The Dumbest Part of the Plot (spoiler)
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — And Then There Were None
HarlowMGM — 9 years ago(April 19, 2016 02:27 PM)
Agatha Christie is a great mystery writer and this is one of her most acclaimed tales but really how could anyone not suspect the judge was the murderer? Who else would have a wide variety of information on presumed killers who got away with it and enough "facts" to conclude they were guilty. I think that's part of the reason Walter Huston mugs so terribly as the doctor, clearly Rene Clair wanted the viewers to presume it was him so people wouldn't think too hard about who it might be.
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Jimmy-128 — 9 years ago(July 25, 2016 06:48 PM)
Who else would have a wide variety of information on presumed killers who got away with it and enough "facts" to conclude they were guilty.
But don't forgetnone of the characters really know that the others are who they say they are. Blore, for example, says that he's a private inquiry agent, but, as Lombard says in the book, "all this ex-policeman story may be bunkum! He may be anybodya mad millionairea crazy business manan escaped inmate of Broadmooor." -
christopherweins — 9 years ago(September 03, 2016 10:31 PM)
Well, I think you ARE supposed to suspect the judge. But then he dies, and you are forced to consider other possibilities. Back in the day, I don't think anyone would have imagined that the judge's death was faked, thus it came as a complete shock when he was revealed to be the murderer.
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novastar_6 — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 12:20 AM)
If there's anybody here who grew up in the 90s watching Wishbone on PBS, in the 90s there was a Wishbone Mysteries series released in which Joe finds a box of old mystery books belonging to his father, and reads one in each of the books where there's a real life parallel mystery going on. It broke the Wishbone mold of not having Wishbone fantasize and narrate the actual story, but only went by the scant details Joe gave in passing. And Then There Were None was one of the books mentioned, and in reading it, he was also thrown off by the judge's death (the book wouldn't give any hints to who any of the characters were, all we knew was that ONE of the guests had died), and by the last death thought he had missed something since all of them were dead and there was no killer left, then he read the final chapter. I'm pretty sure we were ALL thrown off by that, but my question is for us who DID read the book, and DIDN'T know the end already, how many of us DID suspect the judge? I know I did, right away. And it had nothing to do with 'who had that kind of information?', I just didn't like him.