Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

rdoyle29 Charles Aznavour, Maria Rohm, Adolfo Celi, Stéphane Audran, Alberto de Mendoza, Richard Attenborough, Gert Frobe, Herbert Lom, Oliver Reed and Elke Sommer are summoned to a hotel in Iran by the mysterious U.N. Owen (get it?) and all accused of having murdered someone. They start getting bumped off one-by-one and realize that one of them must be Owen. This pan-European production (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish money went into it) of the Agatha Christie chestnut has a great cast but is a really slow and listless adaptation. Harry Alan Towers seems to have little thought or resources into this one after coming up with the idea and casting it ... he even used exactly the same script as his 1965 version.

Richard Bailey I find it hard to understand why there is such a universal dislike for this film. It's not a version I've paid a huge deal of interest to, but after recently rewatching it I found myself really enjoying it. The 40's version was very good, the 60's version a fairly flat copy of it, but this one was more then a little different. I have to say there are some fine actors in this film, Reed, Attenborough and Lom. I think it's the very suave Oliver Reed that steals it, he's so British and stiff upper lipped. Some may see Elke Sommer as a little dodgy in parts, but I like her, I think she's good. The previous versions had a touch of humour, there is literally no humour here it's quite a dark version. The Iranian setting is a clever one the filming is excellent, the colours look so bright and vivid, especially those inside the hotel. I also really like the music. Some time ago I saw an extended version of this film which featured an alternative beginning, I wonder whatever happened to that. Only real criticisms I have are, firstly I wish they'd been brave enough to stick to the original ending from the book, and secondly some of the dialogue is a little questionable from all members. All in all though it's a very good adaptation, superior to the 60's remake and the awful Safari version, but to me The Rene Clair production from 1945 will always be the best.

keith-moyes-656-481491 This mediocre version of Agatha Christie's famous thriller has already been discussed extensively on this site and there is not much that I can add.It undoubtedly suffers from its ill-matched international cast, flying in to do their cameos and flying out again, without having time to build up any chemistry together. Moreover, any movie that casts Oliver Reed as a hero is always going to be in trouble. There are some gaping holes in the plot, which other reviewers have noted, but I suspect that these are the result of cuts being demanded by the producer in order to bring this somewhat torpid picture down to a releasable length.All this is fairly obvious, but I am surprised that nobody has commented on the curious way in which this movie was filmed. One reviewer did mention the large number of low angle shots (the camera is rarely above waist level) but that seems almost conventional besides Collinson's unaccountable decision to film the whole movie as a succession of lengthy takes in extreme long shot. This is particularly noticeable in the scenes in which the actors are dispersed over the huge hotel lobby and conversations take place so far from the camera that you are not always sure who is actually talking. In these wide angle, deep focus shots the camera is often completely static for a minute or more before tracking slowly around the edges the action. Occasionally, someone will walk right up to the camera and loom ominously over the audience before moving away again, but Collinson rarely cuts into the master shot in order to let us see a close up or a reaction.I cannot recall any other commercial movie being shot or edited in such a primitive way since the very early days of Silent cinema.Collinson was no novice when he made this movie, so all this must have been a deliberate decision on his part. I can only speculate about what he was trying to achieve. Perhaps he was bored with 'claustrophobic' thrillers and wanted to try and make one that was 'agoraphobic' instead. Maybe years of working in television had made him sick of shooting all those 'talking heads' and he wanted to see if he could tell a story without them. Who knows?Whatever his reasons might have been, I don't think this experiment really worked. The camera is so remote from the action that I found it difficult to get involved, either with the characters or what was happening to them. The picture has its moments of tension but overall it has a soporific, drifting, enervated feel that ultimately lulls you into indifference.On the other hand, its stylistic peculiarity might be the only reason to bother watching it today

Robert J. Maxwell I'm aware of three versions of Agatha Christie's novel, of which this is the last. No wonder it's been done and redone. What an exquisite puzzle she poses in her story. Ten strangers are drawn together in an isolated spot and one by one they all die -- all ten of them -- eight murders and two suicides. The solution is given in an addendum.The first version was in 1945 and is by far the best. Barry Fitzgerald and the rest of the cast captured all the black comedy. Directed by Rene Clair, it featured the exotic June Duprez with her sly eyes and the devilish Walter Huston effervescing to beat the band.Then there was "Ten Little Indians" in 1965, with the wooden Hugh O'Brien in the lead. Shirley Eaton, the shimmering blond from "Goldfinger" was fine, even as she writhed in heat, naked under the covers, while O'Brien salivated all over the bear rug, but it was dull. The story was taken seriously, which is the kiss of death, and the script introduces a fist fight so that O'Brien can be manly.This version is dull too, and even Richard Attenborough, a splendid actor, can't save the picture. In the original, the setting was an island. In the first remake, it was a mansion on an Alpine mountain top. In this one, it's a palatial hotel in the middle of the Iranian desert. (I'm skipping over a Russian remake which had a decent, stony, island setting but was otherwise as interesting as a hardboiled egg.) The setting is the best thing about this movie. Wow! What stone parties you could throw in this palace! The lobby is the size of the Roseland ballroom in New York. You could keep physically fit just be walking from one end of it to the other four or five times a day. The mezzanine hovers glitzily above it. The two-winged building goes on to rise to God only knows how many stories. And it all conforms to Islamic dictates -- every bit of the decor is non-representational. There are golden circles and vibrant blue Xs everywhere you look. And all captured by the photographer in Rococolor. It boggles the eye.Sorry about the cast, good as many of them have been, but they miss the mark here. You just cannot turn Agatha Christie's fantastic black comedy into a serious murder mystery. It makes everyone look foolish.Oliver Reed, as the putative hero, is among the worst. He speaks constantly in a deadly earnest, hoarse whisper. Nobody else does much better. I suppose the heavy weight of the directorial hand lay on their performances. Charles Aznevour does at least get to sing, or shout, one of his songs. And Elke Sommer looks as scrumptious as ever, although compelled by the script to scream too much and undress too infrequently. (Who directed this thing, anyway?) Attenborough's death scene is filmed in gargantuan close up as he turns red faced and chokes himself to death with his mouth open and his tongue protruding, as if making fun of what he's doing.Nothing much is made of the parallel between the deaths of the ten little Indians in the nursery rhyme and the deaths of the ten guests. In the original story, the figures were of ten little N words. In the first movie, they became American Indians. Here they are Asiatic Indians, maybe Sikhs, because they all wear turbans.What we wind up with is ten little characters wandering around with nothing much to say or do, in a building far too big for such an unimpressive society.