Algenon5 reviews "And Then There Were None"

[Algenon5]

TITLE: "And Then There Were None"
DIRECTOR: Rene Clair
PRIMARY CAST: Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, June Duprez, Roland Young
RUNTIME: 97 minutes
PRINT QUALITY: Good (taking age into consideration)
FREE DOWNLOAD: http://www.archive.org/details/AndThenThereWereNone
RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD: DIVX, 699.8 MB
RATED: 5 stars out of five.

Ten disparate strangers are lured to a bleak island off the Cornish coast that is empty except for an ominous, vacant mansion. One by one they are murdered in ways suggested by the old nursery rhyme, "Ten Little Indians." Who will survive? Will any of them survive? Don't look for clues in the twenty attached screen caps.

A superb cast, brilliant screen adaptation and outstanding direction make this the quintessential old-dark-house mystery. and the finest Agatha Christi on film. (I'll grudgingly consider counter-arguments for "Witness for the Prosecution.") Included in the stellar cast listed above are three of my favorite character actors, Mischa Auer, Sir C. Aubery Smith and Richard Haydn. Since it is a who-done-it, I won't give away any plot details; but I can say that wry humor (some of it provided by an excellent background score), white-knuckle suspense and an impossible-to-predict outcome combine to produce a movie you aren't likely to forget.

The screenplay is an adaptation of Agatha Christi's play, that in turn she based on her best-selling book, "Ten Little Indians." So even if you have read the book, you still will be in for a few surprises. Best of all, this classic of classics can be streamed online or downloaded for free at the Internet Archive, a nonprofit public archive run by volunteers. You don't have to join or even register, just go to the URL given above, and enjoy. There are a thousand more commercial-free movies at this site. Here is where to start looking through them.

http://www.archive.org/details/feature_films

BORING TECHNICAL STUFF: Regardless of your connection speed, the streaming video quality is about half that of the download recommended above. The Internet Archive servers are heavily used, which on occasion results in a failed download. This is easy to prevent by using a free download manager, a sensible thing to do for all large downloads, regardless of their source. If you are a dialup user, a download manager is a must. Here is where to get the one I like:

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

Finally, some of the black and white films available at the Archive benefit greatly by using the brightness and contrast controls on the GOM and VLC video players.

Any questions? PM me.

Al

[Algenon5]

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[Algenon5]

Capgun Chuck correctly pointed out I had neglected to include the release date.
Here it is: Halloween, 31 October, 1945

[smudger]

It's spelled Christie, Al.