WARNING:
SPOILER AT END
Those in search of explanation as to why the British film industry died in the 1970s need look no further than this monumental mess. An update of earlier versions of Agatha Christie's ingenious little entertainment, 'And Then There Were None' is an unwittingly accurate description of all the competencies absent from the film, including direction, acting, editing, scripting, and music score.
For reasons known only to the makers -- whose production company, you'll note from the end credits, is registered to a small flat in a London side street -- Christie's English scenario is transposed to Iran and what is today the Abbis Hotel. It is a tribute to Collinson's directorial skills that it looks like a soundstage at Pinewood.
So much is so awful so often with 'And Then There Were None' that detailed analysis is a waste of time. Some classics, however, are worthy of note, not least the fact that when Orson Welles voices over the background of all the characters, thus explaining why they've all been invited to the hotel, the music score slams in to obscure the narration.
Then there's Charles Aznavour, who sits at a piano and sings, at the same time playing brushes on a drum set. As he self evidently can't do both, and as the drums are invisible, you have to assume that this is a Major Clue, to whit: it was the drummer who did it, rather than the butler.
Where Elke Sommer is concerned, however, it isn't the drummer but the hairdresser who's on a homicidal rampage: outside of the aliens in Star Wars, no-one's had a worse hair day.
As to the writing, there doesn't appear to have been any, though there are lines to cherish, amongst them:
'He's just dead drunk.'
''No. He's just. . . Dead.'
Christie, of course, appreciated that in trading an audience's suspension of belief, you have to offer something in return, which is why she went to the trouble of constructing some explanation as to how the villain knew the secrets of each individual guest.
Not so whoever wrote this drivel: with an arrogance to match his or her incompetence, the script omits all such elucidation, presumably on the usual basis that well, they've paid to see the movie, what's it matter if we treat 'em all like morons? We are left to surmise, therefore, that what binds this motley assortment together is their shared inability to act.
The finale must've been the subject of much labour at Plan Nine, sorry, Flat 9, with Collinson going in close as the villain dies with glorious theatricality, burbling:
'Two little indians! Two little indians!'
The sad thing about all this is that Collinson, who died at the tragically young age of 44, was the same director who brought The Italian Job to the screen. (Though it should be said he was also responsible for one of British cinema's most risible offerings, his 1967 written-and-directed The Penthouse).
Collinson did have talent. Rarely though has such a gift been wasted with such profligacy as in this awesome rubbish.
SPOILER AT END
Those in search of explanation as to why the British film industry died in the 1970s need look no further than this monumental mess. An update of earlier versions of Agatha Christie's ingenious little entertainment, 'And Then There Were None' is an unwittingly accurate description of all the competencies absent from the film, including direction, acting, editing, scripting, and music score.
For reasons known only to the makers -- whose production company, you'll note from the end credits, is registered to a small flat in a London side street -- Christie's English scenario is transposed to Iran and what is today the Abbis Hotel. It is a tribute to Collinson's directorial skills that it looks like a soundstage at Pinewood.
So much is so awful so often with 'And Then There Were None' that detailed analysis is a waste of time. Some classics, however, are worthy of note, not least the fact that when Orson Welles voices over the background of all the characters, thus explaining why they've all been invited to the hotel, the music score slams in to obscure the narration.
Then there's Charles Aznavour, who sits at a piano and sings, at the same time playing brushes on a drum set. As he self evidently can't do both, and as the drums are invisible, you have to assume that this is a Major Clue, to whit: it was the drummer who did it, rather than the butler.
Where Elke Sommer is concerned, however, it isn't the drummer but the hairdresser who's on a homicidal rampage: outside of the aliens in Star Wars, no-one's had a worse hair day.
As to the writing, there doesn't appear to have been any, though there are lines to cherish, amongst them:
'He's just dead drunk.'
''No. He's just. . . Dead.'
Christie, of course, appreciated that in trading an audience's suspension of belief, you have to offer something in return, which is why she went to the trouble of constructing some explanation as to how the villain knew the secrets of each individual guest.
Not so whoever wrote this drivel: with an arrogance to match his or her incompetence, the script omits all such elucidation, presumably on the usual basis that well, they've paid to see the movie, what's it matter if we treat 'em all like morons? We are left to surmise, therefore, that what binds this motley assortment together is their shared inability to act.
The finale must've been the subject of much labour at Plan Nine, sorry, Flat 9, with Collinson going in close as the villain dies with glorious theatricality, burbling:
'Two little indians! Two little indians!'
The sad thing about all this is that Collinson, who died at the tragically young age of 44, was the same director who brought The Italian Job to the screen. (Though it should be said he was also responsible for one of British cinema's most risible offerings, his 1967 written-and-directed The Penthouse).
Collinson did have talent. Rarely though has such a gift been wasted with such profligacy as in this awesome rubbish.