Ten Little Indians, aka, And Then There Were None was filmed in pre-Revolution Iran by Peter Collinson. The setting of the film is quite tricky. The first shot of the film shows two important monuments in Iran, Persepolis and Shah Mosque in the middle of desert.

Perepolis, Shiraz

Then the film cuts to the deserted ruins of Persepolis while we hear a gust of wind sound. Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of Achaemenid Empire in 5^th century BC.

Shah Mosque, Isfahan

After that, the film jumps to the Shah Mosque. As the camera moves down, we see Elsa Marino (played by Maria Rohm), the female servant of the hotel in a white blouse with sunglasses on, waiting for arrival of the doomed guests.

As she is looking at the open desert before her, the tile of the films appears. So did the credit.

The pre-credit sequence and the post-credit of Ten Little Indians is the fruit of editors’ sleight of hand. I mean that, the editors put Persepolis and Shah Mosque, two UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Iran, next to each other which geographically speaking is not right. Shah Mosque is in Isfahan while Persepolis is in Shiraz. The editors reduce the nearly 500 kilometers to almost 30 meters.

Shah Abbasi Hotel, Isfahan

That is not the end. There is more to it. Since Ten Little Indians is an adaptation from Agatha Christie whodunit novel, the director decides to set his film in an isolated place to emphasize its enigmatic atmosphere. So, we see the mysterious hotel in a middle of a nowhere next to the Persepolis ruins. It is not the end of the story. As the ill-fated guests enter the mysterious hotel, the viewers witness shots of Hotel Abbasi Isfahan that is one kilometer away from the entrance of Shah Mosque or New Abbasi Mosque before.

So, the opening of the Ten Little Indians is as weird as the story itself. Click here for Ten Little Indians film review.