One of the quintessential "whodunit" mysteries, And Then There Were None is a stylish masterpiece of suspense elegantly staged by director René Clair. Based on the Agatha Christie novel Ten Little Indians, the film closely follows the tone and plot of the book, albeit with an altered ending. The cast is appropriately comprised of fine character actors such as Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Mischa Auer, and C. Aubrey Smith. Clair has cast each performer in a role well-suited to his or her strengths, and the result is a smooth, seamless progression from set-up to central mystery to dénouement. And Then is among the most influential of mystery tales, as its process-of-elimination resolution has been copied numerous times in a variety of formats.