I may be committing sacrilege, but I believe this version to be the best of the four English-language versions.
Hugh O'Brien and Shirley Eaton are the best of the Lombard-Vera pairs, better than originals Louis Hayward and June Duprez, and infinitely better than their successors. Most of the rest of the cast at least equals any of their counterparts (particularly Fabian, who is the best of the Marstons, and Stanley Holloway, the best of the Blores). Most of the murders are plausible, even doable, without the holes that the other movies had. Particularly effective is the fourth murder, which stays true to the rhyme (as the appalling 1974 version does not), while avoiding the gore that part of the rhyme seems to call for.
Unfortunately, the need for Hollywood to fix things that aren't broken leads to some things that simply don't make sense. The second and third verses of the rhymes are the leading problems here. Rather than following the line "Nine little Indian boys stayed up rather late" with the logical original "One overslept himself and then there were eight," the writers felt that someone dying in his/her sleep wasn't dramatic enough and changed the line to "One ran away, and then there were eight." The two lines simply don't make any sense put together like this.
Likewise, "Eight little Indian boys, traveling through Devon/Heaven", which should be followed by "One got left behind/said he'd stay there, and then there were seven." The film changes it to "One met a pussycat," which, again, makes no sense.
The biggest problem is the fifth murder, and it's an outgrowth of changing the second. The book and the original movie have the murderer disposing of the second victim through an overdose of sleeping powders; however, the murderer keeps some of the powder to drug the fifth victim, so that the fifth murder can be carried out easily. However, later versions of the film have decided to go with how shocking they can make the second death (a tram crash, a garroting, etc.), so the murderer has no sleeping powders, so the fifth victims are awake and presumably able to act when the murderer confronts them. In this case, the fifth victim sees the murderer walk across the room with the weapon in hand, and does absolutely nothing in self-defense.
Hugh O'Brien and Shirley Eaton are the best of the Lombard-Vera pairs, better than originals Louis Hayward and June Duprez, and infinitely better than their successors. Most of the rest of the cast at least equals any of their counterparts (particularly Fabian, who is the best of the Marstons, and Stanley Holloway, the best of the Blores). Most of the murders are plausible, even doable, without the holes that the other movies had. Particularly effective is the fourth murder, which stays true to the rhyme (as the appalling 1974 version does not), while avoiding the gore that part of the rhyme seems to call for.
Unfortunately, the need for Hollywood to fix things that aren't broken leads to some things that simply don't make sense. The second and third verses of the rhymes are the leading problems here. Rather than following the line "Nine little Indian boys stayed up rather late" with the logical original "One overslept himself and then there were eight," the writers felt that someone dying in his/her sleep wasn't dramatic enough and changed the line to "One ran away, and then there were eight." The two lines simply don't make any sense put together like this.
Likewise, "Eight little Indian boys, traveling through Devon/Heaven", which should be followed by "One got left behind/said he'd stay there, and then there were seven." The film changes it to "One met a pussycat," which, again, makes no sense.
The biggest problem is the fifth murder, and it's an outgrowth of changing the second. The book and the original movie have the murderer disposing of the second victim through an overdose of sleeping powders; however, the murderer keeps some of the powder to drug the fifth victim, so that the fifth murder can be carried out easily. However, later versions of the film have decided to go with how shocking they can make the second death (a tram crash, a garroting, etc.), so the murderer has no sleeping powders, so the fifth victims are awake and presumably able to act when the murderer confronts them. In this case, the fifth victim sees the murderer walk across the room with the weapon in hand, and does absolutely nothing in self-defense.