The success of this film kicked off a spate of all star Agatha Christie adaptations - with the quality of the stars declining as things went along. This has a couple of genuine big names, albeit ones whose great days were behind (or in front) of them - Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Albert Finney, Tony Perkins (who appeared in many all star films around this time), Lauren Bacall, John Gielgud - plus well known types such as Wendy Hiller, Rachel Roberts, Michael York, Richard Widmark, Martin Balsam, and a couple of not really well known people, like Dennis Quilley and Colin Blakeney.
This is one of the most famous Christie works, for two reasons - the title (and thus setting) and the twist, in that all of them dunnit. A lot of the stars are extremely good value - especially Connery, Bisset, Redgrave, Bacall, Perkins and Gielgud. Ingrid Bergman's performance got on my nerves, indicating all over the place. But the biggest flaw for me was Albert Finney - I thought he was terrible, all tics and hammy mannerisms. Not a patch on Peter Ustinov in later movies in the series.
I'm not a big fan of that soft focus period photography used in the movie (or maybe I saw a crappy print). But some of the cameos are effective and there's genuinely spooky moments such as the opening montage of the kidnapping, and the final recreation of the crime - not enough Christie adaptations made you chill but this one, in these sequences at least, do.
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