And Then There Were None (1974)

And Then There Were None (a.k.a. Ten Little Indians) is a 1974 film version of the Agatha Christie mystery novel of the same name.

Two previous films were released in 1945 and 1965, and a videotaped made-for-television version was broadcast in 1959.

This was the second of three versions of Christie's novel to be adapted to the screen by producer Harry Alan Towers; the aforementioned 1965 version, this one made in 1974, and another in 1989.

It follows the script of the 1965 version, right down to calling the Oliver Reed character "Hugh" (a name change made to accommodate Hugh O'Brian in the earlier version) instead of "Phillip," which was character's name in the novel and play.

This particular adaptation is set in an abandoned hotel in the Iranian desert; the film was shot in the Shah Abbas Hotel (now known as the Abbasi Hotel) in Iran during its pre-revolution days. (The 1965 version was set at a snowed-in mountain chalet, and the 1989 one in the African savanna.)

The film is an hour and thirty-eight minutes long, and was the first version of the novel to be filmed in colour.

Some versions of the film feature a pre-credit sequence that shows the guests arriving by plane at an airport in Iran, where they subsequently board a helicopter to be transported to the hotel. This prologue was cut from the U.S. release.

Herbert Lom, who plays Dr. Armstrong here, also starred in the 1989 version as the General.

The film was directed by Peter Collinson.

Synopsis

A group of 10 people, strangers to one another, have all traveled to a hotel located deep in the deserts of Iran. Upon arrival they discover that their host is mysteriously absent. They are accused via a tape recording by the host, U.N. Owen ("unknown"), someone none of them has ever met, of having committed various crimes in the past which went unpunished by the law.

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