Eight French females (alive), one French male (dead), in one French house in a blizzard...

That could be the scene for Agatha Christie to try to tell a story, but more likely of the 'Ripping Yarn'* called 'Murder at Moorstones Manor' when everyone claimed to have killed Aunt Mabel. I tell you this so that you won't be surprised at some of the more surreal aspects of this film, because we at the ANUFG encourage everyone to see more movies with us, but if you come expecting Hitchcock or Spielberg you will be worried when the arguing ladies burst into song for no apparent reason. In this film, the 8 live females don't claim to have dunnit, but they all do think they know who diddit. Gettit?

What makes this movie enjoyable? I think mostly the acting. Putting a decent actress on a stage and asking her to play charades is enjoyable. Now add 7 more all doing the same thing ? you get the idea. The point is that they are all acting.

* 'Ripping Yarns' were BBC TV shows produced by the leftovers from Monty Python in the 1980s

For every really clever idea for a classical detective story which all writers in the genre really wish they'd thought of, there's an even chance it was first used by Agatha Christie. In And Then There Were None (originally Ten Little Niggers but given a less offensive name, which sounds better anyway, by Christie's American publisher), the idea is this: ten people are trapped in mansion on a small island, all by themselves, and, after a solemn warning from their anonymous host, are murdered, one by one. Or so it seems. By the end it looks as though they've all been murdered, including the last person to die, who is not (so far as we can tell) the murderer. Of course, this is impossible.

There's not just one clever solution to this puzzle, but two slightly different ones, since when Christie adapted the story for the stage the particular ending used in the book would not have worked. There are three film versions, all of which use the play's ending. This is by common consent the best of them: brisk, witty, and utterly heartless