Ten Little Indians

Continuity mistake: The guests arrive by helicopter in Persepolis. They walk towards the hotel. The torrid Persian sun makes them cast a shado to their left. Elsa Martino greets them and escorts them for the last few meters in another shot, during which they cast shadows to the opposite direction. The two shots (and shadow directions) alternate. (00:02:45)

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Continuity mistake: Just before he breaks the ice with the introductions, Oliver Reed is reading from a magazine, folded in two with just a page sticking out in close-ups. In the other shots he reads straight from the folded part, without stretching a page out. (00:05:05)

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Continuity mistake: Ilona tells the judge that the chansonnier is nearly done with the cacophony; in longshot her arm is stretched forward, but she has her hand (and glass) close to her face in close-up. (00:13:20)

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Continuity mistake: At the end of the Ten Little Indians song, Lombard from his spot at the base of the staircase produces arguably the most awkward thumbs up and grin in cinematic history. He then moves to a chair next to Vera, reading a book. But during the performace of the Aznavour hit "The old fashioned way" that follows, he gives Raven another, marginally less awkward, thumbs up. By the background you can easily tell he's again standing by the stairs, in what was most likely another take of the gesture from before. (00:14:00 - 00:15:45)

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Continuity mistake: At the end of "The old fashioned way", Aznavour thanks the audience and lifts his glass for a drink right as Owen's voice comes through the speakers. Wide shot, and you can see him only then, after a couple of seconds actually, lift the glass. (00:16:40)

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Continuity mistake: After Lombard grabbed the cassette, the Judge at the base of the stairs asks who put the tape in the machine. His cane goes from left to right hand during the quick cut to Martino. (00:19:25)

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Continuity mistake: The guests are discussing how they were lured in by Mr. Owen. Aznavour pitches in with his drunken comments occasionally, but his arm/hand position is often wrong. For instance when the doctor mentions his reason, Aznavour's left arm is the only one above the music sheet, but in the close-up he's holding the glass with both hands, over the sheet. (00:20:55)

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Continuity mistake: In the night search for Elsa, Mr. Martino spots her and starts running towards her. Not even a second passes, and in the same shot Lombard begins the chase too. In the next shot, Martino has such a head start on Lombard that Usain Bolt himself would be impressed. (00:33:15)

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Ten Little Indians mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the general is killed, there's a close-up on the figurines. Two are broken with just the feet left, the third, the rightmost, at the waist. When the second victim was murdered, we saw the killer break just its head off, the statue to the right of the halved one. The following shot shows the statues in that order, with the addition of third broken one in rightmost position. (00:34:15 - 00:42:15)

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Continuity mistake: During the search, when the General says "Here I am" in the wide shot, Ilona turns around, but the General in the next shot comes from a different direction, which Ilona is already facing. (00:38:25)

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Continuity mistake: Vera screams "No!" as Martino tries to pour her a drink. The man is holding the bottle with both hands in the next shot, in discontinuity with the pose he had before, leaning with the other hand against the back of the chair. (00:47:30)

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Continuity mistake: When Martino is wandering the desert, delirious from the heat, his shirt is unbuttoned to half his chest or lower. When he is shown dead in a longshot, his shirt appears buttoned up higher than that. (00:51:05 - 00:52:20)

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Continuity mistake: Blore is reluctant to admit his guilt. He stands up but the Judge bangs his cane angrily on the floor and Blore sits down again. The candles in front of the Judge have a different length between shots. (01:07:40)

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Continuity mistake: And then there were four. During their tense conversation in the lobby, the Doctor gets close to Lombard, who has his jacket in hand. He holds the jacket in a different way (sideways vs more frontal) in the two different shots. (01:15:00)

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Continuity mistake: Lombard asks the Doctor how would he know what was going through the Judge's mind, and Armstrong answers "I know because he took me into his confidence." Behind him, Blore is hunched over, with both hands together over the table. Armstrong turns his attention to Vera, and Blore now is sitting in a different pose, with his chin over his hand. (01:15:10)

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Continuity mistake: Vera gets in her room with the other three 'Indians' outside. She carries no candles or other mean of illumination. Yet in the scene when she strips, starting right past the door, the room is brightly lit and a candelabrum is on her bedstand. Her candles went out during the incident that made her scream, so it makes no sense that there'd be warm light waiting for her in her room. (01:17:00)

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Continuity mistake: Lombard and Vera are in bed together, in a much chaste way (he's wearing a full turtleneck). He tells her that he found the letter in his friends' belongings. Her hand is on her own cheek, but at the cut (happening while she is mid-sentence) her hand is on his arm as he reached down to cope a feel. (01:22:25)

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Continuity mistake: Four suspects are left. To check the noise, Vera insists with Lombard saying "I wanna go with you." Notice that one of the three candles in the candelabrum is not lit - the flame fizzled out when she walked too briskly from the bed to the door. In the corridor though, all three candles are burning. (01:23:10)

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Audio problem: Since his piano rendition of the Ten Little Indians was appreciated by just 1/9 of the audience, Raven (Charles Aznavour) decides to perform one of Charles Aznavour's hits. It gets a much better reception from the audience, but it's no surprise, since everyone must be in awe of the fact that playing the song on the piano he managed to get also the accompanying sound of drums. (00:15:00)

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More mistakes in Ten Little Indians

Judge Arthur Cannon: Listen, why don't I trust you, and you trust me?
Dr. Edward Armstrong: The famous last words?

More quotes from Ten Little Indians

Trivia: In the generator room, Blore yells to Vera when she arrives; "Ms. Clyde! I told you to stay up in your room." He did, but in 1965. In this version (which uses almost entirely the same script of the previous cinematographic version) Blore did not meet Vera again at the bottom of the stairs, so he's referencing something that didn't happen - however it can't be ruled out that it just happened off-camera. (01:03:10)

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More trivia for Ten Little Indians

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