Thursday, December 12, 2019

Movie review - "Ten Little Indians" (1965) ***

There's not a lot of love for this adaptation but I liked it - alpine setting, solid cast of B listers, crisp script (Peter Yeldham co wrote it), some decent atmosphere, competent handling by George Pollock who did the Margaret Rutherford Marples.

The basic source material is excellent of course and I enjoyed seeing random people like Dennis Price, Shirley Eaton, Wilfred Hyde White, Fabian and Hugh O'Brien wait to be killed off one by one. Fabian plays a pop star and sings a song - the title nursery rhyme- then dies first; he does solid work. His performance was bagged but he's absolutely fine - critics were so bigoted about Fabian.

There's a random fist fight scene. Some of the alpine stuff is iffy. The story is very strong.  I really liked Shirley Eaton - she was great value, very sexy but also ambiguous... you buy that she could be a killer. Hugh O'Brien is too obviously heroic though - I reckon they should have killed him off it would've been a shock. I like Pollock's work.

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