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Sabrina890
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Desyat negrityat (1987)
The one adaptation that goes there
I believe listing just one, single thing about this adaptation that makes it the best ATTWN adaptation would be doing this film a great injustice, so it's difficult for me to find a place to begin. I suppose I'll start by describing the plot in case there's anyone who's been living under a rock: Ten strangers are gathered to an isolated location, are informed by a gramophone record that they're all murderers who will receive swift retribution, and are killed off one by one in accordance to the gruesome nursery rhyme, Ten Little Indian--sorry, Ten Little Negro Boys.
Call the title (which translates to Ten Little Negro Boys) politically incorrect, but the original title was politically incorrect. Call the characters nasty, but they were nasty in the book. Call the ending depressing, but the ending was depressing in the book. Call this movie a lot of things, but never call it unfaithful. Unlike the other adaptations, which watered down the things that made Agatha Christie's original story a masterpiece, this adaptation is not afraid to go there. It's not afraid to expose the plot for what it is or the characters for whom they are, which is what makes it stand out from the other adaptations.
For instance, take Vera Claythorne. The other adaptations portray her as a bright-eyed, oh-so-innocent young lady who would never do anything bad, never. Here, she only LOOKS innocent, but as revealed in her flashbacks, she is anything but. Tatyana Drubich captures the character of Vera Claythorne perfectly, portraying her as a cold-hearted monster in her flashbacks when she's allowing her pupil to swim out to sea and drown, and then portraying her as a human and sympathetic character when she has her breakdown at the end, realizing that although Cyril had her lover's money, he was only an innocent child who hadn't yet lived his life.
In the book, the characters merely speak of nightmares they had; in the movie, you see them. For instance, Lombard dreams of traveling through a jungle, only to be confronted by a large tribe man whom Lombard fights off. The tribe man falls and has a blank, horrible look on his face. Lombard opens his mouth to scream but can't (you know that awful feeling dreams?) and wakes up sweating and takes a drink.
Basically, the movie is extremely faithful to the book, taking only one, major liberty: The infamous bedroom scene between Lombard and Vera, a scene that gives me the chills because what happens between them borderlines between an intense love-making session and rape. It shows the characters at their maddest, showing two people who were having a civilized conversation at the beginning of the movie now behaving like rabbits in mating season, and the two actors play the moment beautifully. (I have to wonder, though, would Agatha Christie view it that way?)
And last but not least, there's the part that many users have mentioned already but I might as well mention it: Instead of using the romantic, happy ending from the play, this version uses the dark, downbeat ending of the novel, which is what gives this adaptation its reputation for being unafraid to 'go there'. It goes to show that Stanislav Govorukhin read the novel, not the play, and saw a potentially great ending for a great movie. (Besides, a happy ending for Lombard and Vera in this adaptation would be kind of awkward, considering, you know, that little moment of insanity)
Overall, this is a superb adaptation that deserves its reputation amongst Agatha Christie fans.
And Then There Were None (1945)
Sometimes overrated--but in a good way
Being a fan of the game and book, I knew right away I had to see a movie adaptation of the novel, so I checked out this adaptation--and I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the parts, and yet I was also unpleasantly surprised by most of the liberties taken.
I might as well get the good parts out of the way first: The cast gives excellent performances (well, Mischa Auer tends to go over the top, but aside from that). June Duprez is just lovely as the vulnerable Vera Claythorne, playing her as someone who's all smiles on the surface, but harbouring a dark secret at the core. Queenie Leonard's Mrs. Rogers is every bit as frightened of her own shadow as in the book. Barry Fitzgerald brings a sense of charisma and charm to Judge Warg--ah, Quincannon, thus making it hard to believe this character could actually be capable of murder. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
And then there's the relationship between Lombard and Vera. Ah yes, Lombard and Vera...the pairing that is so wrong, yet so right. After all, it wasn't in the book, but it was in the play and here it is in this adaptation. You could do an adaptation without the romantic relationship between them, but if you choose to include it, their relationship needs to maintain a balance; you can't have too much of it or else you'll turn it into a love story which would upset the purists more-so than the ending, but it needs to be obvious from the start that there's something between them or else if you suddenly have them flirting with each other, the audience will be like, "Wait, they like each other?!?" This adaptation is able to find that balance: The movie doesn't entirely revolve around their relationship, but rather, treats it as a subplot that slowly rises to the surface as the movie progresses. Not only that, but Louis Hayward and June Duprez have amazing on-screen chemistry together, therefore making this pairing believable.
Finally, the most impressive feature of the movie is the directing. Renee Clair is able to come up with plenty of clever angles and shots to capture the mood of the situation. For example: The movie begins with breath-taking shots of Indian Island before slowly panning over to the boat and showing each guest in a situation somewhat reminiscent of a Charlie Chaplin movie. I think you get the picture. ;-)
As good as this movie is, however, it also has its flaws. For starters, the book had a frightening, almost claustrophobic, vibe to it, which is what's lacking in this movie. Although the movie is suspenseful, there are very rare moments where it's actually frightening. 'And Then There Were None' is one of the few Agatha Christie novels that really has you chilled to the bone, one that makes you jump at every noise and shadow, mainly because the book has you seeing things from each character's point of view, making you feel as though you were actually there with them. What Rene Clair could've done in order to capture that feeling is by doing a few shots from the characters' point of view, the musical score could've been tensed up, and Dudley Nichols could've thrown in more tense moments.
Another one of my major complaints is the fact that Miss Brent and Vera's past crimes are changed and watered down, all because their original crimes in the book were too 'harsh' to include in a movie adaptation, even though Agatha Christie didn't think they were too harsh to put in her own stage adaptation. In the book, Miss Brent drove her maid to suicide after kicking her out of the house when she became pregnant out of wedlock; in the movie, Miss Brent drove her nephew to suicide by sending him to a reformatory for having 'bad blood' from his father's side. Although I'm annoyed by this, Miss Brent still drove someone to suicide and either crime shows how truly harsh she can be, so this is somewhat pardoned. Vera's crime change, however, is not. In the book, Vera allowed her lover's nephew to swim out to sea and drown so her lover would inherit the money and be able to marry her but was cleared by a coroner's inquest; in the movie, Vera supposedly murdered her sister's fiancée, but it's later on revealed that her sister did it. I personally find her crime in the book to be much more interesting because it fully displays the complexity of Vera's nature: Although she's a child murderess, she is not an unsympathetic character and shows feelings of regret and guilt which slowly drive her mad. Changing her crime without giving a deeper explanation to it subtracts any complexity her character has and therefore takes away the story's deeper meaning of guilt.
Which brings me to another point: Except for Mrs. Rogers, none of the characters show any sign of feeling guilty over their past crime. A major theme in the story is guilt, so you'd think more than one of the guests would start going insane from the guilt they had to face, but no; here, the guests merely treat it as a simple whodunit.
Worst of all, the ending is completely altered. It uses the play's happy ending and alters it to a certain extent for no reason at all. Understandably, the book's ending couldn't be used because the Hays Code wouldn't allow it, but I really don't see why the film makers felt the need to change bits and pieces of the play's ending. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Oh, well: Perhaps one day, there will be an English-speaking adaptation that either gets the happy ending right or even better, uses the book's ending.