Agatha Christie's Masterpiece of Suspense!

Starring: Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, June Duprez, Mischa Auer, C. Aubrey Smith, Judith Anderson, Richard Haydn, Queenie Leonard, Harry Thurston

DML Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ - good

"Mr. Owen could only come to the island in one way. It's perfectly clear. Mr. Owen is one of us." - Judge Francis J. Quinncannon

Why watch this? If you crave an old-fashioned mystery, this is for you!

Plot Summary: Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island off the English coast by a mysterious, absent host named U.N. Owen. A phonograph recording soon accuses each person of a past murder that escaped legal punishment, leaving the group shocked and stranded. As the guests begin to die one by one in ways that mirror an eerie nursery rhyme, paranoia and suspicion mount as they desperately work together to find the killer among them before it is too late.

Dad's Preview: It is certainly true that they don't make who-dun-its like this any more. By today's high-tech standards, black-and-white films like this play as corny and obsolete - a true extinct breed of film. As a old fossil myself, I still get a kick out of them. This murder-mystery, set on a secluded island, involves a master-mind who deviously uses an old nursery rhyme, Ten Little Indians, to eliminate 10 ordinary people who have been responsible for a death in their past, and have gotten away with it. One by one the guests are found murdered in manners similar to the rhyme.  Those who yet remain continuously struggle to determine who is performing those grisly deeds, and how to stop it. It's tons of fun and worth a late night viewing. Think of it as an early, and less violent, version of Saw (2004).

René Claire, Harry M. Popkin; 20th Century Fox