AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

Résumé :

Ten strangers arrive on an island invited by an unknown host. Each of them has a secret to hide and a crime for which they must pay. This is the story that made Agatha Christie the best-selling novelist of all time and is read the world over in more than 50 languages. ôIt was so difficult to do,ö she writes, ôthat the idea had fascinated me.ö It was an idea which is now the basis for many Hollywood horror films and has become a cliché to modern audiences, but it was Agatha Christie who was the first to do it and so successfully that the story has become her most adapted piece. Christie began the adaptations, determined to challenge herself further by moving the story to the stage. It was performed in 1943 under the book’s original UK title, Ten Little Niggers, and changed the ending as both she and the producers were concerned about leaving the audience on a low note. More recently in 2005, Kevin Elyot, screenwriter for many of the Poirot and Marple episodes, wrote a new version of the play, restoring the original ending of the novel and using the US title. The first adaptation for cinema was in 1945 with René Clair’s seminal film. This escalated Christie’s stories to a whole new level and paved the way for an influx of adaptations, some of which Christie approved of and some which were made without her permission. 1949 saw And Then There Were None (again adapted under its original UK title) broadcast on the BBC, making it the first of Christie’s novels to appear on TV. Another British channel, ITV, produced their own version in 1959 and an American TV version was also made. Subsequent adaptations include the 1965 film by George Pollock (famed for the Margaret Rutherford Marple films) and the 1974 version by Peter Welbeck, the first to be made in colour. The Hindi film Gumnaan in 1965 added Bollywood touches, including music and