Desyat Negrityat

Desyat Negrityat
Film poster for Desyat Negrityat
Directed by	Stanislav Govorukhin
Written by	Novel: Agatha Christie Screenplay: Stanislav Govorukhin
Starring	Vladimir Zeldin Tatyana Drubich Alexander Kaidanovsky Aleksei Zharkov Anatoli Romashin Lyudmila Maksakova
Music by	Nikolai Korndorf
Cinematography	Gennadi Engstrem
Edited by	Valentina Olejnik
Release date	1987 (1987)
Running time	137 min
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

Desyat Negrityat (Ten Little Negroes, Russian: Десять негритят) is a 1987 Soviet film adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None It was directed by Stanislav Govorukhin, who also penned the script.

This version is unique in that virtually none of the novel is altered. Unlike the previous Hollywood/British adaptations of the story, none of the characters or their respective crimes are altered in any way and the film concludes with the grim finale from Agatha Christie's original novel, rather than the upbeat ending from the stage version that most other adaptations chose to follow.

PART 1

Eight complete strangers are brought by boat to spend the weekend in a lonely mansion on an island off the English coast, attended to by a married domestic couple, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. Once there, they realize that none of them know their unseen host, who has identified himself only as "A. N. Owen." In everyone's room is a copy of the poem "Ten Little Nigger Boys", hung and framed, and it is shown that one guest, Philip Lombard, had brought a pistol to the island. During dinner, after marvelling at a centerpiece with ten African native figurines, a prerecorded gramophone voiced by Mr. Owen accuses them each of past murders that the law was unable to punish and promises swift retribution. After the record, Mrs. Rogers faints and is taken to her room, while the guests attempt to decipher the letters that invited them and to deflect the accusations against them. One guest is proven to be a decoy: "Mr. Davis" is in fact a private investigator, Mr. Blore. Another two guests admit their guilt: Philip Lombard and Anthony Marston, who admits to have killed two kids when driving. He then chokes on his drink and smashes through glassware, killing him - a victim of poisoning. During the night, a figurine is removed from the centerpiece, and Vera reflects on her former lover Hugo, who stood to lose his inheritance to Cyril, the boy who would later drown in Vera's care and who had stood in the way of Hugo and Vera's being married. In the morning, Rogers comes to Dr. Armstrong to confirm that Mrs. Rogers died in her sleep, of an apparent overdose. The remaining eight guests split off - Lombard, Blore and Dr. Armstrong search the island for the killer. Emily Brent admits to the story of firing her servant Beatrice to Vera. General MacArthur also admits to Vera of sending his wife's lover Arthur Richmond to his death. He confides to her that no one is coming for them, and that this is the end. Vera later discovers MacArthur murdered from a blow to the head. Only seven figurines remain in the dining room.