-called "Academy Ratio" films we've seen released that have varied from, say, 1.32:1 to 1.37:1 or wider. What strikes me about this release is that it seems—seems being the operative word—that this has perhaps been just slightly anamorphically stretched with an attendant slight loss of the frame at the outer edges. I'd love for some enterprising individual to do actual measurements of figures in the frame between the Image and VCI releases to see if this impression of mine is correct or not. Part of what may ultimately ail this release is VCI's press reports touting it as being "newly restored". Had they simply released this without any accompanying fanfare, it might have passed as a reasonable if not fantastic looking outing.

And Then There Were None Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

And Then There Were None's lossless LPCM Mono track (delivered via LPCM 2.0) sounds reasonably problem free, given realistic expectations. There's some very slight distortion evident in the music, but dialogue comes through nicely, albeit with a fair amount of hiss and boxiness. There are a few pops that haven't been completely eliminated, but overall everything is easy to hear, if not endowed with much dynamic range.

And Then There Were None Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are included on this Blu-ray disc.

And Then There Were None Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

And Then There Were None is a perfect gem of a film but its sad devolution into public domain source material has not been a good thing, unfortunately. VCI probably did the best it could with whatever elements it was able to scrape together, but their efforts are hampered by some odd decisions, notably making this release so very dark. Things aren't horrible here—there's still abundant grain, so whatever clean up was done was done with a naturally filmic look in mind—but my sense is someone is going to need to find much better elements and then really meticulously restore them frame by frame in order for And Then There Were None to really pop in high definition.