MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: (AGATHA CHRISTIE'S) TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1989)

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Friday, March 10, 2023

(AGATHA CHRISTIE'S) TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1989)

Umpteenth iteration of Agatha Christie’s all-time/best-selling murder mystery; the one with ten unrelated island guests knocked off one-by-one till AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, as per its alternate title. (Original title, TEN LITTLE N . . . . S, now unmentionable.) Odd for such a famous work (dozens of stage, screen, tv & radio adaptations), hard to find one that faithfully sticks to the book which begins with all ten already dead; ratiocination to follow. (Even Christie's stage version cops out.) But here, the main mystery isn’t whodunit, but why-dunit, as in why did the Christie Estate let the infamous schlockmeisters of Cannon Film make a bargain basement release. (Best guess, producer Harry Alan Towers had iron-clad remake rights after his previous adaptations in ‘65 & ‘74.) Set, for no particular reason, in what used to be called ‘Darkest Africa,’ for a while the film seems to kill off its unhappy cast in order of least talent. Ha! Alas, four deaths in, Frank Stallone is still standing, so that can’t be right. Brenda Vaccaro, Donald Pleasence & Herbert Lom hopefully enjoyed their trip to South Africa and got a decent paycheck. Why are you here?

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: Unofficially, there’s a barely-legal, perfectly lousy near-remake: AGATHA AND THE TRUTH OF MURDER. Best stick to René Clair’s 1945 Christie-lite adaptation and a BBC mini-series from 2015. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/01/agatha-and-truth-of-murder-2018.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/09/and-then-there-were-none-2015.html

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Friday, March 10, 2023

(AGATHA CHRISTIE'S) TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1989)

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