Teresa Reviews “Ten Little Indians” (1974)

Fidelity to text: 2 weapons (for the novel); 2 1/2 weapons (for the stage play)

Changes galore and all of them either bad, or badly handled.

Quality of movie on its own: 2 weapons.

This should have been good. Look at that international “A” cast and that gorgeous setting. But it dragged, it was blah, and the stars were wasted.

Other sources will tell you that this version of Agatha’s novel reused the script from the 1965 version starring Hugh O’Brian as Hugh Lombard. Well, sort of.

The most obvious change was readjusting the action and dialog to reflect the new setting of a hotel in the middle of the desert in 1974. The hotel (the Abassi Hotel) is utterly gorgeous and one of the two reasons to watch the movie. The other is the astonishing archeological ruins surrounding the hotel courtesy of movie magic.

The real hotel is located in the center of the city of Isfahan, Iran. The ruins that appear to surround it — further isolating the movie hotel in hundreds of square miles of barren sand — were filmed at the Temple of Debod, Persepolis, and Arg-e Bam. Gorgeous. Stunning. Amazing. Jaw-dropping. Too bad the film didn’t live up to the glorious sets.

Readjusting the 1965 script to 1974 and the middle of the desert meant that every reference to cable cars and rappelling down Devil’s Leap in a blizzard went away. They were badly rewritten. First, Mrs. Martino, the cook, flees out into the ruins. The rest of the group follow her in hot pursuit, somehow missing her in the ruins, but U. N. Owen didn’t. He managed to find her, strangle her against a pillar in the approved Persian fashion and then return to the rest of the guests, his absence unnoticed despite the complete lack of time needed to strangle a woman who’s fighting back. Sure.

Worse, her husband the butler (Martino) attempted escape across the desert with what appeared to be a single canteen of water and no hat or other equipment needed to cross 200 miles of open desert on foot. I know the man was in a panic but really? One canteen? And that led directly to an even bigger logical flaw. How could U. N. Owen chase after him, locate him in the trackless wastes, kill him, and make it back to the hotel safely without being detected? The other alternative is that U. N. Owen sabotaged his canteen of water but how did U. N. Owen know that Martino would be this desperate? There’s no scene showing someone poisoning the contents of the canteens.

There’s the change to the scenes with louche playboy and drunk driver, Michel Raven, and the group. Instead of a callow boy hitting on the ladies and being firmly put in his place by both women and alpha-male Hugh Lombard, we get Raven playing Ten Little Indians on the piano. Okay. But then Raven plays In the Old-Fashioned Way (the signature song of actor Charles Aznavour) and from somewhere, the music of an entire orchestra swells around him. That was of a piece with the film’s soundtrack. It varied between inappropriate and indifferent.

Hugh Lombard was played by Oliver Reed. I was looking forward to seeing Oliver Reed in action. He plays aggressive and sexy very convincingly. I expected to see fireworks between him and hot blonde, Elke Sommer, who portrayed Vera Clyde. Nope. Not here. The benefit was that we didn’t get the gratuitous and ridiculous sex scene between Hugh and Vera. Nor, also a plus, did we have to watch Vera prance around in her underwear like Hollywood so loves having hot blonde actresses do, whether it makes sense in the script or not. It is hugely irritating to me to watch actresses have to strip for the camera for no discernable reason other than the director’s own perverse inclinations. Why can’t directors have the actors emote in their skivvies? I’d watch Oliver Reed in his skivvies.

Oliver Reed, I’m sorry to say, phoned in his performance, leaving the reasons to watch him lost in the desert. There’s also the scene with him and the butler. That got rewritten so much that it looks like he punches out the butler for no reason, unlike in the 1965 version. We slowed the DVD down and watched it frame by frame and I still had a hard time seeing Martino throw the first punch, thereby making Hugh punch back. It made me wonder how Hugh got those facial scars if he routinely sucker-punches outclassed opponents, while avoiding opponents who might successfully fight back. That’s sure the vibe I got. The facial scarring, by the way, stems from Oliver Reed’s 1963 bar fight. His opponent wielded a broken bottle and Oliver got his face stitched back together.

The worst aspect of this version was Richard Attenborough. He plays Judge Arthur Cannon. The judge’s character is the heart and soul of novel, play, and film. If you, dear viewer, can’t accept or believe Judge Cannon, you won’t buy the story’s premise. I know Richard Attenborough can act, but like Oliver Reed and Elke Sommer, he phoned in his performance. It didn’t work for me. His cane really didn’t work for me. The cane showed he was handicapped. No worries there. I use one myself on occasion and it’s pleasant to see a movie acknowledge that some of us cope with handicaps. However. People who use canes do not zip around vast hotels with numerous staircases or wildly uneven desert ruins loaded with tripping hazards at top speed, unnoticed by everyone including their victims, until it is too late. If you use a cane, then by definition you have some mobility issues.

If Judge Cannon, cane user, was able to sprint up and down those staircases, handle poisonous snakes, and run around on those shifting sands, then there should have been a scene proving that the cane was window-dressing to make him look disabled. If that had happened, I wouldn’t have been quite as disbelieving of Judge Cannon, murderous mastermind. I could accept him wanting to conceal his physical abilities to better murder his victims. Anyone who’s murdering nine people without an Uzi needs to plan ahead, lay traps, and make sure he’s underestimated.

Dr. Armstrong (Herbert Lom) is also a key role. The judge seduces the doctor, playing on his intense fear of death and willingness to sacrifice everyone else if he gets to live. I bought the doctor, but not the judge. I really had trouble — again — with how the doctor sneaked out into the desert ruins with the judge (long distance over uneven footing at night) and then got stabbed to death. Dr. Armstrong may have been a trusting drunk, but he could have fought off an elderly cripple.

There was just so much wrong with this film. It was slow, the performances were leaden, the plot was riddled with logic holes. It should have been better with that cast and the setting. Watch it if you must, but view it as a travelogue with idiots getting in the way of the glorious scenery.