Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (to use the polite title) was published in 1939. Although an official movie version had to wait until Rene Clair tackled it for the American market in 1945, Leslie Hiscott borrowed its basic elements for the British quota quicky.
A passenger ship is torpedoed and six survivors -- and the captain of the U-boat that sank the ship -- make it to a British lighthouse. It turns out that one of the survivors is actually a German spy -- and another is a British agent tracking them. Add to the mix the lighthouse keepers (Wally Patch and Ronald Shiner) and you have the plot, under the constraint of two hand guns which keep changing hands, a murder and a deadline: the U-boat commander radioed for the Germans to pick him up, and they will be there soon.
The cast includes the beautiful Linden Travers (best remembered for playing "Mrs. Todhunter" in Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES), Frank Pettingell and Felix Aylmar. Patch and Shiner are supposed to provide the comic distraction, but their dull and pompous characters don't appeal to me. Aside from them, however, it's a fine little mystery.
A passenger ship is torpedoed and six survivors -- and the captain of the U-boat that sank the ship -- make it to a British lighthouse. It turns out that one of the survivors is actually a German spy -- and another is a British agent tracking them. Add to the mix the lighthouse keepers (Wally Patch and Ronald Shiner) and you have the plot, under the constraint of two hand guns which keep changing hands, a murder and a deadline: the U-boat commander radioed for the Germans to pick him up, and they will be there soon.
The cast includes the beautiful Linden Travers (best remembered for playing "Mrs. Todhunter" in Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES), Frank Pettingell and Felix Aylmar. Patch and Shiner are supposed to provide the comic distraction, but their dull and pompous characters don't appeal to me. Aside from them, however, it's a fine little mystery.